Zsuzsanna Vidra

We (do not) want out rights!

Case studies of active and passive political engagement of Roma

minority leaders in Hungary

Conference ‘Racism, Sexism and Contemporary Politics of Belonging/s’

25-27. August 2004

ISA Ethnic, Race and Minority Relations

The political changes of 1989 gave rise to the protectionof human and minority rights in Hungary. On the one hand,during the communist period human rights protection was not anissue. On the other hand, minorities, according to thecommunist ideology, did not officially exist so there was noneed to protect them. The rise of nationalism and thereappearance of racism following the transition made it all themore important to have well-developed rights protectionsystems. However, this cannot happen overnight. It has beentaking place till now, most often through social conflicts.

My aim in this paper to demonstrate how certain elementsof human and minority rights protection has been developing asa result of social conflicts. My other aim is to investigatehow the minority group itself, the Roma, gets involved in thisprocess given that the circumstances for self-mobilization havebeen created in the form of cultural autonomy for minorities inHungary.

To make my point clear and illustrative, I have chosenthree issues which all are important in regards to thedevelopment of rights and rights protection. The issues involvein all cases the Roma ethnic minority, a group that suffersracial discrimination in all areas of social life.

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In parenthesis it has to be mentioned that the Romarepresent between 5-10 percent of the population. Statisticalindicators show that their degree of social integration is farbellow of any other social or ethnic group. Their level ofeducation is far below the national average. Their involvementin the job market is only a fraction of that of the wholepopulation. The chances of social mobility - as a consequenceof low level of education and qualification - is almost non-existent. Their spatial segregation is still very widespreadwhich also makes them a visible minority group.

The three issues that I have chosen all represent cases ofopen racial discrimination on the part of authorities towardsthe Roma minority. I intend to see the process of rightsdevelopments as well as the nature and characteristics of self-mobilisation of the Roma minority, therefore I have selectedthree cases representing three different issues where the Romaminority itself had an active role in the course of events.

The first case took place in 1997, when a self-governmentof a middle sized town decided to pull down a municipalitybuilding in the middle of the town inhabited mostly by poorRoma, and relocate them at the edge of the town in containers.The case became a national scandal and a media event.

The second case involves school segregation: in a smallcommunity the non-Roma population decided to have a separateschool for their kids so that they did not have to studytogether with Roma children. The school came into existence andit still functions. The scandal started in 2002.

The third example dates from 2000 when a group of some 50Roma decided to flee the country and seek asylum in Francefollowing a series of racial discrimination and attacks byHungarians and Hungarian authorities. The emigration of theseRoma people also became a national scandal.

The similarities in these examples are that they allbecame nation-wide scandals with the involvement of civilrights activists. On the other hand, in all three cases theRoma minority itself had a very important and active role indetermining the development of the events.

To contrast active participation to passive one, a fourthcase will be presented. I have chosen a community where all theissues that were at stake in the three scandal-cases – openspatial segregation of the Roma, emigration as a consequence ofracial discrimination, and school segregation – have been

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present. However, there has never been a real scandal or inother words open social conflict in this fourth community. Theparticipation of local Roma community leaders in these issueshas been opposite to the other three examples. Instead ofdefending rights of the Roma they sought consensus with thelocal authorities. Their involvement in these events could belabeled as consenting to racial discrimination rather thanfighting against it.

One crucial point has to be emphasised though: thestrategy chosen by the minority leaders of community Xrepresents the typical case, that is to say it is more commonto seek consensus with the local government than to protestagainst its decisions. The 1993/LXXVII Law on National andEthnic Minorities provided the legal ground for establishinglocal and national minority self-governments and the successfulenforcement of the law assumed effective cooperation betweenthe minority and the local self-government.

In this paper by comparing the cases I will try to come upwith hypothesis why in certain communities rights protectionbecomes an issue whereas in others does not? Why certain Romaleaders stand up to defend their rights whereas others do not?

In the first three cases – community A, B and C – I relyon secondary sources in my analysis (published articles andreports) whereas in the fourths case – community X – I use myown fieldwork findings.

1. Housing and spatial segregation

Discrimination in housing is a crucial issue regardingminorities. As in all forms of

segregation, we can talk about segregation that is aspontaneous result of certain social processes on the one hand,and on the other hand, segregation that is the directconsequence of certain policies. Usually, the two goestogether: when their is a high degree of spatial segregation wecan assume that some important social change or process havebeen taken place (for example, as in the post-communistcountries economic transition and economic recession) that hasspeeded up the spontaneous segregation process. At the sametime, policies could also be assumed not to have been able tohinder segregation or as is often the case they actually

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contribute to the process of segregation rather than to stopit.

One of the policy areas in housing is that of provisionsagainst discrimination in housing. An important internationalcivil rights NGO – the European Roma Rights Center – pointedout in one of its reports that “Hungarian domestic law currently affordslittle protection beyond declarative Constitutional provisions against discriminationin the provision of housing. (…) The EU notes that Hungary lacks anti-discriminationprovisions related to the right to housing.”1 Further more “Roma in Hungary aredisproportionately subjected to forced evictions. According to the Housing Actamended in May 2000, the notary – an employee of the local government – canauthorise the eviction of unlawful tenants. Notary-ordered evictions must beimplemented by police within a few days.( …) Significantly, the new law includesprovisions to protect furniture, but not tenants.”2

One very crucial element that determines the situationtoday is the housing and integration policy of the communistregime. The communist party declared in 19613 that Gypsies area social group characterised by its disadvantageous socialsituation and underdeveloped “Gypsy lifestyle”. The main policytarget was to assimilate Gypsies to the Hungarian population.The declaration was followed by decades of policy efforts tointegrate the Roma population whose majority in the 1960s wasstill living on the edges of settlements in makeshift shanties.One of the policy areas was the resettlement of gypsies, whichmeant to destroy their habitats and place them among theHungarian population so that they would learn “how to live likeHungarians”. The state allocated certain amount of money forthe purpose of lending loans to Gypsy families to buy houses orflats outside the Gypsy settlements. As a matter of fact, onthe one hand the state did not provide enough money to allowall Gypsy families to leave their shanties. On the other hand,the allocation of loans was linked to behavioural criteria:only those could apply who had been employed for a given amountof time and who proved to be capable of leading a “normal,1 Comments of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the Centre on the Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) on the occasion of the Article 16 Review of Greece, Hungary and Turkey under the European Social Charter supervision cycle XVII-1. 2 Comments of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the Centre on the Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) on the occasion of the Article 16 Review of Greece, Hungary and Turkey under the European Social Charter supervision cycle XVII-1. 3 1961 Hungarian Communist Party, Politburo, decree on the situation of the Gypsy population

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Hungarian way of life”. The policy proved to be of minorefficiency therefore after decades of inutile efforts toeliminate shanty towns the local governments started toallocate social flats to Gypsy families in town centres.However, the allocation of social flats did not follow anysocial policy considerations, but rather technical ones. Mostof these families were relocated in rundown municipalitybuildings, which no one other than them would accept as asocial flat. As a result they lived concentrated in certaindistricts of towns – or in villages that had been continuouslyabandoned by more mobile social strata – and had very badhousing conditions. (Often, no running water, no sewage system,lack of electricity, etc.). As a consequence of this policy,the spontaneous segregation process was enhanced: since theconditions of these social housings were very bad, the morewell-off population started to move out which resulted inghetto like habitats in towns.

Another process that had started before 1989 and becamemuch more important with the economic changes was that thenumber of unlawful tenants has risen significantly. There aretwo types of unlawful tenants. One is that becomes unlawful asa consequence of not being able to pay utility bills. In thiscase relation to economic hardships is evident. The other typeis illegal tenants, or squatters who occupy empty flats. Inthis case the social process behind is less visible but asimportant as in the other case. These are families that haveeither been evicted by municipalities because they could notpay their utility bills or rent. Or they left their originalsettlements where there were no jobs available, therefore theymoved to bigger towns in search of any opportunity ofmaintaining themselves (which obviously often means working inthe black market, doing illegal jobs, etc.).

The result is always the same: rundown ghetto typesettlements in town centres. The political moves ofmunicipalities are also always the same: we have to get rid ofthese “infected areas”. This necessarily involves gettingsomehow rid of the people living there. That is where ourstories begin, the cases that I will present to understand howhousing rights and minority rights were violated byauthorities, and how civil rights activists and other actorsgot involved, and how minority leaders became active in onecase and remained passive in the other case.

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1.1. Community A – 1997 Municipality plan of resettling population – national scandal4

This middle sized town is located some 100 kilometres tothe south from the capital of Hungary, a town that had greatlybenefited from the economic transition, a town that isrelatively well-off and has relatively small proportion of Romapopulation.

There used to be a block of flats in one of the centralareas of the town inhabited mostly by poor Roma. The buildingis a typical example of the housing policy of the communistperiod described above.

In 1995 the local government decided to get rid of thebuilding which meant pulling it down and evicting the peopleliving there. The plan was that instead of providing socialflats to tenants in various areas of the town, they wouldconstruct a container district on the edge of the town – nosewage system, no running water etc. – and relocate thefamilies there. It involved 43 families. The plan was presentedat the local government meeting but one of the localrepresentatives refused the plan. His position was supported bythe Budapest based Roma Civil Rights Association (ECRA) thatfounded the Anti-ghetto Committee (AGC) which got involved inthe events right at the beginning. As a result of the refusalof the plan the local government did not discuss the issue butrather appointed a committee to elaborate an alternative plan.The AGC participated in the work of this committee. It seemedthat an agreement could be reached so that human rights willnot be violated. Eventually, however, the local governmentdecided to build the container district. At this point thecounty Administrative Bureau – an authority that controls thelawfulness of policy decisions – declared that containers wereunfit for human habitation so the decision was unlawful. Theissue was taken off the agenda for two years.

In 1997 it reappeared. The local government wanted to putan end to the story. It intended to make an agreement with thelocal minority leaders that families should be placed in the4 In this section I rely on case studies done by researchers, e.g. Bernáth Gábor – Messing Vera: „A magyarországi média és egy interetnikussá váló szociális konfliktus: a székesfehérvári gettóügy nyilvánossága a többségi és a roma médiában” in Horváth-Landau-Szalai: Cigánynak születni Budapest, Új Mandátum 2000.

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containers till the local government would build new socialflats for them. It even offered the minority leaders that oncethe flats were built the local Roma self-government wouldbecome the owner. The minority leader refused the offer.Nevertheless, the local government began to put the containersin the area designated for the settlement. The AGC organised ademonstration at which well-known intellectuals and publicfigures participated. At the same time the AdministrativeBureau repeated its decision obliging the local government tochange its plan since the containers were unfit for humanhabitation. The local government disregarded both publicpressure and legal obligations and issued the eviction plan.

At this point since media got involved – as a result ofthe appearance of public figures at the demonstration – and thelocal government gave in and sat down to negotiate with therepresentatives of the Roma and the local parties. They came toan agreement: the families would not be placed in containersbut in the local Red Cross building till the local governmentbought flats for them. The local Roma self-government helpedfinding flats for the families.

1.2. Community XThe relocation of tenants – no scandal5

The other community chosen for illustration represents avery different case. It is located in the North East of thecountry in the region most devastated by the economictransition. The communist type of forced industrialisationcreated a region where heavy industry had become the mainsource of economic growth. With the decline of heavy industryand the weakening of the communist central planning, the wholearea and our town – community X – started to decline. After1989 the situation became dramatic: unemployment rate rose to30%, no investment in the region, etc. The region istraditionally heavily populated by Roma. In the Western part ofthe country their proportion reaches only a few percent, inthis region they represent above 30%. In community X the Romarepresent about 20% of the population of a town of 40 000inhabitants.

5 The source is my own fieldwork in the community.

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After 1989 the situation considering ghetto type ofdistricts was similar to that of the other community exceptthat given the higher percentage of Roma living in this townthere were more of these settlements scattered around the town.Nevertheless, the creation of these ghettos happened very muchin the same way as in the other community: local governmentallocated flats to Gypsy families in the communist period inrundown buildings somewhere in central districts and the restof the population started to leave the area.

The local government started to deal with the issue of oneof these ghetto type settlements – actually two blocks of flatssituated next to one another in a central residential area ofthe town – right at the beginning of the 1990s. The firstsolution – accepted in 1992 –was to renovate the buildings andgive financial assistance to those who could not pay theirutility bills and rent. In 1993 relying on the report of anexpert saying that the renovation would be a waste of money,they decided not to touch the buildings.

Local minority leaders got involved at this point, one ofthem presented a plan that the building, the one in worsecondition, should be pulled down, and he claimed that the Romapopulation living their declared its agreement. The pullingdown of the building had not yet appeared in local governmentplans so far.

In 1994 a local government decree stated that familiesliving there could apply only for smaller and lower qualitysocial flats. At the same time the local government and itsoffice dealing with municipality flats decided not to letpeople live in these flats anymore without paying. At the localgovernment meeting a debate took place whether tenants notpaying their bills should be evicted without providing themwith social flats or not. Finally, the decision taken was thatwith those who had been living there for more than four yearsthe local government would renew the contract, which meant inreal terms taking care of their relocation. If not, they “shouldgo back where they have come from and if it is not possible they go to the street”6.Only their belongings would be taken care of, the localgovernment would provide a storage place for them. Evictionstook place in November despite the objection of one of thelocal government representatives who said that it should not be

6 Citation from an interview with one of the local self-government representative.

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undertaken before winter. The local government considered itsdecision – that those who had been living their for more thanfour years would be entitled for municipality social flat – asa very humanistic solution. However, during the process itturned out that it was very difficult to prove how long one hadbeen living there.

The local Roma leaders have minor role in influencing theevents. Before the final decision of eviction was taken, one ofthe local Roma leaders said that they had a plan to solve thesituation. He suggested that the “community spirit should be developedamong the tenants”7. While the evictions were carried out Romaleaders were present and they complained that their suggestionthat the local government should advance some money so thatevictions could be postponed till spring was disregarded.Another leader said that if evictions were realised they wouldprotest. Nothing happened though.

As a matter of fact, one of the local governmentrepresentatives’ declaration was very telling as to theimportance and the power of local Roma leaders to influencedecisions. He said that although local Roma leaders agreed tothe decision they did not have enough influence on the localRoma community8. This suggests that what he expected from localRomany leaders was not constructive ideas and suggestions butrather obedience as well as assistance to the local governmentin controlling the Roma population.

The destiny of the two buildings still did not come to anend. A year after evictions had taken place – some tenants wereallotted social flats and others found themselves homeless –the local government made the decision to pull down one of thebuildings. Finally, in 1996 it was decided that the building,which was in worse condition, should be demolished. It tookplace in July. In the same year in November it came up againthat the other building should also be destroyed in order toget rid of the problem. It happened in 1997.

Before the second building was finally pulled down twowell know civil rights activists – from the same organisation,ECRA, than in the case of community A – got involved and triedto negotiate with the local government. They participated at alocal government meeting which was ordered to be a secret

7 Citation from an interview with another of the local self-government representative. 8 Taken from the official document of the local government meeting.

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session, public of any kind was excluded. Nevertheless, anagreement was reached. Those who had become unlawful tenantsbecause they could not pay the charges would be allotted a flatby the local government, others though – illegal squatters –should leave without any compensation.

1.3. Comparing community A and community X

The two cases will be compared by comparing the followingdimensions: the “content” of the case, the lawfulness of localgovernment decisions, the involvement of external actors, andthe activity of minority leaders.

By the content of the case it is meant that in community Athe idea was to place families in containers in a segregatedarea, whereas in community X such a solution never occurred tothe decision makers. We should try to respond why in onecommunity such an idea is conceived and in another not.

One possible answer derives from the socio-economic anddemographic characteristics of the two towns. In community A,the proportion of Roma is much smaller than in community X.Moreover, in the second community there are several ghetto typesettlements all around the town. Basically, local governmentdecisions to get rid of a building and place inhabitantssomewhere was somehow an easier decision in community X sincethey simple had to allocate flats in areas that had alreadybeen populated mostly by poor Roma. As a matter of fact, eventhose who were evicted without being given an alternativeaccommodation usually went to live in the same areas andcontinued to live there as illegal squatters.

Basically, behind local government decisions in bothcommunities there is the idea that Roma should not live inmixed areas – they will cause trouble – but in segregated ones.These decisions are favoured on the one hand, because of publicpressure: politicians are afraid of taking any initiative tomix populations since hatred towards poor Roma is so strongthat representatives would probably loose public support ifthey did, and they cannot afford it. On the other hand, thepolicy-making tradition makes it difficult to try new types ofsolutions, such as mixing populations9. 9 As I have pointed out the communist regime’s effort to mix populations wasa failure, mainly because of technical problems such as not allocating enough government funding for the task to be carried out successfully. Local governments apparently continued to apply policies that did not

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In sum, in community A the local government decision thatresults in spatial segregation was a clear-cut case, whereas incommunity X, where spatial segregation was equally embedded inthe decision, was not so obvious.

The second dimension that should be studied is to whatextent the local government decisions in the two communitieswere lawful or unlawful. In community A, the AdministrativeBureau intervenes at a given point claiming that containers areunfit for human habitation. So the local government did take adecision that was against the law. In community X, there is nodecision taken that proved to be unlawful. However, since“Hungarian domestic law currently affords little protection beyond declarativeConstitutional provisions against discrimination in the provision of housing”10 – aswe have cited earlier – the decisions were not unlawful “only”inhuman and discriminatory, as well as racially biased11.

Another difference is that as we mentioned there are twotypes of unlawful tenants: unlawful as a result of being unableto pay charges and thus looses right to be tenant, or illegalsquatter. The first one is often called illegal but wellintentioned, whereas the second is called bad intentioned.Since no law defends the right of any tenants who becomeillegal for whatever reason, it is the local government whodecides how to handle them. If they are not squatters localgovernments usually treat them more favourably, meaning that incase of evictions they provide them with social flats.Nevertheless, given the full autonomy of local government tomake local legislation, and the lack of anti-discriminationprovisions in housing, not even the accommodation of the firsttype of illegal tenants – those unable to pay – is guaranteed.

In community A, most of the tenants in the flats wereunlawful as a consequence of not being able to pay theirutility bills. The local government made the decision toprovide them with an alternative accommodation (containers). Incommunity X, the first decision in 1994 was that those who hadattempt at really mixing populations. 10 Comments of the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and the Centre on the Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) on the occasion of the Article 16 Review of Greece, Hungary and Turkey under the European Social Charter supervision cycle XVII-1.11 In the ERRC report named: “Written Comments of the European Roma Rights Center Concerning the Republic of Hungary” says that “non-Roma have not been targeted to anywhere near the extent that non-Roma have for threatenedeviction in community X, and no cases of evictions of non-Roma have been reported.”

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lived there for more than four years could be given alternativeflats. So this decision was not based on the considerationwhether someone was unlawful because he or she could not pay orbecause he or she was a squatter. The second wave of evictionstook place in 1997 and the local government at that timedifferentiated between the two types of tenants. However, thisdecision was taken as a direct result of the involvement ofcivil rights activists who could at least achieve that much.

Now we discuss the third dimension, the involvement ofexternal actors in the events. As we have demonstrated incommunity A the involvement of civil rights activists was veryimportant, the whole scandal broke out as the result of theiractivity. They could finally influence the decision-making ofthe local government to the extent that they had to give in andcompletely change it. In community X, their involvement is lessobvious, no media is around and they negotiate with the localgovernment behind closed doors. However, they achieved, as wehave pointed out above, that some tenants would be given flats.

The explanation for the different degree of involvementand success or failure can be the following: in community A,the case of segregation was more obvious than in the othercommunity, therefore, to make it a media event and a nationalscandal was more likely to happen. Another explanation is thatin community X local Roma leaders proved to be less co-operative with civil rights activists than in the first case.

Now we can discuss the fourth dimension, that is theactivity of local Roma leaders. In community A, a Roma leaderparticipates at the local government meetings and takes anactive role. For example, he refuses the idea of containersright at the beginning. Equally, he refuses two years later theidea that the new social flats that the local government willbuild will become the property of the local Roma minoritygovernment. This local Roma leader was very conscious of thesegregation case and was ready to react.

In community X, local Roma leaders take a differentattitude. Although from time to time they try to protest –saying, for example, that they will protest! – but they choserather a consensus seeking attitude with the local authorities.The result of this is that instead of standing up defending therights of the Roma they use the same kind of discriminatoryargument as the authorities. For example, the president of thelocal Roma minority government claims at one of the occasions

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of evictions that only those should be assisted by the localgovernment who deserve it, meaning those who are consideredwell-intentioned. Basically, local Roma leaders give theirconsent to the authorities to make the subjective distinctionbetween Roma on the basis of those who merit to be assisted andthose who do not.

Before trying to find explanation to why in one case wefind a protest attitude and in another community a consensusseeking attitude, we will investigate another case ofsegregation: school segregation. The two communities will becommunity B on the one hand, and the same community X on theother hand.

2. School segregation

As in the case of spatial segregation we can differentiatebetween spontaneous segregation and segregation that is theconsequence of certain policy measures. In Hungary sociologistshave always warned that the spontaneous segregation of schoolsis going to continue and even be enhanced if nothing is done toprevent it. What usually happens is that in a given settlementor district Roma and non-Roma children go to the same school.However, when the number of Roma children starts to rise, non-Roma parents start to take their children to other schools,even if it is further away from their home. Sometimes they taketheir children to another village or town. There areestimations that when the proportion of Roma children reachabout 10% in a school, the process starts to accelerate. Theprocess goes on for years and finally there are only Roma kidsleft in a school. The level of education in these schoolsgradually degrades and children graduating from there have theleast chance to go further in their school career. Thus equalopportunities in education is greatly harmed.

This spontaneous process was further enhanced by a policymeasure that gave per capita support to schools according tothe number of Roma pupils attending the school. So schoolsthemselves became interested in taking in more Roma kids to beeligible to extra government funding.

Another type of segregation is when schools remain mixedbut within the institution special Roma classes are created.12

12 According to the 2000 report of the Education Research Institute, "thereare approximately 1,230 schools where the percentage of Roma students

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Now we look at the two communities how school segregationtook place and how local minority leaders reacted.

2.1. Community B – 2002-2004School segregation becomes a national scandal13

Community B is a settlement of some 6000 people of which30% is Roma. The school segregation case started with theintention of opening a second primary school in the villagewith the assistance of a private foundation. The original ideawas that pupils whose parents could afford the tuition feewould go to the new school and the others stayed in the old,municipality school. The local minority leader immediatelystood up and protested against the idea claiming that poor Romafamilies would not be able to pay the fee so they would have tostay in the other school. Since the idea of the private schoolcame up to provide better education for those who could affordit, the case of exclusion and the violation of equalopportunities was clear.

The Administrative Bureau and the ParliamentaryCommissioner of Human and Minority Rights declared that thelocal government must – according to the law – consult theminority local government on the issue since the municipalityschool receives state funding according to the number of Romapupils attending the school. In the 1993 law on minorities itis said that local governments are obliged to reach anagreement with minority self-governments on all issues(educational, employment, cultural, etc.) that concern thelocal minority group’s life. So the fact that the localminority leader stood up and protested indicated that they werenot consulted by the local government so they behavedunlawfully. Finally, in 2002 relying on these two legal

exceeds 50% and about 13,300 Roma attend these schools; there areapproximately 770 homogenous Gypsy classes, that about 9000 Gypsy studentsattend; and about 18.1% of Gypsy students attend schools where they make upthe majority. (...) All of this goes to show that two-thirds (32,600 out of93,000) of Gypsy students, who make up 10% of the total elementary studentpopulation, attend classes where they are in majority.” Havas, Gábor —Kemény, István—Liskó, Ilona, Roma Students in Secondary Schools, EducationResearch Institute, no. 231, (2001), 231. 13 In this section I rely partly on articles and documents published in newspapers on the case and partly on my own observations in the village anddiscussions with the parties involved.

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opinions and the intervening of the Ministry of Education theopening of the school was prevented.

However, the story continued in 2003. The private schoolgot its permission to open that year. The decision of theMinistry of Education to prevent the opening of the school in2002 was based on “mistakes in formalities”. It meant thatthere were no legal means to prevent school segregation of thiskind. Therefore, the Ministry, which really wanted to stop thisto happen, could not find any other way to prevent schoolopening but finding some mistakes in the application form thatthe private school have done while applying for the permissionto open. So by the year 2003 the private school could easilycorrect these mistakes and apply for permission again. Thedecision of the Administrative Bureau and the ParliamentaryCommissioner of Human and Minority Rights – which actuallycondemned the local government – did not refer to thefunctioning of the school (for the lack of legal means) but theunlawful behaviour of the local government (not consultingminority self-government). The Supreme Court also made adecision in 2003 saying that the decision of the Ministry ofEducation was lawful the previous year.

The situation was the following: all the most importantand prestigious state institutions and legal bodies of theRepublic of Hungary condemned the opening of the school (theAdministrative Bureau, the Parliamentary Commissioner of Humanand Minority Rights, the Supreme Court, the Ministry ofEducation) and the school could still be opened.

The case was even more grotesque since it turned out thatduring the academic year of 2002-2003 (when the private schooldid not have the permission), segregation of pupils was a factwithin the school. The pupils were put in different classesaccording whether they had applied to the new school or not.They had to use a different entrance door, the classes finishedat different times so that children would not mix.

The private school received its permission to start inSeptember 2003. What happen at that point was that civil rightsorganisations got involved and gave financial support toparents of poor Roma children to be able to pay for the privateschool. However, by the time of the official registration inthe school all the places had been filled up so these childrenhad no chance even with the help of this organisation to attendthe new school.

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The positive outcome of this conflict was that theEducational Law was amended in 2003. According to the amendedlaw now it is theoretically impossible to segregate schools inthe above-described way. For the time being, however, theschool functions as it was designed at the very beginning.

2.2. Community XSilent school segregation14

In the other community a different type of schoolsegregation is taking place. It is actually the result of whatwe have described as the spontaneous process of segregation.However, at the end it was accelerated by a local governmentdecision taken in 2004.

In community X, as we have already mentioned, there areseveral segregated areas within the town. These areas wereoriginally workers’ colonies with buildings of lower comfortlevel (meaning that often one room for a whole family, nobathroom, etc.). Little by little many of these colonies becamethe targets of poor families, most of them Roma. It was cheaperand easier to find flats in these colonies than anywhere elsein town. This process of ghettoisation was accompanied by thegradual disappearance of communal services, such as medicalcentres, kindergartens and schools. That is what has happenedin one of the colony type of settlements: more and more poorfamilies moved in, more well-off and more mobile social groupsmoved out. The settlement became populated by a huge number ofvery poor people (mainly Roma). Those non-Roma families whostayed took their children not to the district school butsomewhere else for the fear of lower level of education becauseof the huge proportion of Roma kids in the school.

In 2004 the local government decided that the localprimary school (first four grades – age 6 till 10) should beclosed down since there were not enough pupils there so themaintenance of the school was no more profitable. What to dowith the children who attended the school? Since most non-Romaparents had taken their children to other schools, those whostayed here were almost all Roma. So the local government andthe constituency representative had the great idea to take all

14 The source is my own fieldwork in the community.

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these children to a school which was already attended almostonly by Roma pupils. Although this school is located about 10kilometres from the district the idea seemed reasonable. Sincesmall kids cannot be expected to walk 20 kilometres a day,local government pays for a school bus using part of the moneythey save by closing the school.

What is the role of the minority Roma leaders in theaffair? They were approached by the local government and theconstituency representative and asked to help them to persuadeparents to enrol their kids in the school that had been chosenby the authorities. It is a crucial task. The free choice ofschool is guaranteed by the law, no authority whatsoever canmake a pressure on any citizen to chose this or that school fortheir kids. Since the local government plan could not becarried out without the consent of the parents, it wasimportant for the local government that parents agree to enroltheir kids in the designated school. If they started to protestto keep the school going by claiming that small kids should bein the vicinity and that they could not afford sending them toschools beyond the district, the local government projectcould not be undertaken and it could not save money. However,parents did not start to protest since the minority Romaleaders arrived and persuaded them that although the school wasfar away it would be for their benefit to take their childrenthere. Arguments were the following: there are already mainlyRoma kids in that school so teachers know better how to dealwith them, and also they will be together with other Roma kids.

The argument is very ambiguous since it is true that theywill be with other Roma kids but one of the most seriousconsequences is that their education career will most probablyend there in the primary school.

Another serious problem with this solution is thatalthough the school bus is provided for the upcoming schoolyear there is no guarantee that it will continue later on.

2.3. Comparison of the school segregation cases in community Band X

The case in community B is a more radical case of schoolsegregation since accession of pupils to the new private schoolis prevented by introducing a fee that no poor families canafford and since in the village most of the poor are Roma it is

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clear that no Roma will attend it. At least not the sameproportion as their proportion in the whole population.Moreover, during the school year when the school did not havepermission to function pupils were physically segregated withinthe school, pupils of the old school and the new school. Thecase although did not manifest itself as racial segregation –pupils were not excluded on the basis of their race – theoutcome of it was racial segregation. In this and all similarcases it is clear that making distinction on social basis willhave a racial outcome since Roma are more likely to be poorthan any other group.

The case of the second community, community X, is “just” acase of accelerating the spontaneous school segregation processby orienting all the Roma pupils in a school where theproportion of Roma has reached almost 100%. The idea that thesepupils could be oriented towards schools where there were non-Roma kids as well, did not emerge as a possible. It was themost practical solution for the local government since kids canbe carried to school now together. As a matter of fact, parentswould not have been able to afford to take their children toany other school since it is a suburb so all schools are faraway and bus connection is not always evident and also it wouldbe too costly for poor families.

Another point of difference is that the first case becamea national scandal, all sorts of actors got involved who thencontributed to make the case a clear-cut and evident case ofschool segregation. Whereas the second example seems to be“just” and average case, one of many silent cases of schoolsegregation.

The role of minority leaders is a crucial one that isworth studying a little bit in detail. In community B the casebecomes known at first because of the activity of the presidentof the local Roma minority government. He protested right atthe beginning to prevent the opening of the private schoolsince he saw immediately that this represents segregation. Thescandal would not have happened without his activity.

In community X, however, minority leaders did not thinkthat there was any problem with this decision of the localgovernment and they did what they were asked to do by the localgovernment.

The first minority leader had initiated protest acts inthe past as well. He had always been on the alert and when he

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noticed that the rights of the minority was being violated inany way he immediately reacted.15 The leaders of the secondcommunity have always proved to be more like seeking consensuswith the local government. They did not notice or did not wantto notice the pitfalls involved in the school case presentedabove.

3. Emigration

Leaving one’s homeland when one feels that he or she hassuffered discrimination and

racial persecution is a very serious decision. Many of the Romahave left Eastern and Central Europe in the last 10-15 yearsexactly because they had suffered all sorts of persecutions.Western European countries were quite confused how to reactsince many of the Roma fleeing the region were coming fromcountries which were to become members of the European Union ina couple of years. Member states reacted differently, mostlyaccording to their national interest, which was in most casesto keep Roma out.

3.1. Community C16 – seeking refugee status outside Hungary

The case that we will be evoked here is a special case ofRoma emigration. A group of Roma left Hungary in 2000 afteryears of racial discrimination and attacks and sought refugeestatus in France, which they eventually received17. It happenedjust 3 and a half years before the accession of Hungary to theEuropean Union so the case provoked a tremendous nationaldebate. Some voices claimed that these Roma were “traitors”because their act of seeking refugee status in an EU memberstate just before the accession and well into the accessionnegotiations, would give the negative image of the country asif it was discriminating against its own citizens. Othersclaimed that discrimination and racial segregation of all kinds

15 Actually, there is a long history of protest in this village. Beyond the school case there have been many other cases: creating dumping area next tothe Roma settlement, electing non-Roma into the minority self-government, etc. 16 Data concerning the details of the case are from my collection of newspaper articles on the case. 17 The individual cases were examined by the French authorities and with theexception of a few almost all the group members received refugee status.

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is a fact in the country and therefore their leaving Hungarywas well founded and even beneficial since now the country willhave to consider anti-discriminatory legislation and otherminority measures.

What happened was that in a village there was a small Romacommunity of some 50 people altogether, who had suffered allsorts of discrimination for a long time. The first family cameto live in a house and then they were followed by somerelatives who settled in a small shanty next to the house. Thelocal government and the population never liked the idea ofhaving Roma in that area. So when a storm destroyed the roof oftheir houses, the local government swiftly declared that thehouses had become uninhabitable so they had to be pulled down.Besides loosing their homes the families also lost their tenantrights in the village, a decision that later on proved to beunlawful. The local government made further attempts to preventthese families to stay there. They changed the official statusof the piece of land where the houses had been before so thatno new house could be built on it any more. Also unofficiallythey forbid the population of the village to sell land to thesefamilies. In the meanwhile, the families were put into thelocal municipality cultural centre, which served as a temporaryshelter. However, since they could not pay for the electricitythere, it was turned off.

Once again civil rights activists and MPs got involved andreached an agreement to solve the problem of these families.They agreed that the county would pay for their charges so thatthey do not have to stay in an unheated building. The nationalRoma self-government promised to help to build new flats forthem with the social aid that is available under certaincriteria to socially disadvantaged families.

While the families were waiting for their houses to bebuilt racial attacks continued in the village. So they weretaken to the capital by the national Roma self-government, putin a house, which they were not allowed to leave. Once thehouses were built the families did not dare to move therebecause of the constant threat of racial attacks. They went toa nearby village to stay with relatives but the atrocitiescontinued there as well. Eventually, they decided to leave thecountry.

The person who had the most crucial role in the affair wasa minority leader, not from the village but a relative of the

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local minority self-government president. As a matter of fact,this person was the same who started to protest in community Ain 1997 where the local government wanted to settle Romafamilies in containers. He was all the time helping thiscommunity and when they finally decided to flee the country heorganised the journey and became the spokesperson of the group.

3.2. The involvement of community X in the emigration affair18

The other community, community X, had a role in this storyeven though the communities are far away from one another andthere are no personal contacts. The minority leader, who hadthe crucial role in the emigration of the group, once went tocommunity X to agitate Roma to emigrate. Since it seemed as athreat to local peace, the local government called the minorityleaders of community X to prevent people from leaving. So theyarrived and persuaded Roma people not to flee the country.Their involvement in the story continued after this was done.The refugee group of community C was already in France, wherethey were strongly supported by French civil rights activists,when a press conference was organised at the Assemble Nationalto present the case of the group and gain public support. Atthis point the Hungarian government got involved. The officialstand on the issue was that there was no persecution of Roma inthe country and the AN should be convinced about it. Thegovernment has chosen some Roma leaders to travel to the Frenchcapital and present themselves at the press conference andprove that no racial persecution was happening in the country.The leaders of community X went to Paris to fulfil this task.First, it was not made public who paid their trip. It was onlysometime later that it turned out that the Hungarian governmentitself had financed their journey. However, the minorityleaders even though they arrived in Paris could not be presentat the press conference. The leader of the refugee grouppronounced that if they came he would not. So finally the paidleaders were prevented from entering the press conference room.

18 The sources are published newspaper articles and my own interviews with the local Roma minority leaders.

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4. Conclusions

Now we will try to answer to the question of why certainminority leaders in certain

situations protest against the violation of human and minorityrights whereas others in other situations do not. Theexplanation we are looking for is obviously not of individualbut structural nature.

In Hungary the 1993/LXXVII Law on National and EthnicMinorities allows all minorities19 living in the country toself-organise and found their local and national minority self-governments. The law basically intends to provide culturalautonomy to these groups. One of the important characteristicsof the law is that the annual budget of the local minorityself-governments is partly financed by the state and partlydepends on the local self-government. It means that the localgovernment decides each year how much funding it wants to giveto the local minority self-government in the settlement. So thelaw assumes a peaceful co-operation and consensus between thetwo self-governments. The other element of the law is thatminority self-government has the right of consent in alldecisions that the local government makes which concerns theminority group. It means that if the minority governmentconsiders that a decision is against the interest of theminority it can veto the decision. The local government mustconsult the minority self-government.

What is problematic in this arrangement is that the twoelements result in contradictory outcomes while applying thelaw. The first one, the funding of the minority self-government, requires co-operation between the two localgovernments, but since the minority self-government is in allsenses much less independent and powerful, it is often forcedto accept all decisions that the local government makes. Ifnot, its funding might be cut and its functioning might be atrisk. So the consensus in this sense often means to obey thelocal government and not to try to vindicate their right whichis to have a say in the decisions concerning the life of theminority group.

19 The law defines minorities and declares that there are 13 minorities according to the definition. It says that groups having lived in Hungary for more that a hundred years are considered as subject of this law.

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This contradiction as we said results in two types ofattitude, one is a consensus seeking one, the other is aprotest behaviour. The case studies that we have brought up alldemonstrate these two opposite attitudes. On the one hand, incommunity A, B, and C we found minority leaders who vindicatedtheir right to have a say in local government decisionsconcerning the Roma minority. Since these decisions werediscriminatory they entered into an open conflict with therespective local governments. On the other hand, in community Xin all the issues described the attitude and the strategychosen by the local Roma self-government was not to protestagainst local government decisions but rather try to complywith them. Such behaviour excluded protesting against decisionthat might have been considered as violation of the rights andinterests of the Roma.

It is also observed that the minority self-government isoften required to be involved in issues which do not constitutepart of their mandate. These are issues which are related tothe fact that the majority of the Roma population is poor andsocially disadvantaged. These are mainly social issues – suchas the allocation of social aid and unemployment benefit. It isassumed that the Roma leaders know their community better thanthe non-Roma, so they can give a hand in deciding about socialaids, recruiting people for public work, etc. The widespreadpractice is that minority leaders are strongly involved inthese issues. However, according to the law their mandate andtheir rights as minority representatives do not guarantee themto have a say in these matters. By involving them in thesematters they feel more important and they assume that it helpsthem enhancing their political legitimacy. Actually withoutthese tasks their scope of activity would be very limited, suchas organising cultural events e.g.. Thus their importance asminority politicians comes partly from the local government.Therefore, protesting against local government decisions is incontradiction with their very interests as politicians.

This is what we could observe in the case studies. Incommunity A, B and C minority leaders used their right to vetolocal government decisions which resulted in openconfrontations. In community X they did not but rather chose toobey whatever decisions the local government had taken.

A possible explanation to the lack of choosing theobedience and not the protest strategy could be that community

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X is located in a region which was the most devastated by theeconomic crises after the changes in 1989. In community X as aresult of the crises – about 30% of the population becameunemployed in the early 1990s – a strong social solidaritynetwork was formed, with the participation of civilorganisations. There was a lot of to be done in the field ofsocial assistance. The participation of Roma leaders seemedquite evident, given that a huge part of the needy was Roma.Very often, Roma leaders emphasised that they were assistingeverybody who was in need not only the Roma. It was obviously aconfusion of roles and tasks, since as they were minorityleaders elected into the Roma self-government so they did nothave to undertake social tasks and especially not for the wholepopulation. However, their participation in social assistancetasks contributed to reinforcing their political importance.Evidently, they did not risk losing this political capital byprotesting against local government decisions.

Their participation in carrying out these tasks furtherweakened the possibility to choose the protest strategy becauseassisting the local government in the allocation of social aidsor the recruitment of people for public work obliged theleaders to use a selective method. It means that they alwayshave to make a choice whom to prefer, what person or family,and the decision is made on the ground whether the persondeserves to get assistance or be selected for work. Basicallyin many cases the Roma leaders themselves have to usediscriminatory methods to fulfil the social assistance tasks.

The Minority Law is currently being amended. There havebeen a lot of criticisms concerning this 1993 Law right fromthe beginning, at its codification and enforcement. One of themajor criticisms was that any Hungarian citizen could be aminority candidate and anybody can vote for the minority self-government which often resulted in that non-minority peopleelected the minority representatives or non-minority peoplewere elected as minority representatives20. The elections areon the same day and the same location. The amendment of the lawcontains a proposition regarding the registration of peoplebelonging to minorities. The idea is that anybody can registerhim or herself to be eligible to vote and be a candidate at the

20 For example, in community B, that we evoked in connection to the school segregation case, in 2002 4 out of 5 representatives elected did not belongto the Roma minority and one of them was the wife of the mayor.

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minority elections. There are other technical changes.Nevertheless, the problems evoked above – funding of theminority self-governments, its scope of activity – are notreferred to in the proposition. It is even pointed out byorganisations that the system of minority self-governments canbe in danger especially considering the Roma minority. Most ofthe Roma as we know from the national census do not declarethemselves as such, rather hide their identity when they canbecause of the fear of discrimination. So such a system ofregistration will most probably seem threatening, the idea thatone’s ethnic identity is contained in a file (even though thesefiles are strongly protected and can only be consulted by avery limited number of appointed people).

My final conclusion is that the legal system has createdthe possibility for self-mobilisation of minorities, howeverthe in-built contradictions make its enforcement ambiguous.There is a strong pressure on minority representatives to beloyalty to the local self-government which contradicts theprotection of minority interests and rights. Since minorityrepresentatives try to safeguard their political capital so theprotest strategy against minority rights violations seems muchless profitable. Even though these are well know facts amongspecialists in the country, the present proposition formodification of the law does not touch upon any of theseproblems. Furthermore, it even risks to weaken the presentsystem of minority representation by introducing theregistration list of minorities.

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