Hollosi Information eXchange /HIX/
HIX HUNGARY 18
Copyright (C) HIX
1994-07-18
Új cikk beküldése (a cikk tartalma az író felelőssége)
Megrendelés Lemondás
1 Re: Warehousing the underclass (mind)  13 sor     (cikkei)
2 Re: multicuralism (NOT) (mind)  11 sor     (cikkei)
3 Re: CR v. SR (mind)  6 sor     (cikkei)
4 Re: Choosing your beggars (mind)  16 sor     (cikkei)
5 Re: multicuralism (NOT) (mind)  23 sor     (cikkei)
6 The Arrowcross and MKP (mind)  51 sor     (cikkei)
7 Re: multiculturalism (mind)  18 sor     (cikkei)
8 Re: Liberals Everywhere (mind)  38 sor     (cikkei)
9 New edition of language book published (mind)  8 sor     (cikkei)
10 March 15, 1848 (mind)  17 sor     (cikkei)
11 Impartiality of the media (mind)  12 sor     (cikkei)
12 Bibo's thoughts (mind)  19 sor     (cikkei)
13 Antisemitism in Hungary (mind)  42 sor     (cikkei)
14 Re: Choosing your beggars (mind)  9 sor     (cikkei)
15 Re: Impartiality of the media (mind)  9 sor     (cikkei)
16 Re: March 15, 1848 (mind)  11 sor     (cikkei)
17 Re: multicuralism (NOT) (mind)  34 sor     (cikkei)
18 Re: Liberals Everywhere (where was Bibo) (mind)  36 sor     (cikkei)
19 Re: Warehousing the underclass (mind)  18 sor     (cikkei)
20 Re: Multiculturalism (mind)  16 sor     (cikkei)
21 Re: Liberals Everywhere (mind)  23 sor     (cikkei)

+ - Re: Warehousing the underclass (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Eva Durant writes:
> > Good news! they still pay 50Ft for big plastic cola bottles, visi-
> > tors recently filled it with water driving back (in 16 hours) to
> > Budapest. Eva Durant
Imre Vago writes:
> Only for the special 1,5 liter plastic bottles, and 30Ft, not 50.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Imre Va'go', Debrecen

Well, maybe if you know Marxism you can get the extra 20Ft. I wonder if the
test is written or oral?

Jeliko.
+ - Re: multicuralism (NOT) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

I think some list members (Zoli) are not clear on the definition of
assimilation within the frame work of social studies, so for the sake
to clear my earlier letter, let me write it down.

"Assimiliation; The merging of cultural traits from previously distinct
cultural groups, not involving biological amalgamation."


                                                        Attila

P.S. Zoli, it's not that absurd anymore, right.
+ - Re: CR v. SR (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

I think it was Andras Kornai who wrote earlier (3-4 months ago) that
3 HUF = 1 KC. I still do not see the exchange rate posted anywhere.
Does any one know something on that topic.


                                                        Attila
+ - Re: Choosing your beggars (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Paul gerencser writes:
> Andra1s,

> Give a man a fish, and you feed him for the day.
> Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

> Paul Gelencser

But Paul, what happens to the fish collector and fish redistributor
bureaucrats? They won't be maintained at the living standard they are
accustomed to. On the other hand, maybe the fishing license fee could be
raised, and with more people fishing more tax would be collected. But then
they could raise it to the level that nobody could afford to fish anymore.
I better stop, it starts to sound like some people's agenda.

Regards,Jeliko.
+ - Re: multicuralism (NOT) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Attila,

Thank you very much for the intro to soc. studies ;-) - now that we got a
common definition perhaps even you can see the point: the Hungarians did
preserve and develop their distinct cultural traits everywhere, despite
some rather throrough biological mixing and/or the supposedly dangerous
alien surrounding. Or can you tell one example when their alleged
propensity for getting lost to assimilation manifested itself?

-- Zoli

> I think some list members (Zoli) are not clear on the definition of
> assimilation within the frame work of social studies, so for the sake
> to clear my earlier letter, let me write it down.
>
> "Assimiliation; The merging of cultural traits from previously distinct
> cultural groups, not involving biological amalgamation."
>
>
>                                                         Attila
>
> P.S. Zoli, it's not that absurd anymore, right.
>
+ - The Arrowcross and MKP (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

In connection with the Arrowcross members joining the Hungarian Communist
party (MKP) here is an interesting story from a collection of documents,
newly published, from the Soviet archives. One of the documents (Burtsev to
Suslov, 17 August 1946) describes a Communist-inspired mob lynching of three
men, all Jews, in Diosgyor-Miskolc. According to the document, the MKP
launched a "campaign" againt black-marketers and the emotions were whipped up
mightily. Matyas Rakosi made a speech on July 25 in which he demanded death
by hanging for those who were involved in black market activities. Some local
party organizations actually sat up gallows at prominent places in towns to
remind everybody of the fate of black marketers. (For example, in Pe1cs. I
was just a child but I still shudder if I think of it. I remember the rope
dangling in the wind.) On July 29, 1946 the political police of Miskolc
arrested two men, Erno3 Jungreisz and Sa1ndor Rejto3, owners a flour mill.
They were accused of selling 20 tons of flour at black market price. Next
day, the local communist party members distributed posters calling for a
demonstration and for "taking care of the black marketers." The workers of
the local factories stopped work and began marching toward the center of
Miskolc. On the way there the workers met with Jungreisz and Rejto3 as a
policeman was taking them to a camp of internment. That was the end of
Jungreisz and Rejto3-- Jungreisz was hanged by the mob and Rejto3 was beaten
unconscious and eventually died of his wounds. The mob wanted to destroy
businesses and kill the Jews. Eventually the Soviet army had to be called in
to prevent the launching of a progrom. Sixteen workers were arrested, five of
whom were Communist party members, six were Social Democrats, the rest had no
party affiliation.

The workers became very upset over the arrest of the sixteen men and on
August 1 there was another strike and another demonstration which looked
threatening enough to the authorities that they decided to retreat and set
the arrested sixteen men free. However, rumors, apparently unfounded, of
physical abuse of the arrested men turned the mob ugly again--this time they
wanted the head of the political police, a Communist party member and a Jew,
Colonel Frenkel. Eventually they broke into the building, dragged Frenkel out
and beat him so severely that he died of his wounds two hours later.

The report claims that "the reactionaries and the former Arrowcross members .
. . [not the local Communists] incited the workers to demonstrate and used
the workers to their own advantage, trying to give an antisemitic hue to the
campaign against black marketers." The document, however, admits that the
local Communists were not united in their reaction to the demonstration. The
Miskolc local party headquarters was against the demonstration, while the
Diosgyor Communists were for it. Laszlo Rajk, minister of interior, and other
high-ranking Communists "approved the behavior of the demonstrators, and
within it, the showdown with the black marketers."

Finally, the document summarizes the Hungarian papers' reaction to the affair
and the non-Communist newspapers' condemnation of the Communist party's role
in it. One can read more about the details in an article by Ja1nos Varga, "A
miskolci ne1pi1te1let, 1946," *Medveta1nc,* (1986/2-3): 293-314.

Eva Balogh
+ - Re: multiculturalism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

OK let me see this. Did multiculturalism help the American Indians?
Did it expand their culture?

Time to go the potlach in bogatya and take some bejgli.

Is it still permitted to smoke a peece pipe or Shalala will fine me for it?

BTW, I'll take the area around the mounds any day to Budapest. Wander through
the woods, watch the deer and turkeys, drink a little fire water, munch on
some deer jerkey, eat some cheese that some of my welfare recepient friends
want to share (they get oodles of it). Watch the egrets fish, (they already
learned), spy on the beavers who really work their fanny off (I think they
are the epitomes of anti-welfare, they gnaw trees down from next to a freshly
cut bunch of trees). It sure beats the asphalt jungle.

Sorry, I am working on a government report.

Regards, Jeliko.
+ - Re: Liberals Everywhere (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Paul wrote:...


> Zoli, you mis the point:
> **************************************************************************
>> Recently in .... influx of Chinese small businessmen, looking to invest in
>> businesses and looking to gain Hungarian citrizenship and raise their
> families


> If current trends continue, there will be more Chinese and others.  That is
> NOT to say they are bad people, or lesser people.  I'd just like to keep
> what I have, and my heritage is threatened by their presence.

> Paul Gelencser

The "Dilution" of cultures and heritages seems to be happening at an
increasing rate. One one hand countries such as England seem to be
deluged by immigrants, on the other hand "Western" principles seem to
be influencing "hard-line" cultures such as Japan, China etc.

You could always do as France has done, and set up Ministries to ensure
purity of Language etc, but I think in the end we will all be
assimilated. :-)

(The last part is in reference to a current TV program airing down here
in NZ, "Star Trek The Next Generation". Where do they get their ideas
from)

Regards,
        GarryC

#########################################################################
# A foolish son is his fathers ruin, # Internet:        #
# and a quarrelsome wife is like a   # Garry Collins, Electronics Dev't #
# constant dripping.                 # Production Engineering (NZ) Ltd  #
#                     Proverbs 19:13 # Marton, NEW ZEALAND              #
#########################################################################
+ - New edition of language book published (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Press Release
The Multilingual PC Directory
 3rd Edition, publ. July 1994.
   256 pages. Soft bound.

The Multilingual PC Directory is a source guide to multilingual and foreign
language software for IBM PCs and compatibles. For a 1200 word description,
please email    for more details.
+ - March 15, 1848 (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Thank you Hugh for answering the question on 1848. A couple of additions, not
historical, but about the ups-and-downs of the holiday in the last 50 years
or so. Before 1949, March 15 was a holiday of great significance when
everything was closed and everybody had a tricolor "koka1rda" (rosette) on
the lapel, often with Peto3fi's picture in the middle. After the Communists
took over three new holidays were introduced: April 4 (Day of Liberation;
i.e., the day the last German soldier left Hungarian soil and the Soviet
troops completely liberated the country), May 1, and November 7 (the most
odious for the Hungarians), that is the anniversary of the Great October
Revolution. With all these new holidays it was decided that March 15 would
not be an official holiday, a decision which offended a lot of people. Since
1990 things have changed in the calendar: November 7 is no longer a holiday;
instead, October 23 became one in commemoration of the 1956 events; after
some discussion, May 1 remained a holiday, and March 15 was restored to its
former status.

Eva Balogh
+ - Impartiality of the media (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Jeliko wrote:

>There is an interesting point made [in The World and I] also about a Horn
termination of an
>interview with the Financial Times. Apparently he did not like the
>questions.

Would you be good enough to post the details. I am surprised to hear about
this because I just finished reading a "portrait" of Horn in *168 ora*
according to which he has the patience of Job and he never reacts to insults.

Eva Balogh
+ - Bibo's thoughts (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Eva Durant is obviously a true believer. Jeliko might have slept through it
but she didn't. I personally think that Marxism is a very seductive ideology
especially when encountered at a certain age. Those people who received a
good dosage of Marxism during their formative years, for example, those of us
who grew up in the 1950s, were affected by it even if they thoroughly
disliked the Rakosi regime. One could always say: well, this is a distortion
of Marxism but the true ideology is different. Or, one could say: well, Marx
didn't say much about the society of the future but he was sure right about
the analysis of capitalism. Among the young students of 1956 the distrust of
capitalism was very high and most people in their early twenties didn't want
a return to a capitalistic society--which was considered to be heartless,
ruthless and just plain wrong. I see that these anticapitalist sentiments are
not at all dead today and are being fueled by the economic difficulties which
the country is encountering. I, for one, learned Marxism-Lenism-Stalinism in
Hungary and Marxism-Leninism in North America and eventually came to the
conclusion that Marx was wrong not only in his predictions for the future but
also in his analysis of the development of capitalism.

Eva Balogh
+ - Antisemitism in Hungary (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Without disputing Imi Bokor's conclusions about the extent of antisemitic
feelings in Hungary, I question his premises:

>most changed their names to hide their jewish identity. blum became banyasz,
schwartz
>became sasadi, schwartz became somlai, breuer became barta, blassz became
>dozsa, augstein became agas, blumenstein became budai, blum became baranyai,
>etc. this was not because of the tolerance and acceptance experienced from
>the vast majority of the population.

>i know of a number of families where the children did not know they were
jewish
>until coming home one day from school either complaining about "a piszkos
>zsidok" or about being called one.

Changing your foreign-sounding name has been a common practice in Hungary
ever since the mid-nineteenth century. Petrovics became Peto3fi, just to
quote the best known case. But thousands and thousands changed their names in
the last and a half centuries, especially those with German names, partly
because of anti-Austrian feeling and partly because of the kind of burning
patriotism which inspired 1848, for example. At times the authorities forced
civil servants, for example in the late 40s, to change their names. Or, an
even more interesting case, the Communist party after 1945 greatly
encouraged, if not forced, its members to change their German names to
good-sounding Hungarian ones. I knew somebody who was fairly high up in the
Hungarian People's Army in the 1950s who was forced to change his name which
was originally Klein. He wasn't Jewish. Neither was my mother whose maiden
name was Pfeifer and who wanted to change it to Fonyo1, but then she got
married to a Balogh, and the issue became moot.

As for hiding one's Jewish identity--first of all, there can be all sorts of
personal, psychological reasons for such behavior. I have known American Jews
who did the same thing--one particular bete noire of mine talked about Jews
as "they." I knew Hungarian Jews who left Hungary forty years ago and have
been living here where antisemitism is certainly not a major issue, yet they
still don't talk about their Jewishness. In fact, most likely they are not
Jewish in the sense we think of Jewishness--they don't go to temple, they
haven't been circumcised, they haven't been bar mitzvahed, they are possibly
offspring of mixed marriages, and so on and so forth.


Eva Balogh
+ - Re: Choosing your beggars (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Paul Gelencser writes:
> Give a man a fish, and you feed him for the day.
> Teach him to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

where i live there is only a small creek and it runs dry every year.
if you could teach me to fish out of this creek to feed me for a
lifetime, you're sure to get a nobel prize.

d.a.
+ - Re: Impartiality of the media (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Jeliko wrote:

>There is an interesting point made [in The World and I] also about a Horn
>termination of an interview

I've never heard of this magazine before and nor have the two large local news
stand attendants.  Who publishes it and what is its orientation?

Joe
+ - Re: March 15, 1848 (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Just a further addendum to Eva Balogh's comments on March 15:  it was also
frequently chosen as a significant date for manifestations, in fact there's
an elaborate language of significance attached to dates and locations--
I remember hearing Tama1s Hofer give a fascinating address here at GWU
on such topics, including the different layers of symbolic meaning behind
the course of the famous March 15 demo in 1989.

Sincerely,

Hugh Agnew

+ - Re: multicuralism (NOT) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Papa Smurf writes:
> Greeting;
> >From:    JELIKO >
> >Subject: Re: multiculturalism
> >OK I give my definition.
> >Multiculturalism is permitting each nationality to cultivate its own
> >culture in addition to the nations culture.
> >Or do I have to start "bashing" again. :-)
> >Regards,Jeliko.

>      I just thought I will addd my two cents to your comment...
> The way you put it sounds like you want to create another Bosnia
> somewhere else in the world.  Are you?  I will rather be a melting pot,
> part of an integral community rather then preserve a certain cultures in
> which my kids will not even be born in...
> What's wrong with a complete integration????  I don't mean that you
> should throw away your culture once you are in another country, however,
> why your kids born in that country should be force to learn your native
> language, custom and be pressure to make friends only within that
> community...  I called it sickness (rather than multicultiralism)
> Just my 50 cents!
> J
Hold your horses. I wrote "permitting" not forcing. It is an option. There
is also a big difference when one MOVES into another culture and when the
borders move and a new culture is forced on the person. IMHO that is a
major difference between US and per se Slovakia or Transylvania, Moldavia,
etc. situation. I don't know what Bosnia has to do with the issue, they
are, at least one side, trying to make it unicultural. I call that a
sickness.

Regards,Jeliko.
PS My kids learned German, Japonese, Spanish and French in addition to
Latin in school, naturally English was compulsory (and helpful in staying
off welfare).
+ - Re: Liberals Everywhere (where was Bibo) (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Imi Bokor writes:
> JELIKO ) wrote:
> : I believe that anti-Semitism was always a territory of a small minority
in
> : Hungary.

> : Regards,Jeliko.

> these observations are not shared by the jews i know in budapest. most
changed
> their names to hide their jewish identity. blum became banyasz, schwartz
> became sasadi, schwartz became somlai, breuer became barta, blassz became
> dozsa, augstein became agas, blumenstein became budai, blum became
baranyai,
> etc. this was not because of the tolerance and acceptance experienced
from
> the vast majority of the population.

So the Jews who changed their names or maintained the changed names in the
US, also did it because of the above reason? Beside which all the name
changes you cited were from German to Hungarian. A lot of, for example,
Slovaks and Germans also Magyarized their names. Is your argument valid in
that case also?

> i know of a number of families where the children did not know they were
jewish
> until coming home one day from school either complaining about "a piszkos
> zsidok" or about being called one.

> it is not a sign of tolerance when the benficiaries of it feel the need
to
> hide. in a yolerant society, there is no need for jews, or gypsies, or
> homosexuals, or ...... to stay in the closet.
> d.a.

Regards,Jeliko.
+ - Re: Warehousing the underclass (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

> In reply to your message of "Fri, 15 Jul 94 14: 24:31 GMT."
>              >
> Date: Fri, 15 Jul 94 22:29:29 -0700
> From: 

> > There were a
> > number of Hungarian products made that way in the past, while now they
are
> > trying to conform to CEU norms.
>                        ^^^
> What is/are CEU?

> --Greg

Greg, tried to answer you by e-mail but it came back as undeliverable.
It is the unified (Common Market) pollution control and other standards.

Regards,Jeliko.
+ - Re: Multiculturalism (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Bob Hosh writes:
> It seems that one group on the list sees "multiculturalism" as a threat
> or *extinction* and the other sees it as progress or *evolution*. My
> academic advisor at CU often said he thought Hungary's rather ample
> contributions to science, literature, etc. were due to it's large gene
> pool. Let's not forget all those Avars, Slavs, Goths, Cumans, Pechenegs,
> Mongols, Ottoman Turks, Greeks, Romans, French, Germans, Poles, Wends,
> and Roumanians who were drawn to the Carpathian basin over the last
> several hundred years. Maybe the Magyars were the "glue" that kept all
> these genes together. ;-).

>         Bob...manapsag csak babot es paszujt essem.

Yeah Bob, but do you know how they make glue? :-)

Regards, Jeliko.  Try csulok with it.
+ - Re: Liberals Everywhere (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Gabor, your comments on the historical background of liberalism in
Hungary were interesting and, I think, a timely reminder.  But I wondered
about one thing you said, namely that the liberals of the Szabadelvu part
were "against nationalism".  In the region, I can't think of too many
examples of traditional liberal parties or thinkers who could be said to
be against nationalism during that period, and it doesn't really match up
with what I learned during my studies about the K. Tisza era:  in what
sense would you see this classical form of liberalism being anti-nationalist?

I know there were some intriguing comments in Hobsbawm's book on Nations and
Nationalism since 1780 regarding 19th century liberalism and its attitudes
towards nationalism, especially what he called the "threshold principle",
which means roughly that a people must have a certain numerical size and
economic potential to qualify for "nation" status, otherwise, I suppose,
they were doomed to be an "ethnic group" and eventually assimilated.

Not that even nineteenth century liberals _have_ to be consistent, after
all I don't achieve that myself ;-)!

Sincerely,

Hugh Agnew


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