The Eighth Tribe, 1981 (8. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1981-04-01 / 4. szám
If YOU were born today to Hungarian Parents in the ancient Hungarian Homeland of Transylvania: 1. The name chosen for you by your parents would be arbitrarily changed by the registering authorities to suit the Ceau8escu-policy of Rumanization. Should your parents try to endorse you with the simple ntme of “János”,, your official papers would declare you “Juon”, but if they had the courage to endow you with one of the old historic names like “Árpád” or “Csaba”, they would be subjected to endless harassment by the local authorities, and you would end up with the official name of “Trajan” or “Micea.” 2. Your parents would hardly dare to have you baptized in' a church. They would either abandon the idea of baptism completely in fear of reprisals, like loss of job, harassment by the police, or they would ask a minister to visit their home one day and perform the ritual in secret. 3. After reaching the age of three, your parents would be obliged by law to take you to the compulsory state-controlled nursery where you would hear nothing but Rumanian spoken, and where you are drilled to answer these two principal questions in Rumanian: who are you ? and what are you ? To the first question you have to state your name in Rumanian, like “Juon Sabau” instead of Szabó János, while the anBwer to the second question is: “I am a good little Rumanian!” Your adherence to these indoctrinations will be checked several times during your early years in your home also, by visiting authorities. In case your parents are loyal patriotic Hungarians, and they teach you at home your own Hungarian cultural heritage, you may easily blurt out one day: “I am a good little Hungarian1! (We know of several cases.) Your parents will be ordered to report to the dreaded SECURITATE, where they will be scolded, beaten and warned that if your “defiant and unpatriotic behaviour” does not change shortly, you will be taken away from them and placed in a statecontrolled orphans’ home. 4. After nursery and kindergarten your parents may have the choice to entroll you into a Hungarian-language grade school if there is still one left in your immediate neighborhood. According to law, 25 Hungarian pupils are needed to justify the maintenance of a Hungarian-language class. However, the presence of one Rumanian child THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY suffices to change the language of instruction from Hungarian to Rumanian. Due to the constant transfer of Rumanian families into the Hungarian-inhabited areas, the use of the Hungarian language in the grade schools is diminishing rapidly. Nevertheless, if you were lucky enough to enter one of the few remaining grade schools where the language of instruction is still Hungarian, you will pay a high price for this privilege after you finish the sixth grade. Rumanianlanguage schools will not take you in, no matter how well you speak, read and write the Rumanian language. Since there are only a very few schools left in Hungarian-inhabited Transylvania still operating on the higher levels in the Hungarian language, your chance for an education ends here. You are condemned for the rest of your life to low-paid manual labor. Should you be lucky to live in a larger Hungarian City where you may still find a Hungarian high school, you can graduate there, but it will not do you too much good. You will not be able to enter college, and your diploma from the Hungarian - language high school will not qualify you for jobs usually requiring no more than' high school degree. The Department of Labor of the Rumanian State will assign you to manual labor of the lowest kind, and there is no way you can1 ever change that. In Rumania you do not apply for jobs. The jobs are assigned to you officially. 5. If your parents enrolled you into a Rumanian language school, you may choose any profession you like, and for which you show talent. You can end up with a doctor’s degree, in spite of being born Hungarian. But as soon as you finish school you will be assigned to a job far removed from home, somewhere in old Rumania, in a completely Rumanian environment. You will have there a one-room housing unit allocated to you, and after you get married there you will have the privilege to lease nearby a garden-plot for your family’s use. 6. Should you end up as a factory worker you will be officially retired from the job at the age of forty-five. You immediately lose your right to home and garden. While your Rumanian counterpart is assigned to another job, you, as a Hungarian are faced with a tragedy. You have no job, and no retirement pay. You have no future, unless you are able to prove to the authorities that you gave up your Hungarian heritage, you became a “good Rumanian”, your children don’t V
