Culture and conflict: defaming what neighbors hold holy

by Laszlo Petrovics Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

All the world‘s a stage, all men and women on it merely its prayers. As You Like It (or not)

The new arguments against ideological Isms in Hungary are troublesome, and translate to far more than a “play on words” or recasting a textual reality. They have started to eek blood. People here express rage, without expressing it directly. The danger has long been expressed that this will turn from veiled aggression to actual violence. In terms of actual economic disadvantage felt newly by the masses as existential hardship, the daily struggle to survive is frought with anxiety for which they blame minorities –Jews, Gypsies, Gays, foreigners, and foreign interests.

To focus on how one hurts oneself and others, understanding social boundaries are important. But many people here are simply blind to this. If one steals, one has hurt another person’s trust –stolen bike be gone, one has stayed to experience “the little dying”. If one becomes homeless, this is another loss of a boundary. In this case, the „boundary“ is shelter from the elements – but the homeless have stayed to experience “the little dying.” If an addict punctures his body with a needle –for the first time having risked a critically dangerous step –he has overstepped a boundary, his own skin. He may never return alive from “the little dying.”

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AS A DANGEROUS PUN
In a literal sense –the borders of nations are also “boundaries.” Many High School students of business will learn that regulating Trans National trade requires much more than border guards, or guards around the “boundary” of countries. Before 1989 the Iron Curtain was a boundary that cut off many countries and most citizens from open freedom to travel, trade, or cross borders.

At the exhibit opened July 26, 2009, at the Terror House Museum (Terror Háza), called “Átvágva,” the program focuses on Hungarians taking a leading role in 1989, twenty years ago, in cutting the wires that made up the Iron Curtain. This allowed East Germans to stream across Austria to loved ones in West Germany.

The word, “Átvágva,” as the exhibit is called, refers to the barbed wires having been cut. Of present continuous tense, it is like the word “walking,” as in the phrase “keep on walking.” But in reference to this rupture in history, the term generally used is Átvágott, meaning that it had already taken place, namely over 20 years ago, June 27, 1989. The Hungarian reader whom the placard addresses in Hungarian understands at once that the exhibit reflects an ongoing process of cutting „even now.“ So many ask, “What is continuing to be cut?”

For some Hungarians, the question raised by the Terror Háza placard, What is ongoing? may clarify when one understands that „Átvágva” also means, literally, “scam.” As hard as it is to imagine for many westerners, the disappointments in self-determined choice undermined the paternalism of Communism. In fact, many felt themselves all the more enslaved to uncertain forces beyond their control. Few, including the new business specialists calling themselves accountants could explain the APEH system of taxes. A new type of consultant called political scientist could not explain constitutional law. The masses felt “cheated” by the changes. Security undermined, so was trust, and eventually belief in human goodness. Security, trust, love –develop in that order, according to psychologist Maslow. To allow for an informal voice, “átvágva” for many Hungarians literally also meant, “We got screwed, and (being of continuous present tense) are continuing to ‘get it.’”

The man shown cutting the wire on the placard is reputedly a former KGB (Stalinist) collaborator, allegedly involved in torturing during the Revolution of 1956, but also became Prime Minister in 1994. That he is also heralded as Jewish reveals the ugly, undigested historically-based pains mixing religion and politics. That he undertook one of the most rapid privatizations –from which many gains are by now squandered by political corruption, requiring new, painful sacrifices –leaves the information of the placard all the more open to personalized “interpretation” (for Hungarian readers of a ’nationalist’ leaning) as a mixed blessing and of the “olden days” as a viable option.

Gyula Horn is seen cutting the Iron Curtain between Hungary and Austria in 1989. A western official is pictured holding the wire as a souvenier. One piece like that is in the White House, guilded in gold. The Berlin Wall was also a „boundary.“ Parts of the Berlin Wall were cut up for expensive „keep-sake,“ as garden decorations.

But why were many people who suffered under Communism troubled by „sourveniers“ from what made others suffer? Is it inevitable for pent up aggression to be loosed by the conquering forces? Such a „catharsis model“ of change, or lack of change, is used by extremists to argue that „unworked“ trauma in some post-Auschwitz Hungarian Jewish leadership allowed „unworked“ Stalinist aggressions and post-Communist corruption.

MUTUAL DEFILEMENT OF MEMORIAL: Three Important Memorials
When all the world is a stage, and Hungarian extremism is aspiring

1. Not kosher. Pictured below is the well-known Danube Embankment Shoah Memorial. It recalls the sacrificing of the Budapest Jewry in 1944 by lining them up, having them undress, and shooting countless men, women, and children into the Danube.

Soa in Hungarian is a homonym for the Hungarian word „soha.“ Soa means „to destroy completely,“ but „soha“ means “never.” Several Right Wing newspapers wrote this year, „When will we remember Shoa, „soha.“ ie. That is, „We will never remember.“ Wiesnethal, Zuroff rolling over (hardly from jest), this is the very opposite of the knell from decades of Holocaust Education, „We will never forget.“ This Shoah Memorial is important for many Jews world-wide, especially Hugarian Jews, and of those, the immediate, elderly Survivors.

2. Even eagles get to lay eggs. The Turul, or Eagle, is part of Hungarian national history. It is part of the mythology of how the wandering Magyar tribe discovered their nation in the Carpathian Basin over 1000 years ago. Also, the word „turul” is part of ancient Hungarian language that was forgotten due to assimilation and revived only 150 years ago by poets of the Romantic and patriotic period. It is part of national identity, and as a word, part of „linguistic identity.” Often shown with a sword, or some weapon, the Eagle is a symbol of strength for many nations.

One always sees the Turul with a weapon. But in the picture above, the bird is also represented with St. Steven’s crown.

3. Another clown „when all the world is a stage,“ was cast of St. Steven (St. István), no lesser figure than the Father or Founder of Hungary. His crown was considered so Holy that all during Communism, after 1948, it was taken to Washington, D.C.. and protected by the government of the United States of America for safety. It was given back only during President Carter’s tenure, after he felt assured it would not be destroyed.

How does one act of defilement lead to another?
1. On the left wing: Just days prior to the Memorial Ceremony by the Danube, 2009, when the names of Survivors are read, the a controversial, major Turul Statue –a national symbol – in the center of Buda Hill was defiled. A young „artist“ placed a „mock, plastic“ figure of St. István’s forehand into its mouth.

2. Right wing. Then, as a reaction to this „defilement,“ the next day the Memorial Ceremony at the Danube was defiled. A number of the shoes were filled with pigs feet, by extremists.

Cabbaret? Until they actually geared up in the EU Parliament. Disbanded by court-ruling, this past June 2009, the Garda reformed in several days. The political party, Job-bik, the extreme Right, won 15% of the votes to gain 3 seats in the EU Parliament. It has scrambled since to lift its name beyond Cabbaret. Its EU representive, Morvai Krisztina, in her first major speech before the EU Human Rights Commission reiterated police brutality from 2006, but ignored Roma “race-killings” from just days prior. Extremist, nationalist militias, much like those pictured above, are now on the rise across Europe.