Sinziana-Elena Poiana Ioana Lupea Irina-Madalina Doroftei Alina ...

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Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................ 2 Keywords ................................................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 1: Ethnic Diversity Challenges in Romania: Tolerance Discourses and Realities ................... 6 National identity: Romania is… .......................................................................................................... 7 Balkan ...................................................................................................................................... 7 Not Western: Modernization as Rape ...................................................................................... 8 But European… ..................................................................................................................... 10 Cultural diversity challenges in the past 30 years in Romania .......................................................... 12 Challenges post – 2000: Orthodoxy as identity standard ....................................................... 13 Hungarian minority ................................................................................................................ 15 The Roma: the ignored challenge .......................................................................................... 19 The discourse and definitions of tolerance in Romania .................................................................... 23 Individual versus collective rights: The language battles ...................................................... 23 The policy of tolerance .......................................................................................................... 24 The war of political symbols: Catholic versus Orthodox....................................................... 25 The economics of ethnic diversity ......................................................................................... 25 Concluding remarks .......................................................................................................................... 28 Chapter 2: The Embodiment of Tolerance in Discourses and Practices Addressing Cultural Diversity in Romanian Schools ............................................................................................................................. 29 Methodology and research design ..................................................................................................... 32 Case study 1: Alleged Discrimination against Roma ........................................................................ 33 Background information ........................................................................................................ 33 Analysis of the field research ................................................................................................. 37 Case study 2: On the right to an education environment that is free of religious symbols ............... 42 Background information ........................................................................................................ 42 Analysis of the field research ................................................................................................. 45 Concluding remarks .......................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter 3: Acceptance or Lack of Tolerance towards Minorities in Romanian Public Administration 54 Methodology and research design ..................................................................................................... 55 Background information.................................................................................................................... 55 Analysis of the field research ............................................................................................................ 59 Concluding remarks and recommendations ...................................................................................... 70 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 74 References ............................................................................................................................................. 82
Executive Summary The research materialised in the main three chapters of the report explores the Romanian identity and the tolerance discourses towards ethnic and religious minorities in Romania. It presents tangible situations out of which valuable findings give us a practical key to understand what shapes the current situation of minorities in Romania, the acceptance or lack of tolerance towards them in schools or political life. Drawing on the political discourse built around state formation since the mid-19 th century, Chapter 1 argues that despite incentives to dismiss a possible association, Romania is beyond any doubt Balkan. Historical evidence is used to support the theory of the legacy of social and political (Ottoman and Byzantine) institutions. Romania is not Western. The mid-19 th century political discourse of Romanian elites, which rejected the idea of transplanting Western forms of development onto profoundly Oriental societies such as those in the Romanian kingdoms, marked the Romanian national discourse for the next 150 years. In fact, the idea of “modernization as rape” resurfaced in the interwar and post – 1990 national discourses. Moreover, the Oriental was exceptionally defined by the religious legacy of the Byzantine Empire that made Christian Orthodoxy deeply embedded into the idea of “ being Romanian”. This deemed to create a series of challenges to the creation of a plural post-communist Romanian society, especially in relation to the state’s separation from church in the past 20 years. Romania is European. Like in all countries in Eastern Europe, the fall of the Berlin wall was seen as Romania’s long awaited opportunity to return to Europe. In fact, the promise of the European Union influenced the public discourse to such extent that no anti-European political discourse would find its place in the national public debate. After reviewing the main national identity components, we continued in Chapter 1 to identify the main challenges to cultural diversity relevant for the current situation in Romania and taking an in depth look at the main challenges posed by the discourse towards the largest ethnic minorities in Romania – Hungarian and Roma. Since immigration does not present relevant challenges for Romania up until now, the focus is placed on historical minorities. The Hungarian and the Roma minorities stand out, representing significant proportions of the Romanian population, and having brought their issues on the public agenda in the past 20 years, in comparison to other minority groups. By looking at the way that the tolerance discourse is built in Romania, the political dimension, which is best illustrated by the fight of the Hungarian minority to gain collective rights, can be debated in regards to access to education in minority language and right to representation. Even though some advancement in granting representation rights had been made through the Public Administration Law, the debates on education exposed the deep cleavage in the battle for using the maternal language in school. Romanians were not prepared to accept Hungarian as a second official language. This possible source of tension lost momentum for almost 10 years, up until an initiative to allow students in Hungarian to choose whether they wanted to study Romanian in school or not, reached the current debate agenda. The arguments around which the discourse was constructed tend to indicate that tensions still exist, betraying thus (in)tolerance towards self determination rights. The conclusion is that while the public discourse cannot be so easily changed, policy efforts should precede in addressing the issues of the Hungarian and Roma minorities, as well as the state’s separation from the Church. Racist remarks of Romanian public officials are not acceptable, and nor is their lack of accountability for taking public positions as such. The search for grand explanations for Romanian exceptionalism, rather than that for ways to comparatively analyze it and deconstruct it, must end. Moreover, this is an effort that needs to be made from the top down, in order to avoid the gloomy bottom-up option. 2
Page 1: TOLERANCE AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY DI
Page 5: © 2012 Romanian Academic Society T
Page 10 and 11: When considering religious or ethni
Page 12 and 13: Introduction The main diversity cha
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Page 16 and 17: political life than more hypocrisy.
Page 18 and 19: now EU. If the new Europe is to be
Page 20 and 21: organizations, their issues have no
Page 22 and 23: Hungarian minority Despite some sti
Page 24 and 25: Since DAHR became a member of the g
Page 26 and 27: The Roma: the ignored challenge Hav
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Page 30 and 31: The discourse and definitions of to
Page 32 and 33: Government, being directly subordin
Page 34 and 35: The “area of benefit” financial
Page 36 and 37: Chapter 2: The Embodiment of Tolera
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Page 42 and 43: enough qualified teachers 18 . The
Page 44 and 45: Analysis of the field research Gene
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(ii) During Orthodox religious clas
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tradition could be deconstructed if
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Romanians’ resistance to offer sp
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anked citizens. Although the Hungar
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Ethnicity is defined as a sense of
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communist president of Romania, Ion
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decision, in an ironic style, sayin
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Symbols and rituals as triggers of
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Romanians against Hungarians. Perha
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Szekler Hungarians used Hungarian i
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their hard feelings were fed by med
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communities. The suggestion would b
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itself did not express a single com
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successfully being implemented, whi
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conflict was between those who saw
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developments at the level of the st
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Gellner, E., 1983. Nation and Natio
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Preda, M., 2002. Estimarea numărul
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Open Society Institute, 2007. Equal
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