Hungarian American Coalition News, 2004 (13. évfolyam, 1-3. szám)

2004 / 2. szám

Following Yalta, the Western powers came to realize that the Faustian bargain they made in 1920 had taken on a life of its own, and would backfire on its very creators. Giving voice to this realization, Winston Churchill's speech of March 1946 envisioned the nightmare of an Iron Curtain that would in fact cut Europe in two. Six months later, Churchill urged the formation of a European (Western European) alliance. The former British prime minister realized that the Versailles system, created by his predecessors a quarter-century earlier, had become bankrupt and brought the whole of Europe to catastrophe. As a consequence of Churchill's proposal. the Schuman Plan was born, laying the foundation for the European alliance system that evolved into the present-day European Union.

The greater part of the Hungarian nation will become part of this alliance, ending for good the European division stemming from the Yalta agreement. However, the onerous consequences of the Trianon Treaty will not also end!

They will not be ended, but transformed. Transformed insofar that the Hungarians living in Hungary. Slovenia and Slovakia, will enjoy better living conditions. But Hungarians living in Romania. in Serbia, Croatia and Ukraine, will experience continued disadvantages.

The new division of the Hungarian nation, between those in the EU and those outside of it, poses a new threat to our nation’s unity. During the years after Trianon, we were at least united by the shared horror of the dismemberment and the hope of reunion. During communist rule, all Hungarians - though divided among several countries and largely prohibited from crossing the borders - were united by the experience of living under essentially the same system. After the change of regimes in 1990, the shared adventure of overthrowing communism and the vision of a common future tightened the bonds among the disparate parts of the Hungarian nation.

After accession to the Union, however, those left outside the borders of the Union are consigned to a geopolitical limbo. The present danger is that while the majority of the nation will enjoy more favorable conditions, one-sixth of it will be excluded. But the West, which perpetrated Hungary’s dismemberment, is not willing to make any concessions in the interest of a uniform policy for the whole of the Hungarian nation, because that - they say - would be discriminatory. When in 1920 we - and we alone - were deprived of the right of national self-determination, it did not occur to anybody that only the Hungarians were discriminated against and severely disadvantaged as compared to the treaty’s beneficiaries and the victorious powers. Today, the Hungarian nation and the government of Hungary must rally the civic solidarity and political will that are necessary to preserve our national unity despite the forces, which serve to divide us.

There is no need to despair. Instead, as part of our nation looks forward to improved prospects within the EU, we must take advantage of new opportunities that can serve to advance the unity of the nation as a whole.

Due to their proverbial pessimism, Hungarians have a penchant for discovering trouble even in the most auspicious situations. Indeed, we are already adept at listing everything that will be worse after we join the EU. Up to now we have concentrated only on the economic problems (a worsening wage/price ratio, the threat of foreign investment to our sovereignty, shifts in the labor force, the grim situation of the agricultural sector, etc.) We have paid little attention to the non-economic, strategic questions that concern the whole nation. Neither do we concern ourselves with the fiber of the European idea: it is not, and was not about money or economic issues; it was Greco-Roman civilization and Christianity, which made Europe a great power.

European integration, as envisioned in the Schuman Plan, was not based solely on economic cooperation, on a unified customs and fiscal system, but also on solidarity, on a sustainable European peace, and later on the harmonization of the legal systems. This, too, is the basis of the European community. These ideals also mean that some national issues remain unaffected by the European Union. One such issue, fortunately unaffected by the EU, is our national culture. Another such issue, unfortunately, is the legal status of national minorities.

June 2004 - Hungarian American Coalition - 3