Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interaction, migration and change
240 Maruška Svašek ply nothing happens. Nothing at all.” As noted before, his frustration and anger made him even more determined to persevere. This again shows how emotions can be conceptualised as a driving force which empower people to take action in specific social contexts. Hulshoffs case also demonstrates that people actively manage emotions, and attempt to change other people’s emotional states to attain certain goals. The Dutchman tried to create good relationships with key figures in the privatisation process, such as with one of the regional directors of the Pozemkový fond, by taking them out for lunches. He also admitted to having threatened some “hopeless” local bureaucrats by telling them that he would contact their bosses in Prague and ensure that they were fired. "Nice words don’t work in this country," he said. “The only thing that has any effect is fear.” Justifying the right to buy “stolen property" The Dutchman knew that the village had once belonged to the Sudeten Germans. Each year, he was directly confronted with this fact when the expellees held their annual ritual in the square between the school and the parsonage, and knocked on his door to ask if they could take a look inside. “We had whole crowds in our house", he told me. “They pointed out the class rooms where they used to sit. Well, we are always very friendly to them.” When I asked him whether anyone had ever accused him of living in "stolen property”, he said: “Yes they did. They are actually always friendly, but once I had a discussion with some of those Germans, and they told me that everything had been stolen from them.” Hulshoff, however, did not feel any guilt whatsoever, and fervently approved of the post-war mass expulsion: I I told them: “I don’t agree with you. As a German community you lived in Czechoslovakia so you were Czechs (meaning Czechoslovak citizens). Subsequently, you chose to support an aggressive state. The fact that you were punished for that...well, such things have happened throughout history. If
