HUNGARY: CRISIS, IMMIGRATION, HISTORY AND DAY-TO-DAY

Yesterday, a friend of mine, also Brazilian, posted a selfie on Facebook within a protest that took place in Pécs, southern city of the hungarian country-side. The act claimed against the building of a refugees' camp to 1000 people in a village of just 200 in the country. The former-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe lately entered into the capitalism carrying with them a substantive economic delay regarding the other European countries. Over the crises and the recent incoming of refugees, the xenophobic and nationalist senses have been increased. In this country particularly, conservative and far-right political groups have been powered, over revisionist speeches (regarding the Treaty of Trianon of the 2nd World War), against European Union, against Roma people, antisemitic and anti-immigration.

Among the students of “Science without Borders”, exchange program of the Brazilian Government, that lived or live in Hungary, it seems to exist a common sense about the unfriendly treatment of foreign people by some Hungarians, at least not as kind as the own Brazilian would do on general. This is an issue with no data, including due to the abstract feature of evaluating what “being disrespected” is, in spite of it I would say so somehow from my personal experience here and in other European countries. Of course, I am not telling about Hungarian friends, that could not be strongly repulsive and our friends at once.

Once I was at a supermarket standing by the cashier in order to make the payment, but I could not find the basket pile on where should I leave my own one. In this little while her, the lady behind the counter, yelled at me in Hungarian as if I had committed a crime. At some shops and restaurants I already was treated badly. At the University I also had some few bad experiences like this. The unfair way of running the renting relations by the landlords on general has annoyed us somehow. These are some situations, that in spite of not representing majority of the situations, at least showed me these sad events very often. The language might be a problem, barely, but what should we say about the lack of patience by those whose language we try kindly speak?

Well, the History has brought some misfortunes to Hungarians, they were defeated in wars, their territories were cut away, they were taken over by the Nazis, then they were annexed by the eastern communist bloc following the so-called “liberation” after the 2nd World War. In Budapest there is a nice museum called “Terror Háza” that shows part of these sad events, but also shows us the “complexity” of the historic subjects, let's say. A vídeo from this museun depicts the metaphoric “change of clothes” in the end of the Second World War: the partisans of the Arrow Cross Party, a facist Hungarian party subject to the Nazi party, simply swung to the other side of the totalitarism, the Hungarian Communist Party, just by signing a ridiculous declaration. According the Museum, the elections after-liberation were defrauded by the soviets in order to hide the preference of most of Hugarian people, that voted for smaller democratic parties instead..

All the atrocities of the “age of extremes”, the 20th century, does not seem to have been enough to prove once and for all how wrong the ideologies of blaming and exclusion of groups, nationalism and refuse of assistance further the strict (and advantageous) economic relations are. The demagogic speeches take over: blaming the Jews, the Roma people, the immigrants, the western european countries, the Treaty of Trianon, but the past attempts of taking over, the high corruption rates of the Hungarian politicians, companies and the citizens, none out of these has any guilt? The sad motto is, once again, the ethnic/ethnic cleansing, the tagging of enemy groups and exclusion, the elation of the ethnic people and the “ethic” purity and the profitable way of running everything.

Among us, Brazilians, I've heard and read things like “Hungary is a nice country, except from Hungarians” or “Hungarian people is a race that should be abolished”. Which is a stupid, extreme and generalist speech as much as that by what Hungarian people simply have been teaching their sons to hate the Country's Roma people for example. Looking at the own mistakes, respecting the individualities, being patience, humble, trying to understand the complexities and helping are things we should have learned from the last century – at the personal relations as well as at universal relations evolving states. It is not about dealing with the problems as they did not exist, but paying attention to the facts and data, the complexity of the people groups, the individuality, the own mistakes, it is about being aware the democratic solutions can run slowly, but they tend to be fairer, it is about balancing economic and social losses.

Throughout the History, mainly following the First World War, Hungarian people have been emigrating, such as during the 1956's revolution that weakened the borders control resulting an amount of around 200 thousands Hungarian refugees. Except from those who were out of the border due to the territories agreements, the nowadays' number of Hungarian emigrants is around 5 million world wide. The total country's population was 9,897 million of people in 2013. It is not so hard to find academic students intending to leave their fatherland as soon as they can as well as less skilled people, on the whole towards Germany, Austria and UK. In the same way, the incoming immigrants and refugees have come into Hungary aiming a better life, mostly trying to reach other European countries.

Although the immigrants impact on the economy is not always negatives – unfortunately I just figure some superficial thought about this so important topic –, hosting people into ones' own country and offering better life conditions, – which, very often, as in the Afghans and Syrian refugees, is merely the peace –, should be something taken in consideration by any state. However, the high incoming of immigrants at once or a huge amount of immigrants that might not be held by the width of a weak economy, also the diseases control (brought by the immigrants or likely others damaging to them), the document issues, these are actually factual problems, which must be dealt over those terms I've been citing.

According Eurostat, in 2013 the Country hosted only 1,4% of immigrants per total population, higher rate than just 6 of the 32 European countries (EU 28 + 4), so it is a low immigrants rate. However, the increasing of the flow of refugees towards Europe that cross the Serbian-Hungarian border can be worrying, once, according the Dublin Regulation, the asylum seekers issues must be solved by the country through which them came into European Union. As Hungary is a border country, it could somehow overload it, which is a problem that must be be faced seriously, carefully, open-mindedly, democratically and friendly.

In opposition, it has been dealt in the worst ways by the government supported by a growing conservative wave among the citizens. The demagogy has been bringing the problem to the foreground and has been turning it into a figurehead of the real problems of the country. This year, the government made an advertising campaign over outdoors settled throughout the country pointed to the immigrants, saying to them things like “if you came to Hungary, respect Hungarian culture” or “if you come to my country, you shouldn't take our jobs”. Moreover, their government is carrying out the building of a barbed wire fence along the border with Serbia, showing how rudely they intend to handle the problem. The word of the Hungarian prime minister reinforces this view: “We don't think it's right that they send us the refugees, they need to be stopped on Serbian territory” (2). Finally, seeing the people going to the streets holding posters against these issues, adding up the political conservatives events, make us sure that the strategy of avoiding and hiding the real problems of the country is getting more and more succesfull – the government must be happy.

1. Immigrants population chart in European countries by Eurostat [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Non-national_population_by_group_of_citizenship,_1_January_2014_(%C2%B9)_YB15.png]

2. http://www.rt.com/news/269236-hungary-immigrants-suspends-rules/

3. Complete report of immigration by Eurostat: [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics#Migration_flows]

4. [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0cab3da6a95e43c1880d6289bbf38db4/radicals-hungary-vows-series-anti-immigrant-protests