BRATISLAVA, November 23, (WEBNOVINY) — Creeping Magyarization is taking place in Slovakia owing to Deputy Prime Minister Rudolf Chmel (MOST-HID), stated head of the opposition SNS deputy club Rafael Rafaj. He sharply criticized an amendment to the law on use of minority languages from the workroom of the deputy prime minister and MOST-HID of Bela Bugar. The draft proposes to reduce the quorum for use of languages of Slovakia’s national minorities in official communication from the current 20 percent to 10 percent of the respective municipality’s population. “It is not true that a lower quorum would help other minorities,” said Rafaj. When introducing his draft revision, Chmel said that that the new rule would be of great help to other minorities than ethnic Hungarians.
Rafaj alleges that Hungarians are masking their goals by interests of others. If Chmel’s amendment goes thought, it would be possible to use Hungarian in official communication even in Lucenec, Levice and Sala. The bilingual principle would affect 72,800 Slovaks and about 16,000 Hungarians, according to SNS calculations. Moreover, a minority language would be used in official communication also in Bratislava suburbs of Cunovo, Jarovce, Rusovce and Vrakuna. The same will happen also in six of eight counties. In practice, an ethnic Hungarian citizen who would be fined for speeding near Sturec would be entitled to speak Hungarian with the police officer.
Rafaj was critical also of the proposal regarding next year’s census. He said that Chmel had come up with a genial racist suggestion to disregard the free choice of claiming affiliation to a nationality. He explained that according to Chmel, the attitude to the mother language should be of key importance instead. “They will gain about 40,000 members of ethnic minorities in this way,” said Rafaj. He labeled Chmel the a liaison officer of Bela Bugar’s Most-Hid with ministers of culture and education. SNS boss Jan Slota added that Chmel’s acts do not comply with the MOST-HID-declared goal of building bridges between Slovaks and Hungarians. He complained that Slovaks at the Culture Ministry have been replaced by ethnic Hungarians. “Even penguins in Patagonia are bigger patriots than Slovaks, he said.
Rafaj and Slota criticized sending more Slovak troops to Afghanistan given the fact that Slovakia does not have any army capable of defending the southern part of the country. “If Hungarian Guards break into a run and cross bridges over the Ipel River they would beat us up with caps,“ said Slota.
In mid-November, Deputy Prime Minister Rudolf Chmel and the party MOST-HID introduced a draft bill reducing the quorum of minority members set for use of a minority language in official communication in a municipality from the current 20 percent to 10 percent. Chmel explained that the law should be modified in order to cover also areas where smaller minority communities live. He said that if passed the bill will open space for use of German, Roma and Ruthenian languages. Chmel said that the proposed amendment protects smaller national minorities. “We should care about squeezing the quorum if we are real democrats. Ten percent is the limit when the minority gets assimilated,“ he said.
According to Bugar, each minority enriches the country with its language and culture. It is important, according to him to give smaller minorities a chance to use their language in order to survive. Moreover, the draft also enables people to speak their minority language in official communication also in municipalities not reaching the prescribed percentage representation of the given minority after previous agreement of an employee of the respective office and persons taking part in the communication.
SITA