FM praises Serbs in Romania

Good on ya, VUK!
I am delighted because these nice things you say about Serbian - Romanian relations is driving the 'EU Elite' mad.
They go nuts when they see any signs of Balkan unity.

MB,Ireland

Mircea,

Based on your comment of yesterday about Hungarians in Transylvania and today's one about Romanians in Serbia I notice some double standards. You want to see full rights for ethnic Romanians but not willing to give them to Hungarians. Very strange and nationalistic indeed.

@@@ by Mircea

"...I would like to inform Jeremic that the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected...."


Answer: Would you kindly be more clear and specific when, where, how ?

I am foreigner of Serbian origin here in The Netherlands and often I feel that my human rights are not fully respected, but I certainly do not call for Dutch FM to pay me the visit.

First be sure to know what is the "full respect of human rights". Would be nice to hear your examples and arguments.

Anyway ... we support Serbian interest like friends do. Romania and Serbia had generally good relations and we commonly consider the Serbs to be our friends in Balkans.

The things are very simple: for many times, we fought together against our common enemies and we never were enemies.
We fully respect and appreciate the courage of the Serbian people throughout history.

I hope we'll never see a war again in this part of the world. We had to learn some sad lessons from history about wars and personally, I don't wanna hear about wars anymore, no matter how "highly motivated" could be such actions. Our kids have the right to live in peace and freedom.

Joe, not that I share Mircea's type of rethoric, but hungarians in Romania can do their studies in hungarian from 1st degree to full university, they can speak hungarian in official meetings and correspondence with authorities and in front of courts of law, they have reps in the Parliament and for 12 yrs in the govt. Of course they can speak it everywhere else and anybody can speak whatever language and set up whatever church and so on in Romania.
Romanians or vlachs or martians however you want to call them do not have any of these rights and the only thing they want is to build a church on their own expense, on their own private property and have the service in romanian. That's the difference. I am sure you understand, because romanians in Gyula (Hu) are not allowed to put a statue of orthodox metropolitan Andrei Saguna on their private property in front of their church too.
It would be really nice to have less words and more deeds.

The Serbian Foreign Minister should be praising about Romania's implementation of respecting minority there. Romania respects minorities and freedoms. Why does Mr Vuk ignore this? That's not acceptable

I would like to inform Jeremic that the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected.

Jeremic should go to the Timok Valley and speak to the members of the Romanian community of North East Serbia.

Mircea,

You reply to Joe with "All the reports of the EU stated that Romania respects the rights of the Hungarian minority."

-- I know you're as pro-EU as it comes, but most reports from the EU also state that Serbs have full rights in Kosovo, which is a bold faced lie. They'll glop over the minor details for the sake of making the car sellable. While I won't equate the lives of T-Hungarians with K-Serbs, I can't say they're fully integrated citizens (as is the case with almost all nationally conscious ethnic minorities).

Therefore to say that "the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected" in relation to problems of church building (even though the Romanian Orthodox Church is a fully recognized church in Serbia) and a radio station's airtime was cut (differentiated with a visible and active presence of Romanian cultural institutions in Vrsac), means the problems, if any, common and not any different. To say that "they are not being respected" is stretching it. I can walk into the Hispanic neighborhoods of New York and New Brunswick, and claim my rights as an English-speaking citizen are not being respected.

So I have to agree with Joe here in that you maximize one issue and minimize another.

"The relations between our countries are excellent, Romania is our friend and one of our closest allies in the Balkans. Another way of saying for the Hungarians not to make trouble or shake up the status quo or you will face a united Serbia and Romania against the Hungarians.

Joe,

Hungarians in Romania have full rights. All the reports of the EU stated that Romania respects the rights of the Hungarian minority.

dean van der serbia,

Romanians in the Timok Valley encountered problems when they wanted to build a Romanian Orthodox Church in North Eastern Serbia. Also, a radio station cut short the number of hours of a Romanian language program/service in Serbia.

Mircea, it is incorrect to call the Vlachs from the Timok valley "a Romanian minority". As we have discussed before there were many Latin language pockets all over the Blakans. Yet the idea to create a single Romanian nation took roots only in Valachia, Moldova and Transilvania. The Timok Vlachs never participated in the building of the Romanian nation (if we consider a nation to be a self governing political body). They participated in the creation and devolopment of the Serbian nation since the early 19 century. Similar was the case of the Serbs, Bulgarians and others in Romania. They are all ethnic groups within the Romanian nation. As for the Hungarians the case was qute different. They were a part of the Humgarian nation, sent deputies to the Hungarian parliament and were forcefully separated from their breathren. So they are a national minority - a part of another nation within the Romanian borders.

Ataman,

I had a good lough about your "Jobbik". I guess you ment it as a joke. I know little about them and I am not crazy about them. By the way I should mention it to you that as per my latest info maybe as much as 95-98% of the Hungarians in the US are not considered Hungarians anymore by the Hungarian government but foreigners.
Only those, who have a valid - NOT EXPIRED Hungarian passport are considered as such. Those are vary rare. I don't know any.
In 1990 after the "rendszervaltas" or system change we all felt here very patriotic..filled out long forms, applied for the passport and after maybe 6-8 months we got it. We felt that the mother country recognized us as its children in the diaspora. The euphoria was short lived. It turned out that it was a bogus passport. It was completely useless. For all practical purposes we were still considered as foreigners. That passport did not allow as to buy land (anything considered agricultural) or travel free for people over 65. So once we felt Hungarians of third class or even less most of us didn't bother to renew that passeport. And the way we are "classified" by Hungary will hardly change after Orban's possible victory. When recently friends of mine had a real estate purchase in Hungary they needed an urgent statement from the consulate stating that they are Hungarians (they were born and educated there but had an exired passport). They could not get it. The response of the consulate: fill out an 8 page form (including a lot of info about your grandparents), pay 150 dollars and wait at least 4 months with positive response not garantied.
B92 sorry for being long. It was hard to abbreviate it.

Joe,

The truth is very complex. The entire area was inhabited by Hellenic Slavs of Aleksandar Makedonski under leadership of Illyran-Albulenë-Thracians who also were known as Daco-Romanians with significant Hunnic-Sabir-Sumerian nobility practicing Parthian Shot day and night from the horseback and their direct descendants forming the "Jobbik" party.

Actually, Romanian Serbs belong to Serbian people, not Serbian Nation. They belong to Romanian Nation. They are loyal Romanian citizens.

I do not know whether Mr. Jeremic made a faux pas or it was clumsy translation.

It is very unlikely how many people who call themselves educated do not make distinction between Serbs as a people and Serbian nation.

Hungarian, Bulgarian in Serbian belong to Serbian nation, not Serbian people. Serb in Hungary or Bulgaria belong to Hungarian or Bulgarian nation, not Magyar or Bulgarian people.

"Mike, you are talking about Vojvodina. Mircea was talking about Timok Valley.
(adrian, timisoara, 19 July 2009 21:23)"

Yes I know. I was trying to show that rights not being respected are, if at all, localized and are not endemic to Serbia as a whole as Mircea seems to imply.

'I am foreigner of Serbian origin here in The Netherlands and often I feel that my human rights are not fully respected, ...'

Since the Netherlands have such a good reputation in this respect, maybe you should be more specific? Do these problems apply to all foreigners, or are you suffering because of your being a Serb/having Serbian ancestors?

"
Therefore to say that "the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected" in relation to problems of church building (even though the Romanian Orthodox Church is a fully recognized church in Serbia) and a radio station's airtime was cut (differentiated with a visible and active presence of Romanian cultural institutions in Vrsac), means the problems, if any, common and not any different"

Mike, you are talking about Vojvodina. Mircea was talking about Timok Valley.

Joe,

I went through the protocoll once. What you write is more-less correct, but I landed up paying much less because I filled out these papers out in BP, not in a foreign country.

The lession is: never let the HU passport to expire, otherwise you will be introduced to bureaucratic hell.

I landed up paying 10000 Ft ($50) and had to wait about 6 month or so filing directly at Ministry of Interior. (What a wonderful place!)

The only worse place than Hungary regarding this is Russia, they somehow managed to do it even more crazy way.

My view of HU politicians is pretty devastating, be them nazis (Jobbik), mini-Stalins (Orbán) or spineless goose-chasers.

The 2002 census lists 35,000 Romanians in Serbia, plus a further 40,000 identifying themselves as Vlachs. Even considering these two peoples as one (which they clearly don't) there are are a similar number of romanians in Canada and 10 times as many in Spain, yet neither of these countries offers elementary education in Romanian,let alone a Romanian-language university. What do you propose, Mirce - sanctions?

In 1990 after the "rendszervaltas" or system change we all felt here very patriotic..filled out long forms, applied for the passport and after maybe 6-8 months we got it. We felt that the mother country recognized us as its children in the diaspora. The euphoria was short lived. It turned out that it was a bogus passport. It was completely useless. For all practical purposes we were still considered as foreigners.(Joe, 19 July 2009 18:17)
Indeed shame on hungarian political elite and burocracy.Around the same time I applied for polish citizenship(before Kabátváltás(change of coats the ironic name for system change in Hungary)double citizenship was not allowed)and got it after 2 months and it entitles me to everything.So I can fully understand your disappointment.
And the way we are "classified" by Hungary will hardly change after Orban's possible victory(.Joe, 19 July 2009 18:17)
You see it completely well.If there was such a sport discipline as verbal karate Orbán"the boys are in the mine"Vica would definatelly be a leading person in it.Finding excuses is also one of his strong points.I remember playing small pitch soccer against him in youth hostel and he never failed to mention that if he had not had so flat foot he would have become professional soccer player and should not have learned baszott paragrafusok(cursed paragraphs).BTW the other big soccer star is the current goalkeeper of 43 számú építõk Bajnai"the goosemaster"Gordonka.
And Joe despite our different political views and the ugly mistreatment by motherland you are still "A mi kutyánk kölyke"(Our dog's Cub) although once again I fully understand your justified disappointment.

@@@ by Mircea


"...Romanians in the Timok Valley encountered problems when they wanted to build a Romanian Orthodox Church in North Eastern Serbia. Also, a radio station cut short the number of hours of a Romanian language program/service in Serbia.
(Mircea, 19 July 2009 16:17)..."


Answer: for the God sake, these are the human problems accounted for the one or the another reason ( I don't want to speculate about it because I am not informed enough ). Deal with the problem in connection with adequate Authorities. It is not easy to be the minority or the foreigner in any country in the World.

There should be no obstacles in the relation between Romanian and Serbian people and Serbs will in no way endanger the human rights of its Romanian minority. Build the bridges rather than damage the coexistence with this sort of claims .

I would certainly be happy to participate the service in your newly built Church at any time.

szemi,

Thank you for sympathizing with me. It is greatly appreciated.

"The 2002 census lists 35,000 Romanians in Serbia, plus a further 40,000 identifying themselves as Vlachs. Even considering these two peoples as one (which they clearly don't) there are are a similar number of romanians in Canada and 10 times as many in Spain, yet neither of these countries offers elementary education in Romanian,let alone a Romanian-language university. What do you propose, Mirce - sanctions? "

The romanian 2002 census lists exactly 22518 serbs.Still they have their own church, schools in serbian etc. And nobody stop sthem to erase new churches. So what is your point?

The 2002 census lists 35,000 Romanians in Serbia, plus a further 40,000 identifying themselves as Vlachs. Even considering these two peoples as one (which they clearly don't) there are are a similar number of romanians in Canada and 10 times as many in Spain, yet neither of these countries offers elementary education in Romanian,let alone a Romanian-language university. What do you propose, Mirce - sanctions?
(Dave, 20 July 2009 13:30)


When it is a question for minorities in the country, we are not speaking for emigrants in Canada, US, Australia, UK, etc. We are speaking for continuous area inhibited by ethnic people with the same language, culture, anthropology characteristics with those of the neighbor country. As such there are too many in Balkan caused by too may wars, long occupation (like Roman Empire, Serbian Empire, Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire) and negative effect of liberation from those occupation and injustice of drawing the countries borders after every major war.
When we ask to respect the minority rights, we mean respecting those basic rights of people with different nationality because the only “guilt” is they were inhabitant of the territory that was left out of their mother-land. If Austro-Hungarian Empire was too cruel to Romanians that doesn’t justify that you leave almost 30% of ethnic Hungarian in Romania “national” border and then you treat them as they are foreign in their own land. Forgive me; this is just an example to make my point, I don’t want to point that Hungarians in Romania are mistreated.
And there is a mess everywhere in Balkan where BORDER is a “cruel separator” of a nation and need to be treated as an administrative border of a country.
There is a fundamental difference of group of emigrant from Serbia, Hungary, Romania …, India, Pakistan …, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil…, China, Russia, … etc, etc. emigrating in US, Canada, Australia or even in UK, Holland, etc. etc.

Ataman,

I fully share your view of HU politicians.
As for the subject passport an old lady, a friend of us called me last week to tell a similar story: her passport expired and the consulate told her that because of it she is not considered a Hungarian anymore. She was very upset and in tears. She was "imported" a long time ago as a bride..learned only elementary English and for everybody she is a Hungarian. But apparently not for Hungary. If I get some time maybe I collect such cases and will write to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and also the World Association of Hungarians. Sure it will be a step without result with those bureaucrates but at least they will learn how we feel about them. In 1990 after the the system or better "coat" change I visited the Ministry of Agriculture. Introducing myself as a "megbizott" or agent of Hungarians of the New York area, who want to invest in the Hungarian agriculture I was able to meet a state secretary. We had a long and very pleasant meeting but there was no follow-up business since we were not allowed to buy land (only to rent fishing ponds and bad quality land for 99 years to plant nyirfa for celullose production). Still back in 1990 there was still more friendliness in Hungarian ministeries and offices.

Joe,

For people working in ministries and consulates you have been always a burden and they have never been interested in helping you.Remember they are mainly members of those circles and cliks whose duty was to sell out Hungary her industrty and agriculture to some multinational companies and other fat cats.If you had been given full right you would have brought your money,know-how and enterprenual spirit which would have contributed to a healty spread of small and middle scale enterprises which could have been a backbone of a flourishing hungarian economy.So all in all you were a competition for those burocrats and the circles of interest they serve.We here on this forum often had disagreement(I would rather call it misunderstanding) regarding some artificially maintained socialist period companies such as ikarus or some in food proccesing and canning industry which had good reputation in many countries.I think with the know-how and money some diaspora members had the function of these companias could have been optimized and an advantege of their previuosly made brand name could have been very useful.Instead multis were given tax alloowances while you were blocked from almost everything .

Joe,

Regarding the issue of diaspora, the hard work of (ex) communists in HU culminated in the rejection of double citizensip by misled people on the "Day of Shame" (5 dec 2004 referendum on double citizenship for Hungarians living abroad).

This to blame for most of what you write.

People beleived the leftist propaganda that "20 million Romanians will flock into Hungary and take our jobs" if citizenship is offered to Romanian/Hungarians and similar nonsense.

For (rightful) fear of the communists back in 2004 that providing the diaspora with citizenship, and subsequent right to vote, the scale will be tilted towards the right, they sacrificed their backbone for another term in power.

See the result, from first in the region, we are behind even Slovakia and Romania...

Even Ataman's favourite, "Jobbik" or Mr. Orban, probably even our cleaning lady from the office could do better than this...

As HU is surrounded by nations, some of them not famous for minority issues, this would be minimun to protect "our dog's cubs" abroad, even if they are not leftist voters.

Hruz,

Thank you to point out the consequences of the "Day of Scheme".

Szemi,

I fully agree with you. I also visited some companies in 1990. Afterward I found out that multis were given preference.

Hruz, szemi,

my last comment - agreeing with you - was censured. Why? It will remain a mystery.

Joe,

Sometimes comments on this forum are long delayed and you may get the impression that it was censored.It happened to me several times.

@nik: yeah your right, the latin people from the south of the Danube are not necessarily romanians (daco-romanians)they can be aromanians (latinesed Thracian people not dacian), magleno-romanians, istro-romanians. The only conection the romanian people have with them is though the roman heritage, bacuse they are Thracians, Illirians, and other Balkan people that were latinesed and not latinsed Getae/Dacians like the romanian people. So this Vlachs fron Timok can be aromanians/istro-romanians/magleno-romanians etc. and not necessarily daco-romanians (romanians). Btw this people speak a diffrent language , but very close to romanian...

I would like to inform Jeremic that the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected.

Jeremic should go to the Timok Valley and speak to the members of the Romanian community of North East Serbia.

The Serbian Foreign Minister should be praising about Romania's implementation of respecting minority there. Romania respects minorities and freedoms. Why does Mr Vuk ignore this? That's not acceptable

Joe,

Hungarians in Romania have full rights. All the reports of the EU stated that Romania respects the rights of the Hungarian minority.

dean van der serbia,

Romanians in the Timok Valley encountered problems when they wanted to build a Romanian Orthodox Church in North Eastern Serbia. Also, a radio station cut short the number of hours of a Romanian language program/service in Serbia.

'I am foreigner of Serbian origin here in The Netherlands and often I feel that my human rights are not fully respected, ...'

Since the Netherlands have such a good reputation in this respect, maybe you should be more specific? Do these problems apply to all foreigners, or are you suffering because of your being a Serb/having Serbian ancestors?

Mircea,

Based on your comment of yesterday about Hungarians in Transylvania and today's one about Romanians in Serbia I notice some double standards. You want to see full rights for ethnic Romanians but not willing to give them to Hungarians. Very strange and nationalistic indeed.

Good on ya, VUK!
I am delighted because these nice things you say about Serbian - Romanian relations is driving the 'EU Elite' mad.
They go nuts when they see any signs of Balkan unity.

MB,Ireland

Joe,

The truth is very complex. The entire area was inhabited by Hellenic Slavs of Aleksandar Makedonski under leadership of Illyran-Albulenë-Thracians who also were known as Daco-Romanians with significant Hunnic-Sabir-Sumerian nobility practicing Parthian Shot day and night from the horseback and their direct descendants forming the "Jobbik" party.

"The relations between our countries are excellent, Romania is our friend and one of our closest allies in the Balkans. Another way of saying for the Hungarians not to make trouble or shake up the status quo or you will face a united Serbia and Romania against the Hungarians.

Mircea, it is incorrect to call the Vlachs from the Timok valley "a Romanian minority". As we have discussed before there were many Latin language pockets all over the Blakans. Yet the idea to create a single Romanian nation took roots only in Valachia, Moldova and Transilvania. The Timok Vlachs never participated in the building of the Romanian nation (if we consider a nation to be a self governing political body). They participated in the creation and devolopment of the Serbian nation since the early 19 century. Similar was the case of the Serbs, Bulgarians and others in Romania. They are all ethnic groups within the Romanian nation. As for the Hungarians the case was qute different. They were a part of the Humgarian nation, sent deputies to the Hungarian parliament and were forcefully separated from their breathren. So they are a national minority - a part of another nation within the Romanian borders.

Anyway ... we support Serbian interest like friends do. Romania and Serbia had generally good relations and we commonly consider the Serbs to be our friends in Balkans.

The things are very simple: for many times, we fought together against our common enemies and we never were enemies.
We fully respect and appreciate the courage of the Serbian people throughout history.

I hope we'll never see a war again in this part of the world. We had to learn some sad lessons from history about wars and personally, I don't wanna hear about wars anymore, no matter how "highly motivated" could be such actions. Our kids have the right to live in peace and freedom.

Ataman,

I had a good lough about your "Jobbik". I guess you ment it as a joke. I know little about them and I am not crazy about them. By the way I should mention it to you that as per my latest info maybe as much as 95-98% of the Hungarians in the US are not considered Hungarians anymore by the Hungarian government but foreigners.
Only those, who have a valid - NOT EXPIRED Hungarian passport are considered as such. Those are vary rare. I don't know any.
In 1990 after the "rendszervaltas" or system change we all felt here very patriotic..filled out long forms, applied for the passport and after maybe 6-8 months we got it. We felt that the mother country recognized us as its children in the diaspora. The euphoria was short lived. It turned out that it was a bogus passport. It was completely useless. For all practical purposes we were still considered as foreigners. That passport did not allow as to buy land (anything considered agricultural) or travel free for people over 65. So once we felt Hungarians of third class or even less most of us didn't bother to renew that passeport. And the way we are "classified" by Hungary will hardly change after Orban's possible victory. When recently friends of mine had a real estate purchase in Hungary they needed an urgent statement from the consulate stating that they are Hungarians (they were born and educated there but had an exired passport). They could not get it. The response of the consulate: fill out an 8 page form (including a lot of info about your grandparents), pay 150 dollars and wait at least 4 months with positive response not garantied.
B92 sorry for being long. It was hard to abbreviate it.

Mircea,

You reply to Joe with "All the reports of the EU stated that Romania respects the rights of the Hungarian minority."

-- I know you're as pro-EU as it comes, but most reports from the EU also state that Serbs have full rights in Kosovo, which is a bold faced lie. They'll glop over the minor details for the sake of making the car sellable. While I won't equate the lives of T-Hungarians with K-Serbs, I can't say they're fully integrated citizens (as is the case with almost all nationally conscious ethnic minorities).

Therefore to say that "the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected" in relation to problems of church building (even though the Romanian Orthodox Church is a fully recognized church in Serbia) and a radio station's airtime was cut (differentiated with a visible and active presence of Romanian cultural institutions in Vrsac), means the problems, if any, common and not any different. To say that "they are not being respected" is stretching it. I can walk into the Hispanic neighborhoods of New York and New Brunswick, and claim my rights as an English-speaking citizen are not being respected.

So I have to agree with Joe here in that you maximize one issue and minimize another.

@@@ by Mircea

"...I would like to inform Jeremic that the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected...."


Answer: Would you kindly be more clear and specific when, where, how ?

I am foreigner of Serbian origin here in The Netherlands and often I feel that my human rights are not fully respected, but I certainly do not call for Dutch FM to pay me the visit.

First be sure to know what is the "full respect of human rights". Would be nice to hear your examples and arguments.

The 2002 census lists 35,000 Romanians in Serbia, plus a further 40,000 identifying themselves as Vlachs. Even considering these two peoples as one (which they clearly don't) there are are a similar number of romanians in Canada and 10 times as many in Spain, yet neither of these countries offers elementary education in Romanian,let alone a Romanian-language university. What do you propose, Mirce - sanctions?

Actually, Romanian Serbs belong to Serbian people, not Serbian Nation. They belong to Romanian Nation. They are loyal Romanian citizens.

I do not know whether Mr. Jeremic made a faux pas or it was clumsy translation.

It is very unlikely how many people who call themselves educated do not make distinction between Serbs as a people and Serbian nation.

Hungarian, Bulgarian in Serbian belong to Serbian nation, not Serbian people. Serb in Hungary or Bulgaria belong to Hungarian or Bulgarian nation, not Magyar or Bulgarian people.

The 2002 census lists 35,000 Romanians in Serbia, plus a further 40,000 identifying themselves as Vlachs. Even considering these two peoples as one (which they clearly don't) there are are a similar number of romanians in Canada and 10 times as many in Spain, yet neither of these countries offers elementary education in Romanian,let alone a Romanian-language university. What do you propose, Mirce - sanctions?
(Dave, 20 July 2009 13:30)


When it is a question for minorities in the country, we are not speaking for emigrants in Canada, US, Australia, UK, etc. We are speaking for continuous area inhibited by ethnic people with the same language, culture, anthropology characteristics with those of the neighbor country. As such there are too many in Balkan caused by too may wars, long occupation (like Roman Empire, Serbian Empire, Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire) and negative effect of liberation from those occupation and injustice of drawing the countries borders after every major war.
When we ask to respect the minority rights, we mean respecting those basic rights of people with different nationality because the only “guilt” is they were inhabitant of the territory that was left out of their mother-land. If Austro-Hungarian Empire was too cruel to Romanians that doesn’t justify that you leave almost 30% of ethnic Hungarian in Romania “national” border and then you treat them as they are foreign in their own land. Forgive me; this is just an example to make my point, I don’t want to point that Hungarians in Romania are mistreated.
And there is a mess everywhere in Balkan where BORDER is a “cruel separator” of a nation and need to be treated as an administrative border of a country.
There is a fundamental difference of group of emigrant from Serbia, Hungary, Romania …, India, Pakistan …, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil…, China, Russia, … etc, etc. emigrating in US, Canada, Australia or even in UK, Holland, etc. etc.

Joe, not that I share Mircea's type of rethoric, but hungarians in Romania can do their studies in hungarian from 1st degree to full university, they can speak hungarian in official meetings and correspondence with authorities and in front of courts of law, they have reps in the Parliament and for 12 yrs in the govt. Of course they can speak it everywhere else and anybody can speak whatever language and set up whatever church and so on in Romania.
Romanians or vlachs or martians however you want to call them do not have any of these rights and the only thing they want is to build a church on their own expense, on their own private property and have the service in romanian. That's the difference. I am sure you understand, because romanians in Gyula (Hu) are not allowed to put a statue of orthodox metropolitan Andrei Saguna on their private property in front of their church too.
It would be really nice to have less words and more deeds.

In 1990 after the "rendszervaltas" or system change we all felt here very patriotic..filled out long forms, applied for the passport and after maybe 6-8 months we got it. We felt that the mother country recognized us as its children in the diaspora. The euphoria was short lived. It turned out that it was a bogus passport. It was completely useless. For all practical purposes we were still considered as foreigners.(Joe, 19 July 2009 18:17)
Indeed shame on hungarian political elite and burocracy.Around the same time I applied for polish citizenship(before Kabátváltás(change of coats the ironic name for system change in Hungary)double citizenship was not allowed)and got it after 2 months and it entitles me to everything.So I can fully understand your disappointment.
And the way we are "classified" by Hungary will hardly change after Orban's possible victory(.Joe, 19 July 2009 18:17)
You see it completely well.If there was such a sport discipline as verbal karate Orbán"the boys are in the mine"Vica would definatelly be a leading person in it.Finding excuses is also one of his strong points.I remember playing small pitch soccer against him in youth hostel and he never failed to mention that if he had not had so flat foot he would have become professional soccer player and should not have learned baszott paragrafusok(cursed paragraphs).BTW the other big soccer star is the current goalkeeper of 43 számú építõk Bajnai"the goosemaster"Gordonka.
And Joe despite our different political views and the ugly mistreatment by motherland you are still "A mi kutyánk kölyke"(Our dog's Cub) although once again I fully understand your justified disappointment.

"
Therefore to say that "the rights of the Romanian minority in the Timok Valley (Northeast Serbia) are not being respected" in relation to problems of church building (even though the Romanian Orthodox Church is a fully recognized church in Serbia) and a radio station's airtime was cut (differentiated with a visible and active presence of Romanian cultural institutions in Vrsac), means the problems, if any, common and not any different"

Mike, you are talking about Vojvodina. Mircea was talking about Timok Valley.

Joe,

I went through the protocoll once. What you write is more-less correct, but I landed up paying much less because I filled out these papers out in BP, not in a foreign country.

The lession is: never let the HU passport to expire, otherwise you will be introduced to bureaucratic hell.

I landed up paying 10000 Ft ($50) and had to wait about 6 month or so filing directly at Ministry of Interior. (What a wonderful place!)

The only worse place than Hungary regarding this is Russia, they somehow managed to do it even more crazy way.

My view of HU politicians is pretty devastating, be them nazis (Jobbik), mini-Stalins (Orbán) or spineless goose-chasers.

"Mike, you are talking about Vojvodina. Mircea was talking about Timok Valley.
(adrian, timisoara, 19 July 2009 21:23)"

Yes I know. I was trying to show that rights not being respected are, if at all, localized and are not endemic to Serbia as a whole as Mircea seems to imply.

@@@ by Mircea


"...Romanians in the Timok Valley encountered problems when they wanted to build a Romanian Orthodox Church in North Eastern Serbia. Also, a radio station cut short the number of hours of a Romanian language program/service in Serbia.
(Mircea, 19 July 2009 16:17)..."


Answer: for the God sake, these are the human problems accounted for the one or the another reason ( I don't want to speculate about it because I am not informed enough ). Deal with the problem in connection with adequate Authorities. It is not easy to be the minority or the foreigner in any country in the World.

There should be no obstacles in the relation between Romanian and Serbian people and Serbs will in no way endanger the human rights of its Romanian minority. Build the bridges rather than damage the coexistence with this sort of claims .

I would certainly be happy to participate the service in your newly built Church at any time.

szemi,

Thank you for sympathizing with me. It is greatly appreciated.

Ataman,

I fully share your view of HU politicians.
As for the subject passport an old lady, a friend of us called me last week to tell a similar story: her passport expired and the consulate told her that because of it she is not considered a Hungarian anymore. She was very upset and in tears. She was "imported" a long time ago as a bride..learned only elementary English and for everybody she is a Hungarian. But apparently not for Hungary. If I get some time maybe I collect such cases and will write to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and also the World Association of Hungarians. Sure it will be a step without result with those bureaucrates but at least they will learn how we feel about them. In 1990 after the the system or better "coat" change I visited the Ministry of Agriculture. Introducing myself as a "megbizott" or agent of Hungarians of the New York area, who want to invest in the Hungarian agriculture I was able to meet a state secretary. We had a long and very pleasant meeting but there was no follow-up business since we were not allowed to buy land (only to rent fishing ponds and bad quality land for 99 years to plant nyirfa for celullose production). Still back in 1990 there was still more friendliness in Hungarian ministeries and offices.

Joe,

Regarding the issue of diaspora, the hard work of (ex) communists in HU culminated in the rejection of double citizensip by misled people on the "Day of Shame" (5 dec 2004 referendum on double citizenship for Hungarians living abroad).

This to blame for most of what you write.

People beleived the leftist propaganda that "20 million Romanians will flock into Hungary and take our jobs" if citizenship is offered to Romanian/Hungarians and similar nonsense.

For (rightful) fear of the communists back in 2004 that providing the diaspora with citizenship, and subsequent right to vote, the scale will be tilted towards the right, they sacrificed their backbone for another term in power.

See the result, from first in the region, we are behind even Slovakia and Romania...

Even Ataman's favourite, "Jobbik" or Mr. Orban, probably even our cleaning lady from the office could do better than this...

As HU is surrounded by nations, some of them not famous for minority issues, this would be minimun to protect "our dog's cubs" abroad, even if they are not leftist voters.

Joe,

For people working in ministries and consulates you have been always a burden and they have never been interested in helping you.Remember they are mainly members of those circles and cliks whose duty was to sell out Hungary her industrty and agriculture to some multinational companies and other fat cats.If you had been given full right you would have brought your money,know-how and enterprenual spirit which would have contributed to a healty spread of small and middle scale enterprises which could have been a backbone of a flourishing hungarian economy.So all in all you were a competition for those burocrats and the circles of interest they serve.We here on this forum often had disagreement(I would rather call it misunderstanding) regarding some artificially maintained socialist period companies such as ikarus or some in food proccesing and canning industry which had good reputation in many countries.I think with the know-how and money some diaspora members had the function of these companias could have been optimized and an advantege of their previuosly made brand name could have been very useful.Instead multis were given tax alloowances while you were blocked from almost everything .

Hruz,

Thank you to point out the consequences of the "Day of Scheme".

Szemi,

I fully agree with you. I also visited some companies in 1990. Afterward I found out that multis were given preference.

Hruz, szemi,

my last comment - agreeing with you - was censured. Why? It will remain a mystery.

Joe,

Sometimes comments on this forum are long delayed and you may get the impression that it was censored.It happened to me several times.

"The 2002 census lists 35,000 Romanians in Serbia, plus a further 40,000 identifying themselves as Vlachs. Even considering these two peoples as one (which they clearly don't) there are are a similar number of romanians in Canada and 10 times as many in Spain, yet neither of these countries offers elementary education in Romanian,let alone a Romanian-language university. What do you propose, Mirce - sanctions? "

The romanian 2002 census lists exactly 22518 serbs.Still they have their own church, schools in serbian etc. And nobody stop sthem to erase new churches. So what is your point?

@nik: yeah your right, the latin people from the south of the Danube are not necessarily romanians (daco-romanians)they can be aromanians (latinesed Thracian people not dacian), magleno-romanians, istro-romanians. The only conection the romanian people have with them is though the roman heritage, bacuse they are Thracians, Illirians, and other Balkan people that were latinesed and not latinsed Getae/Dacians like the romanian people. So this Vlachs fron Timok can be aromanians/istro-romanians/magleno-romanians etc. and not necessarily daco-romanians (romanians). Btw this people speak a diffrent language , but very close to romanian...