Hungarian American Coalition News, 1995 (4. évfolyam, 3. szám)

1995 / 3. szám

PROMOTING EUROPEAN SECURITY AND INTEGRATION:

THE ROLE OF NATIONAL MINORITIES

A Summary of the Proceedings

Introduction

On Friday, November 3, 1995, the Hungarian American Coalition and the Potomac Foundation co-sponsored an allday conference entitled, "Promoting European Security and Integration: The Role of National Minorities." The conference provided a forum for national minority leaders from both Eastem/Central and Western Europe, "to present thenviews on the implications of nationality policies tor the security and integration of Europe." Peter Tamoff, Under-Secretary of Stale for Political Affairs, addressed the conference during the luncheon program. An afternoon panel discussed security issues relating to Central and Eastern Europe and the potential role of minority rights in advancing democracy and stability in the region.

Summary of Presentations by Leaders of West European National Minorities and by Leaders of Hungarian National Minorities

The two-part morning session offered a fascinating study in contrasts. Three speakers from Western Europe described the many creative and effective ways in which the issues vital to national and ethnic minorities can be (and are!) managed to the satisfaction of minority and majority alike. Then, four speakers from Central and Eastern Europe described reverse conditions, where minority rights are systematically violated in their home countries.

The discussion moderator, Mr. Paul Goble, Senior Fellow at the Potomac Foundation, offered highly stimulating opening remarks, starting with a joke which compared the current policy vacuum in approaching national minority issues -- in East and West alike - to a free fall off a tall cliff into oblivion. (Of course, the morning speakers from Western Europe demonstrated that this "free fall" has in many cases been going on for centuries, and that viable means have been found to manage conflict)

Mr. Goble provided highly illuminating insights into three issues:

First, he described the change which has come about in the meaning of the term national self-determination, clarifying the vital question of who exactly is perceived

to be the possessor of this right Originally, this Wilsonian principle meant that every nation ("people") should have its own state. After 1945, the West, in promoting decolonization, redefined national selfdetermination in terms of state borders, not peoples, and ethnic affiliation was de-linked from the concept This development accounts for the reluctance of the international community today to recognize the right of minority groups to create thenown, new, not pre-existing states.

Second, Mr. Goble identified an eye-opening conceptual dichotomy, when he drew a distinction between sovereignty and independence. It is possible, he said, to construct states where groups have sovereignty, but not independence.

Finally, Mr. Goble traced the modern-day drive for supra-national integration. The emerging issue, he said, was not the number of new states in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but the transparency of borders between them. Mr. Goble appeared to lament the passing from states to supra-national organizations of the responsibility for the protection of national minorities.

Autonomy, Dr. Christoph Pan said, is the best prevention (antidote) against secession

1. Dr. Christoph Pan, President of the Federal Union of European Nationalities, described what he termed the "old issue in the new Europe," consisting basically of having twice as many peoples (70) in Europe as states. In the second part of his remarks, Dr. Pan traced the process of gaining autonomy for South Tyrol, a region formerly part of Austria which passed to Italy in 1919 and whose population is two-thirds German. The lesson he drew from this positive historical experience is very important and deserves repetition: Autonomy, he said, is the best prevention (antidote) against secession

2. Mr. Joan Valivá, Member of the European Parliament, and formerly Head of the Catalan Autonomous Chancellery in Spain, enumerated the many areas in which the government of Catalonia is able to exercise legislative powers (culture, education, public administration, police), enabling self-administration in all areas of importance to the Catalan people. Mr. Valivá pointed out one of the many positive results of this enlightened arrangement While only 60% of the population is Catalan, fully 94% understand the Catalan language.

3. Professor Chasper Pult, President of Lia Rumantscha, representing the Raeto-Romansch minority in Switzerland, illuminated the similarly enlightened handling of his minority's aspirations. He passed around in the audience his passport and a Swiss banknote to demonstrate that one of the languages found on these documents is Romansch, even though less than one percent of the population of Switzerland belongs to this group. Professor Pult cited as a critical and ideal circumstance that at a very early age (during the first three years of school) in hk canton, children learn the Romansch language. The Swiss Federation as a whole allows for the sharing of power between the central government and cantons, and this form of coexistence enables the effective protection of national minorities. The outcome is that minorities can retain their identity without harboring exclusivist or expansionist or aggressive sentiments. Romansch people, Professor Pult concluded, feel different, although they continue to identify with being Swiss.

The descriptions and comments of the first three speakers lifted a veil of confusion often surrounding the issue of minorities. We recoil at the horrors of inter-ethnic warfare in Bosnia, and are accustomed to dismissing minority issues as uncivilized, hopelessly complex and intractable differences, best papered over and abandoned in some lost historical by-road on the path to progressive enlightenment The Western European speakers showed that ethnic affiliation is a source of enrichment, not just conflict. Where the political will is present and the societal arena is sufficiently mature, disputes can be handled, and legitimate needs can, and frequently are, resolved to mutual satisfaction. The beneficiary can be the whole of society which finds strength in diversity, instead of viewing ethnic pluralism as some threatening weakness, to be feared, excised and discarded.

The conditions described by the three West European speakers are the envy of the four speakers from Central and Eastern Europe, collectively representing the largest national minority -- 3.5 million Hungarians -- in the region. Non-homogeneous, they are as diverse as the four countries (Slovakia, Ukraine, Rumania and Serbia) from which they come. Yet each of the Hungarian minority communities are the same in terms of being non-immigrant populations, inhabiting the same region (until 1919, part of Hungary) for one thousand years. Generally speaking, ethnic

Special Edition - 1995 • Hungarian American Coalition News *4