Nation-Building and Contested Identities: Romanian & Hungarian ...

Can Democracy Work in Southeastern Europe?Adoption? Yes, but how to make this solution acceptable to theWest, since the experience of West Germany in adopting its Eastern halfproved to be more difficult and expensive than it was thought? A reasonableanswer can be found in the remedies identified by Gellner for calmingthe ethnic conflicts: (1) political stability and continuity; (2) economicaffluence; and (3) cultural pluralism and de-territorialization of nationalism.74 Taking these conditions as a starting point, I would argue that politicalstability and continuity favors accelerated change and reform. However,both majority and minority should avoid stances based, so to say, ona Boolean logic, that is, to operate with sets of two values, “true” and“false,” “yes” and “no.” Any maximalist claim would use a Boolean logic,and would make impossible any reasonable compromise, such as the claimfor territorial autonomy for the two Szekler counties of Harghita and Covasna,where ethnic Hungarians constitute a majority, or the claim that theHungarian minority should display an “absolute loyalty” towards theRomanian “unitary nation-state.”There is no doubt that economic affluence heavily contributes tosoothing the ethnic conflicts by lowering different forms of frustration.Therefore, economic improvement is crucial in order to prevent nurturinganti-Western, anti-capitalist and xenophobic feelings of the “losers” of theeconomic transition. As Tismãneanu has perceptively argued, “the growingpublic dissatisfaction with the effects of the half-hearted reforms ...can lead to a situation of profound despair and the rise of Peron-stylesocial demagogues who claim to offer immediate and simple solutions tocomplex and intricate issues.” 75Finally, the development of cultural pluralism provides the frameworkfor respecting the cultural and educational rights of minorities. In thisrespect, the Romanian government has to address the issue of establishinga Hungarian university in Romania, which is one of the main concerns of theHungarian minority. At the same time, I consider Gellner’s ideas of “de-territorializationof nationalism” and “de-fetishisation of land” as crucial in theattempt to find a solution to the minority problem in present day Romania.As Gellner perceptively argues, “the capacity to love, say, Ruritanian folkmusic without absolutely insisting on exclusive sovereignty over the villagesin which that music was allegedly first sung, would be eminently desirable.” 76Technology can also contribute to a “de-territorialization of nationalism,” byimproving the access of minorities to cultural programs in their own language.For instance, satellite television programs such as those provided byDuna Televízió (Danube Television) might nurture the Hungarian minorityculture in Hungary’s neighboring countries.To conclude, it seems that a Kosovo-type crisis is quite unlikely to developin Romania. However, the possibility of further outbursts of ethnic nation-291