Prevention of Right-Wing Extremism, Xenophobia and Racism in ...

event known throughout Europe. Participants in Magyar Sziget include members of the press,
writers, journalists, bands, and businesses who constitute the core of extreme right-wing
ideologies in Hungary.
Anti-Roma sentiments
Based on perhaps the “richest” and most researched system of prejudice, most xenophobia
in Hungary manifests itself in widespread anti-Roma sentiments. There are approximately six
hundred thousand people of Roma descent living in Hungary and most live under poor social
and economic conditions. (These people are all without exception citizens of Hungary.)
The most important study in recent years is a survey prepared by the Minority Foundation
on a a nation-wide representative sample (Szabó & Örkény, 1998). The study revealed that 57 %
of students believed that gypsies were not part of the Hungarian nation (p. 203). These very
same students share the following attitudes towards different minorities:
Table 1: Percentage of respondents who claimed they would be bothered by the proximity of
minorities (%)
Grade eight Technical/ Secondary Grammar Adults
students vocational schoolstuschoolstu- (1995)
schoolstu- dents
dents dents
Roma 58 60 61 60 74
Arabs 26 38 28 18 52
Romanians 40 45 41 32 51
Chinese 21 32 23 17 48
Russians 35 38 24 15 40
Jews 28 38 19 10 30
Transylvanians 8 11 9 4 25
Slovakians 31 37 24 15 23
Germans 11 13 7 7 15
Average 28.67 34.67 25.78 19.78 38.78
The most recent anti-Roma incident that received great public attention was the airing of a
controversial musical entertainment program by one of the commercial TV channels called
My Big Fat Roma Wedding. The forty-minute show, made by a group of very popular musician
comedians, presented the Roma in the most sarcastic, humiliating, and commonplace man- man-
Right-Wing Extremism in Hungary
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