A Hungarian schoolboy.

By 1990, it was no longer compulsory to learn Russian in Hungary. Students celebrated, no longer forced to learn the “language of oppression.” But fast-forward to 2009, and Hungary may be facing a foreign language gap — a 2004 study showed fewer Hungarians spoke second languages than almost any other country in Europe, except Britain. 

Eva S. Balogh is a Hungarian academic and blogger who writes at “Hungarian Spectrum” about the state of language education in her country. 

Learning a language in Hungary

The teaching of foreign languages in Hungarian schools is bad. Very, very bad. As far back as I can remember it was bad. Although my father in the early part of the twentieth century managed to learn German and French quite well in gymnasium, by the time I got to gymnasium it was a hopeless proposition.

Let me recount my own tortuous linguistic journey. Aside from being enrolled in a so-called German-language kindergarten where we learned no German whatsoever, I started studying French in grade five. [...] Although the parochial school I attended was run by a French order (Notre Dame), out of the four parallel classes they taught German in three and French in only one.

Our French teacher by Hungarian standards wasn’t even half bad. The fact that she was a nun stood her in good stead in mastering a foreign language. Because she majored in French she was sent by the order to a French university for a couple of years. So she could at least speak the language tolerably well. However, the class focused on reading and writing, with virtually no conversation. So after three years of French I switched to Russian. That was an interesting experience. I don’t think our teacher knew more Russian than we did. I.e. zero. She was at best a couple of lessons ahead of us. Not surprisingly we learned practically nothing by the end of the year.

[...]With the change of regime Russian was no longer a compulsory language. So students rushed to English, German, and French classes. But who were their teachers? The former Russian teachers who tried to learn English, German, or French with the same poor results as the German and French teachers who had earlier tried to learn Russian.

Today, aside from the lack of experienced teachers, the problem seems to be the same as in earlier times. Students don’t learn to communicate in a foreign language; they can neither speak nor comprehend. They are in the same boat as the Hungarian students who were trying to converse with the Russian soldiers in 1956.

Some people have tried to explain Hungarian deficiencies in learning a foreign language by pointing out that Hungarian is not an Indo-European language and therefore Hungarian speakers find it harder to learn a western language. This is hogwash. Finns manage; the percentage of Finns speaking one or two foreign languages is among the highest in Europe. Moreover, Hungarians find it easier to learn a western language than to learn Finnish whose grammatical structure is very similar to Hungarian. 

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

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Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany has announced his intention to resign.

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany officially announced his resignation to the parliament on Monday, leaving no clear successor in one of Europe’s worst-hit economies.

On Saturday, he had indicated his willingness to resign at a meeting of his Socialist party, saying “I hear that I am the obstacle to the cooperation required for changes, for a stable governing majority and the responsible behavior of the opposition.”

John Horvath is a citizen journalist for OhMyNews. He explores the political motivations behind Gyurcsany’s decision to resign and Hungary’s future.

Hungary descends further into chaos

In a bold political move, Hungary’s Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany announced his intention to resign at a congress of the ruling Socialist Party on Saturday. While this may have come as a surprise to some, for others this announcement was something to be expected sooner or later. Over 90 percent of Hungarians feel that the country is heading in the wrong direction and the prime minister’s popularity rating is at an all-time low of 18 percent.

The prime minister’s offer to resign, however, comes with strings attached. His offer only stands if parliament can agree within the next two weeks on a person to take his place. Already this looks highly unlikely. The country’s largest opposition party, the Young Democrats (FIDESZ), is refusing to nominate anyone and is calling for early elections instead. Accordingly, replacing the person of the prime minister will not do much as the ability to enact policy still lies in the way power is distributed within parliament. Only with new elections and a redistribution of power does FIDESZ see a solution to the present crisis.

Meanwhile, as the former junior coalition partner, the so-called “liberals” or Free Democrats (SZDSZ), has taken up the challenge and is presently looking for someone to replace Gyurcsany, the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) has already put forward its own divisive candidate, Lajos Bokros. Bokros was the finance minister during the Socialist government of Gyula Horn (1994-8) and was renowned for introducing a set of austerity measures commonly referred to as the “Bokros Package.” Recently his nomination as the MDF’s leading candidate for the upcoming European Union elections led to a major upheaval within the party, culminating in some members leaving the party and the MDF losing its faction status in parliament. This means that members of the party can now only sit as independents and are restricted in what they can do or take part in.

Although Bokros is so far the first concrete name to surface as a possible successor to Gyurcsany, the likelihood of this happening is remote. Many still have ill feelings regarding the Bokros Package some 15 years ago. Hence, while from an economist’s view Bokros would seem to be a fair choice, from a political standpoint he is unpalatable.

It’s quite clear that the prime minister’s offer to resign is nothing more than a calculated ploy to help bolster his popularity ratings within his own party. Knowing that the various parties can’t agree among themselves, Gyurcsany can claim to have ceded to opposition demands to step down. In turn, the inability of parliament to come up with a replacement then vindicates his position that the problem is not with him but with the opposition, for when given the opportunity to act it fails to do so. In the end, Gyurcsany is made to look like an honest statesman who is willing to do what is best for the country.

This ploy is also intended on helping to reconstruct the shattered coalition between the Socialists and the liberals, bringing them closer together. [...] Without a doubt, the political theater going on in parliament will only add to the economic chaos and social angst in Hungary. To observers on the outside, the political system in Hungary seems to be falling apart. For many within the country, the battles being raged are simply the clash of personalities of two leading politicians: Ferenc Gyurcsany on the left, and Victor Orban of the FIDESZ on the right. Neither side appears willing to leave the stage until it has seen the other utterly vanquished. As a result, the country appears to be adrift with no one capable of taking control of the situation.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user World Economic Forum under a Creative Commons license.

Gypsy musicians in Budapest.

Hungary has one of the largest Roma communities in eastern Europe. Gypsies make up 5 to 7 percent of the country’s 10 million people.

But the Roma often face hardship and prejudice, and many live in poverty. Even Albert Pasztor, the chief of police in Hungary’s third largest city, stated last year that “gypsy and Hungarian culture cannot coexist without conflict.”

Eva S. Balogh is a Hungarian academic and blogger who writes at “Hungarian Spectrum” about how gypsies have fared under different Hungarian governments over the past half-century, and discusses how they might fit in with Hungarian society today.

Hungarian Gypsies in the Kádár regime and since

It wasn’t too many years ago that Gypsies still led a nomadic life. I was a very small child, perhaps four years old and not very brave, when my father stopped the car in the Mecsek Mountains above Pécs in order to meet a large Gypsy family living in tents in the woods right off the highway. I remember that I wasn’t too thrilled: it was a very strange world only a few kilometers from the city. But even in the summer of 1956 when three of my classmates and I were walking through the mountains on a marked path, out of the blue on both sides of the path a very large Gypsy family was camping. Or perhaps several.

Today these people are settled, three quarters of them in very small villages mostly in Northern Hungary and in Southern Transdanubia, especially in Baranya country, south of Pécs, close to the Croatian-Hungarian border.

Some of these villages were utterly transformed in the last fifty years or so. They are now inhabited almost entirely by Gypsies. Here is one example. I’m somewhat familiar with the village of Old. According to the 1910 census Old had a population of 502 out of which most likely the number of Gypsies was 59. In the 1910 census Gypsies were not specifically designated as such but were put under the rubric of “Others.” Today the village has a population of 370 or so and according to the latest reports (an article in Dunántúli Napló) the whole population of the village is Roma.

How did this happen? I remember visiting the village as a twelve-year-old and by then, during the Rákosi regime, the Gypsies who lived outside of the village were forcibly settled in the houses of better-off villagers. To this day, I remember a rather odd conversation with a middle aged man who wanted to know whether my family would perhaps be interested in hiring his daughter. He explained to me how useful she would be for us: among other things she could bring water from the well!

I’m relating this so that you would understand that sixty years ago some Gypsies were that unfamiliar with the modern world. Sure, there were the elegant Gypsies who played music in practically every restaurant. But today even that opportunity is pretty well closed. There are very few restaurants with live music, and especially not Gypsy music. So starting with the Rákosi regime and continuing under the Kádár regime the nomadic Gypsies were settled, mostly in villages.

[...]More and more people say that Gypsies under the age of thirty-five should be compelled to finish at least eight grades and learn a trade. Otherwise there is no hope for improvement in the future. But what is their incentive?

My preliminary, admittedly feeble thoughts go along the following lines. Find some things that Gypsies love to do and start competitions. And promote them. Basically, make Gypsies people the rest of the Hungarian population can root for. And as the top prize award not only money but an advertising spot. Create a Magic Johnson or a Tiger Woods. However primitive this suggestion, the idea behind it is to have Hungarians start to accept their Roma brethren, even occasionally cheer for them. If one can get to this level, then the government can start to impose some anti-discrimination legislation without a crippling pushback from the population.

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The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user abac077 under a Creative Commons license.

In response to failing economies, the IMF has issued emergency loans of close to $49 billion to countries including Pakistan, Hungary, Ukraine, Latvia and Iceland.

The Icelandic government has virtually collapsed, as the prime minister resigned and the two-party ruling coalition fell apart — just months after the country’s banking system collapsed.

Riots and protests have already occurred in Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, leading to concern that the economic slide around the world is going to lead to much more unrest.

Michele Wucker, the executive director of the World Policy Institute, joins Martin Savidge to provide insight into the social and political fallout from the economic crisis. They discuss whether social unrest brought on by the financial climate is likely to grow and how world governments will respond to such unrest.

Below, bloggers from around the world discuss the political and social consequences of the economic crisis.

An Icelandic blogger at “The Huffington Post” writes about riots outside the Icelandic parliament building, issuing a plea for help to Barack Obama.

A blogger at the “National Post” writes that rioting in Iceland is the worst in over a century.

YouTube user “haukursmagnusson” has been sharing videos of protests in Iceland, including this footage from a large protest in Reykjavik:

The “All About Latvia” blog writes that peaceful protests turned violent in Latvia’s capital city, while blogger “wanchope” provides images.

The “Baltic” blog discusses how Latvia’s protesting farmers may shake up the political scene, arguing that the present government is “living in a power bubble.”

The “Europe EcoMonitor” blog writes about possibly policy solutions for governments facing social unrest, forecasting future protests in Romania and Hungary.

The “Hungarian Spectrum” blog writes about an economic summit in Budapest, as Hugarian leaders attempt economic reform.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user scarndp under a Creative Commons license.

A gas station in Budapest.

Russia’s dispute with Ukraine over gas prices has impacted other European nations whose gas shipments pass through Ukraine. Hungarian imports from Russia were down more than 20 percent on Tuesday, but the country still has more gas than others cut off in the dispute — Hungary plans to deliver gas to Serbia, which has no gas reserves.

Gazprom, a state-controlled Russian energy company and the world’s largest producer of natural gas, reduced gas supplies to Ukraine after accusing the country of stealing 65.3 million cubic meters of gas since Jan. 1.

Eva S. Balogh is a Hungarian academic and blogger who writes at “Hungarian Spectrum” about her country’s position in the gas dispute. 

Crisis after crisis: now it is gas

There is a Hungarian slang expression: “there is gas” (gáz van). It means there is big trouble. The big trouble now is that there is no gas. That is, there is no gas coming from Russia via Ukraine. Of course, the trouble would be greater if Hungary didn’t have enough reserves to survive for at least two more months. Other countries–Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Serbia, for example–are in much bigger trouble because they have practically no reserves. Serbia already turned to Hungary yesterday for help. The initial Hungarian answer was negative, but by today the Hungarian government decided that after all it could spare a couple of billion m³ of gas because yesterday Hungarian consumption was lower than expected. Also Hungary has some natural gas of its own and a smaller amount reaches the country from Austria as well. Thus while Bulgaria and Slovakia are entirely dependent on Russian gas, Hungary relies on Russian gas for somewhere between 50% and 75% of its needs. Today, for example, 4 billion m³ gas arrived from Austria. The problem is that countries in Eastern Europe that depend on Russian gas can’t really help each other because there are no pipelines between Romania and Bulgaria, or Hungary and Slovakia, or Romania and Hungary.

No one knows what the real situation is between the warring business partners, Russia and Ukraine. If one can believe the Russian ambassador to Hungary, there are four “faucets” that can be turned on or off. Three of these were shut off by Ukraine yesterday morning and only then did Russia move to shut off the one remaining “faucet.” The Ukrainians’ version of events, not surprisingly, is different. They claim that they would be most willing to send on any natural gas that arrives in their pipelines. But there is none. The Russians have shut off the flow of gas.

Then there are the two entirely different interpretations of the Russian-Ukrainian feud. There are those who claim that it is simply a business quarrel while others think that it is fundamentally a political issue. Russia is putting economic pressure on Ukraine to keep it within the fold. Ukraine, on the other hand, is looking westward; it wants to belong to NATO and eventually to the European Union. A Hungarian political scientist currently in Kiev views the crisis solely in political terms, a manifestation of Russia’s imperial aspirations. Even the Russian ambassador to Hungary admitted that Russia is unhappy with Ukrainian political ambitions. I’m inclined to think that Russia’s dispute with Ukraine is not solely economic. Russia’s loss of Ukraine must still be hard to swallow. After all, with the exception of a very brief period after World War I when Ukraine became independent, it was an integral part of Russia for over three centuries. Also there is a huge Russian population within Ukraine’s borders.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user zsoolt under a Creative Commons license.

In Ukraine, today’s political realities and yesterday’s revolutionary dreams may not be in line, and progress has come slowly.

In Poland, the anti-Soviet Polish Solidarity movement has reinvented itself in a democratic and economically strong Poland.

In the Czech Republic, the younger generation knows little about the Russian invasion and subsequent demonstrations that took place 40 years ago, and the country has problems discussing its past.

In Hungary, people still commemorate 1956 revolution — when approximately 200,000 Hungarians gathered in front of the country’s Parliament to demand an end to Soviet rule. Even as they move forward, Hungarians never quite leave the past behind.

Correspondent Dave Marash reports in a Worldfocus signature series: After the Fall.

The revolt ended in defeat, with thousands of Hungarians killed and many others injured or imprisoned. Nonetheless, the revolt and its participants are still commemorated in Hungary each year.

Special correspondent Dave Marash reports from Hungary, which never quite leaves the past behind as it moves forward.

Below, bloggers discuss the lasting effects of the revolution and its commemoration today.

Blogger “Marilyn” describes and posts images from this year’s anniversary in Hungary, traveling to a cemetary in Budapest where many of the revolutionaries are buried.

The “Stucki Family” blog — written by Americans who have lived in Hungary for two years — writes about the resolve of the Hungarian people.

The “Hungarian Spectrum” blog writes that in Hungary today, political parties portray the revolution in very different lights.

The 1956 revolution in Hungary has also been compared to many modern conflicts.

American blogs of differing political persuasions have likened Hungary in 1956 to Georgia in 2008, including Michelle Malkin and The Huffington Post.

The “pentafluoropyridine” blog discusses U.S. inaction in Hungary in 1956 compared to action in Iraq today in response to a statement from President George Bush on the Oct. 23 anniversary.

Telis Demos of Fortune Magazine explains these efforts and says that with many more classes of assets poised to fail, the economy has not yet hit bottom as the financial crisis continues.

The Hungarian forint faced record declines this week.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it will provide a loan to Hungary (among other countries) in order to encourage stability in the country’s market. While the size of the loan was not announced, analysts have suggested it will be over $10 billion.

Hungary has been hard-hit by the financial crisis, and its leaders expect a recession in 2009. The country recently held a national summit of financial and political leaders to discuss short-term response to the upheaval.

John Horvath is a citizen journalist for OhMyNews. He criticizes the outcome of the summit and the Hungarian government’s overall response to the crisis.

Storm in a Teacup?

A week last Saturday the Prime Minister of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsany, called a “national summit” in order to address the financial crisis facing the country. Leading members from the political and business class were all in attendance. Oddly enough, while the purpose of this summit was to bring together all stakeholders in order to exchange ideas on how to best face the global financial crisis, many were not invited. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil organisations were noticeably absent as well as leaders from Hungary’s Roma minority. In essence the government felt that these groups weren’t important when it comes to major issues facing the country and that they have nothing to offer in terms of input.

Aside from this, it quickly became clear that the national summit was nothing more than a photo-op for the present government and an opportunity for political parties to score rhetorical points and further their own agenda. As some foreign observers later noted, the national summit showed to the world everything that Hungary could offer with the exception of unity.

Yet unity in itself is not essential for a country to constructively deal with the present financial crisis. At this point in time innovative ideas are needed on how to deal with an imploding economic ideology called capitalism — not fancy speeches. Sadly, the national summit in Hungary was full of such fancy speeches. The ideas tossed about were shallow and lacked any imagination. Most were simply the stale phrases of the past that sounded nice in theory but in practice signified little or nothing at all.

To read more, visit the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user lanchutt under a Creative Commons license.