Is a minority able to assimilate the majority?

By

Ágota Illyés	Barna Kovács

According to the official Romanian policy there is a region in Transylvania where the Hungarian minority assimilates the Romanian inhabitants. In fact the opposite of this situation is the case.

Let us take as an example a town somewhere in Transylvania where it is possible to build a high school for 80 pupils. Its real capacity would be that of 500 pupils. In the same region, in the same town there also exists a school founded 400 years ago where the children learn in three shifts because of the lack of classrooms.

As strange as it may seem, this situation reflects the relation between the Romanian majority and the Hungarian minority in Romania though it is not an officially quoted example for the country's handling of minority issues.

Romania's largest minority is the Hungarian population which numbers approximately 2 million people. Most of these people live in Transylvania. In a few towns and numerous villages their percentage is more than 90% of the whole population. But this proportion is not the average percent: the Hungarians constitute under 20% of the Transilvanians and even less (7%) of the Romanian citizens.

However, it is a mistake to consider that it ever existed, it is more the result of continuous change, different kinds and forms of impacts.

History shows that before the Trianon Treaty (according to such Transylvania was connected to Romania i.e. taken away from Hungary) the region's ethnical proportions were formed like this: more than 80% of the whole population constitutes the Hungarian and German "minorities", while the number of Romanians was under 20%. Now, after 60 years, this ethnical "map" has changed radically: the Germans have almost completely disappeared and the number of Hungarians has drastically fallen. Emigration is just one of the causes of diminishment.

According to one definition, assimilation occurs, when a group of people oppress another one, depriving it of its language, culture, traditions and particular habits that make it a different ethnic group.

Usually the majority assimilates the minority. In spite of this logic, it does not apply for Transylvania.

One way to explain this unusual tendency is the occurrence of the demographic form of assimilation in this region. This idea refers to a natural and long-lasting process. As a consequence of which a former minority becomes dominant because of its higher birth rate.

There also exists a much more serious and dangerous form of assimilation that can accelerate this "melting in" process. It is a kind of artificial form of this tendency - often being an official policy of a given state. Ever since Transylvania became part of Romania, this tendency is growing. The main aim of the majority's representative politicians was to change the existing ethnical balance.

This orientation became more obvious and legitimate under the communist regime. At that time many Romanians from outside Transylvania were moved into the region. Thousands of them accepted the government's generous offer such as bigger salaries and other incentives.

Meanwhile the traditional Hungarian educational system has been gradually liquidated: the schools had been renamed, their original structure changed. The most serious attack of this system was the liquidation of the Bolyai University.

If this tendency had continued for several years, the complete assimilation of the Hungarian minority would have been fulfilled. Nowadays this process is claimed to have been stopped.

On an international level, the Romanian handling of minority issues was recently quoted as a model. The country's majority politicians are very proud of this, using it for reaching their own - not so noble - purposes. On the surface the problem is completely solved: the Hungarians were given some rights. However, this is used by the Romanian government to claim that the Hungarian minority assimilates the Romanians that move into the Transylvanian regions.

Through this claim (the one that Romanians are mistreated in Transylvania) the government legitimizes positive discrimination towards Romanians by creating a privileged position for them.

In consequence the government continue to build "empty" schools and new orthodox churches which stand for the symbols or even guarantees of the assimilation.

Finally one may wonder how far a state's "official" policy can go on presenting distorted facts as a reality. It behaves in a hypocritical way, but still the international community tolerates it.

The saddest thing of all is that this can happen in a world where it is a widely spread and often quoted idea that the most important issue in present international relations is the immediate, effective and long-term solution of the minority-questions.

In order to fulfill this aim it is essential to look behind the political face of a state when analyzing particular situations.