{"id":1174,"date":"2014-10-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/%20rroma.org\/15-10-2014-miskolc-declared-war-to-the-roma\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T13:57:12","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T12:57:12","slug":"15-10-2014-miskolc-declared-war-to-the-roma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/15-10-2014-miskolc-declared-war-to-the-roma\/","title":{"rendered":"15.10.2014 Miskolc: \u201cDeclared war to the Roma\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like other newspapers \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tlast week, Schulz-Ojala (2014) from the Tagesspiegel reports on the eviction of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ta Rroma settlement in Miskolc. Around 600 Rroma are affected by this initiative. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe journalist focuses his article on the political context of the action: the instrumentalised \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tand reinforced exclusion and discrimination against Rroma by politics. On \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober the 12th, local elections were held in Hungary; as expected, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe national-conservative Fidesz emerged as the strongest force from the ballot. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlso in the future, the party will have most of the mayors. As the second \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstrongest party, the right-wing extremist Jobbik party reinforces its position, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\ttaking the second place in share of votes in 17 of 19 constituencies and winning \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t13 mayoral races in 9 counties. A very worrying trend, since Jobbik has \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trepeatedly distinguished itself with Rroma-hostile slogans (Pester Lloyd 2014, Pusztaranger 2014). Beside Aranka \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMajoros, a Rromni effected by the eviction, Schulz-Ojala portrays the Rrom and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\thuman rights activists Attila Tomas: \u201cOnly \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tan hour\u2019s drive it is from Miskolc to the Slovak, Ukrainian and Romanian \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tborder; there peacefully undemocratic conditions can grow, away from the core of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEuropean attention and also in the isolated fields of understanding of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHungarian language. Is it a silence before the storm? Attila Tomas lists the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsymptoms by name. Permanent crisis and growing impoverishment of the population \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tshape everyday life of the former steelwork metropolis Miskolc, where in the 80\u2019s \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t200,000 people still lived. The Roma, with almost exactly the national average \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof ten percent of the city\u2019s population, then had work like everyone else. The \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcollapse of communism and the closure of many factories made the Roma the first \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tunemployed, Tomas states. The Roma who have a job nowadays work for the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcommunity, in order to avert the reductions in social assistance \u2013 well below \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe legal minimum wage. An unemployed family with three children gets to around \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t250 Euros of social welfare, including child benefit, half of what the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tlow-income earners receive \u2013 a durable envy-breeding ground for the next poorer \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tamong the non-Roma. On the other hand, the area of Miskolc is just over a kind \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof war against the Roma. A few years ago, a spectacular series of Roma murders raged \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tin particular within the vicinity of this city [….]. Downright ghostly it seems \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthat now, scarcely five years later, the three most promising candidates for mayor \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcampaign with anti-Roma propaganda for votes.\u201d <\/em>Schulz-Ojala conclusion is \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbleak: despite the increasingly established Rroma party Magyarorsz\u00e1gi Cig\u00e1ny Part (MCP),<\/em> the minority continues to be a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tplaything of the leading forces in the country that don\u2019t have integration and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tequal opportunities as the highest goals, but the maintain of power and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnationalism.<\/p>\n

Kacs\u00f3h (2014) also covers \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe forced expulsion of Rroma in Miskolc. He, like Schulz-Ojala, points out \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthat the Rroma with an unlimited lease contract can apply for compensation of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tup to two million forints, attached to the condition of a voluntary relocation \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tinto one of the surrounding communities of the city. It is also requested that \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthey will stay for at least five years at the new location. Adjacent \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcommunities as S\u00e1toralja\u00fajhely have in turn responded to these rules with \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tlimitations themselves: those who make use of this offer are not entitled to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\treceive social funds for the first five years and may not acquire or rent any \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tapartment from communal ownership. They are also excluded from the local work \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tprogram for three years. Although these rules are illegal, the government of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tS\u00e1toralja\u00fajhely takes the change of a lawsuit and has therefore adopted the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trules nonetheless. This is further evidence of the continuing prejudice against \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma. <\/p>\n