The Eighth Tribe, 1978 (5. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1978-07-01 / 7. szám
Page 8 THE EIGHTH TRIBE July, 1978 ALBERT WASS: LITERATURE, THE DOOR TO JUSTICE AND LIBERTY We have become accustomed lately to the fact that the world around us does not confer sympathy and help in the same measure to every human being and every nation. Some get more, some get less, and some have to endure with nothing. Mistreatment of communists in non-communist countries gains worldwide attention, calling forth anger, rebuke, and economic as well as political reprisals. Mass-murders committed by communists rarely make the headlines. In regard to our own case: the problems surrounding three-million Jews in Israel are day by day in the center of world-wide attention and publicity, while the plight of the equally three-million Transylvanian Hungarians, threatened with annihilation and genocide by the government of the Socialist Republic of Rumania, reminiscent of Hitler in methods and motivations, does not seem to concern anyone. These are facts we have become accustomed to in today’s world. However, it does not have to be so. World-reaction to daily events depends entirely on the extent these events reach publicity, become known by the masses of people, and touch upon worldopinion. World-opinion, on the other hand, is nothing more than the result of factual knowledge made accesible to and absorbed by the general public. LITERATURE is the tool by which this process can be accomplished. Factual knowledge spread by the printed word forms public opinion and triggers organized human reactions to events which are revolting to basic human decency and sense of justice. The strongest defensive weapon of the weak and oppressed is literature. Once this fact is recognized, and talents, efforts, as well as material resources are focused on producing and utilizing these weapons, the tide of history begins to turn. In reference to the defense of the Hungarians in Transylvania, our arsenal of publications has become quite adequate in these last few years. All we have to do now in order to direct public attention to the Transylvanian Case is to use what is available to us. Use it boldly, on a large scale, making the information already printed available to everyone. Listed here are the most recently published books on Transylvania in the English language, classified according to their range of applicability. It must be up to the reader to decide the scale and the range of his or her own involvement in our struggle for liberty and justice to the Hungarians in Transylvania. 1. The Early History of the Rumanian Language, by André Du Nay (Jupiter Press, 360 MacLaren Lane, Lake Bluff, 111. 60044, Forum Linguisticum, Vol. II, No. 1. Aug. 1977, Edward Sapir Monograph Series in Language, Culture and Cognition) This is a purely scholastic work of high quality, dedicated to unbiased research and aimed toward the academic community of the world. The author is a prominent European scholar of the Rumanian language. As he states in his introduction: “During and after the first World War, the political situation in South-East Europe made the question of the origin of the Rumanian people a topic of political debate. In spite of the fact that the problem is in reality a strictly scientific one, considerations alien to objective investigation are still prevailing in this field.” Prof. Robert A. Hall, Jr., adds to this in his Foreword: “The merit of the present book is that it marshals and presents the evidence on behalf of the ‘non- Dacian’ hypothesis.” This long-needed scholastic work should be on the shelves of every university library. * « * 2. Transylvania: the Hungarian Minority in Rumania, by Julia Nánav I Danuhian Press, Astor, Fla. 32002, Problems Behind the Iron Curtains Series No. 10, 1976, $5.00) This hook was written under the guidance and supervision of the faculty of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, with the purpose of examining closely and objectively the political, cultural, economical and social aspects of the deplorable situation in which the largest ethnic minority of Europe, the Transylvanian Hungarians, are forced to exist today within the Socialist Republic of Rumania. Though since the publication of this book, the issue has become more aggravated due to certain events, Miss Nánay’s book is of great value because it deals with the basic problems facing any ethnic minority within a hostile and extremely nationalistc state concept. The survival of the Hungarians in Rumania, who are the native inhabitants of Transylvania for more than nine centuries and were plunged into minority status as the result of World War I and World War II is being endangered by the ever increasing pressures of discrimination, forced dispersion, relocation, colonization, and most of all by the ruthless brutality of Rumanian state agencies. (This book can also be purchased through Bethlen Press. Use order slip on last page).
