24.09.2014 Vom Odenwald: one-sided praise of Zoltan Balog’s Rroma policy

In his article for the Budapester Zeitung, Herrolt vom Odenwald (2014) criticises the Austrian writer Erich Hackl’s questioning analysis of Zoltan Balog’s policy. In his article “How to plough the sea?” Hackl (2014) criticised that Zoltan Balog denied that Rroma from Hungary were deported from Hungary to Germany during the Holocaust. This misinterpretation of history is totally inappropriate, so Hackl, and was criticised by many other newspapers. The Hungarian Rroma press centre reacted immediately with the publication of reports by Holocaust survivors. Rroma were deported with the help of Hungarian authorities to Nazi Germany, this is beyond debate. However, the criticism of Balog’s statement only takes a marginal role in Hackl’s text. The predominant part of the article deals with the struggle of the Rroma writer Marika Schmiedtberger and the Rroma activists Rudolf Sarközi against the oblivion of past atrocities. However, vom Odenwald sees this differently: from his perspective, Hackl’s entire article is a systematic discrediting of Balog, in which all positive achievements of the politician are deliberately hidden. And yet, he himself does exactly what he accuses the Austrian author of doing; he interprets his text in an extremely one-sided way: “the (upper) Austrian writer Erich Hackl just got lost in Hungarian politics, and from much that he believed to have to comment on, he negated reality. This concerns first and foremost the situation of the largest ethnic minority in the country, namely the Gypsies. I prefer this terminology to the consistently used term “Roma and Sinti” by solicitously politically correct (PC) media. […] Hackl however applied total poetic freedom in his article “How to plough the sea?”, for the (more left positioned) weekend supplement “Spectrum” of the “bourgeois” Austrian daily newspaper “Die Presse”, and was not concerned with ethno-linguistic subtleties from comparative linguistics. He and his publishing medium were in fact primarily concerned with denouncing the alleged disgraceful, racist politics of Hungary towards the Gypsies, especially under its Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. And, according to the popular saying “beat the sack, but mean the donkey”, do verbal bashing against Zoltán Balog, the minister largely responsible for integration and the Gypsies.” Odenwald’s statement that the term “Gypsy” is politically unproblematic is wrong. Rather, it would be correct to say that there is no consensus on the context in which the use of the term is appropriate. Many Rroma reject the concept because of its negative connotation. The criticism that Erich Hackl one-sidedly criticises Balog is also wrong. Balog has repeatedly attracted attention for his ill-considered and indiscriminate remarks about Rroma: for instance, in the Hungarian radio station Lánchídrádió he called the Rroma “unworthy poor”, because they actually were healthy and fit for work, but still burden the state as recipients of social benefits (Pusztaranger 2014). If one makes incautious remarks, one must be able to tolerate criticism. Odenwald then continues to enumerate extensively what Zoltan Balog has done for the Rroma: thanks to Balog’s effort, the “history and culture of the Roma” is now part of the national curriculum in the upper year education. Moreover, the minister for human resources champions a better economic integration of the minority. Nobody discredits these efforts. However, the extreme sensitivity of supporters of the incumbent Orban government to critique reveals that they want to suppress legitimate criticism themselves. Otherwise, they would not react as fiercely and emotionally to questioning or analysing comments. Pröhles Gergely (2014) response to Erich Hackl’s article also belongs to this category.