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Attitudes towards Roma Minority Rights in Hungary: A Case of Ethnic Doxa, and the Contested Legitimization of Roma Inferiority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Robert E. Koulish
Robert E. Koulish*
Affiliation:
Goucher College, U.S.A. rkoulish@goucher.edu
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Abstract

In 1994, after the enactment of Hungary's Minority Rights legislation (herein the Act), representatives from India rather than Roma themselves were invited to represent the Roma at the signing ceremony, against the request of Roma leaders. During an interview in August 2000, former member of Parliament and Roma leader Aladar Horvath describes the events this way:

[t]hey invited all the representatives of the nationalities, and the representative of the Hungarian Gypsies was someone from India … Antall Jozsef made a speech in which he said he wouldn't prevent that Hungarian Gypsies consider India as a mothercountry, and India considers the Hungarian Gypsies as children. In the Indian Embassy, they didn't say a word, and I said, as a member of Parliament: we very much appreciate this gesture that the politicians made, but thank you very much but that's not really what we want. We have very thin roots in Iridia, but they are much stronger here in Europe and Hungary.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2003 , pp. 327 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. Interview with Horvath, Aladar, 15 August 2000.Google Scholar

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8. See Doncsev, Toso, Measures Taken by the State to Promote the Social Integration of Roma Living in Hungary (Budapest: Office for National and Ethnic Minorities, 2000), p. 31.Google Scholar

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12. The Act, Article 1, Section 2.Google Scholar

13. It is important to note that the Roma comprise Hungary's sole recognized ethnic minority under the Act.Google Scholar

14. The Act, Article 1, Section 2.Google Scholar

15. The Act, Chapter 3, Article 18(3)(a)(b).Google Scholar

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18. See the Act, Chapter 4, Article 26(1)(a).Google Scholar

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