Petőcz Kálmán (szerk.): National Populism and Slovak - Hungarian Relations in Slovakia 2006-2009 (Somorja, 2009)
Annex
Annex - Kálmán Petőcz tic of the incumbent administration’s policies abroad than Robert Fico. His hosts abroad as well as his foreign guests in Slovakia were regularly subjected to listening to his harsh criticism of Slovakia (that is, if we accept his own logic that criticizing the incumbent administration equals attacking the state as such). The same applies to leaders of opposition parties who after the 2006 parliamentary elections considered requesting EU organs to monitor the Slovak Republic on grounds of the country’s alleged anti-democratic development. But as soon as the status of national minorities is at stake, all Slovak politicians suddenly seem to agree that it is a domestic issue that should not be tackled abroad. A similar consensus among Slovak political players (but also most media commentators and political analysts) prevailed in initial stages of the case of battered student Hedviga Malinová. Before the 2006 parliamentary elections, one of principal theses presented by Robert Fico was that ‘Slovakia was not ruled by law’ because interests of the political establishment penetrated the economy, the judiciary and all other spheres of society. The new opposition embraced the same rhetoric after the elections, only with an opposite sign. Unfortunately, this rhetoric somehow did not apply to the case of Hedviga Malinová; here, any ‘interference’ by SMK-MKP leaders or expression of anxiety on the part of Hungarian government officials was dismissed with an argument that ‘Slovakia is a country ruled by law that has independent courts of law and law enforcement organs whose investigation and conclusions should be trusted’. Only after some investigative journalists unearthed serious evidence questioning case investigators’ independence did opposition leaders along with media commentators and political analysts slowly begin to change their position on the case. Stereot/pe 5 : CEoqRApbic names must bE ín state lANquAqE Since the dispute over geographic names in textbooks for schools with Hungarian as the language of instruction has several dimensions, we will discuss this issue in greater detail. A. Once again, it is easy to detect the already described tactics of pointing out ‘above-standard’ or ‘excessive’ demands presented by ethnic Hungarians as Slovak government officials obviously strive to put the entire matter in exactly the opposite light than it actually is. First of all, few Slovak citizens are aware that in the mentioned textbooks the geographic names were previously indicated in Hungarian while Slovak equivalents were featured in parentheses; likewise, few Slovak citizens are aware that the standard practice in all ‘civilized’ European countries is to use estab282
