Enough! – Jenő SETÉT on Orbán’s speech

Author: Roma Press Centre, Jenő Setét

Original title: Elég volt! – Setét Jenő Orbán beszédéről

Publication:  magyarnarancs.hu

Date: 11:35 08/09/2015

Statement

Enough! – Jenő SETÉT on Orbán’s speech

We reject the idea that the head of the Hungarian Government should set the issue of Hungarian Roma people against the issue of the refugees. We reject his statement, which disputes our citizenship, our patriotism, dignity, and our national identity as Hungarians.

Statement of the Roma Community Network

Enough!

Roma Community Network “Ide tartozunk!” ( EN: “This is where we belong!” ) responds to Orban Viktor’s statement, in which he says:

“We too, have an endowment, despite whatever anyone thinks of it, whether you like cottage-cheese pasta (a traditional Hungarian dish – trans.) or not, Hungary has this historic endowment, that she lives together with two hundred thousand Romas. Someone, somewhere once decided this. We inherited this, this is our status quo. This is an endowment. There is no way that anyone can dispute this. We have to live with this. We are not, however, asking anyone, especially not those to the west of us, to live together with a larger number of Roma minority, too. What’s more, when this Roma minority sets off towards Canada, we want to make sure that people understand, that we rather that they stayed, and we could sort out the big issues regarding living with them, so that they can stay.”

We consider this to be the most repulsive and segregationist utterance of the past 25 years.

We most firmly deny that the head of the Hungarian government should set the issue of the Hungarian Roma people against the issue of the refugees. We reject his statement, which disputes our citizenship, our patriotism, dignity, and national identity as Hungarians going back for centuries!

Roma people did not just arrive, they are not transit-passengers, Hungary is our homeland, too, a homeland where and for which our ancestors lived and died.

There is one thing however that links us to the refugees, and that is basic human rights, the right to life and dignity, the rights to humane and equal treatment. Both groups have been the victims of serious breaches of those human rights.

We find it intolerable, that politics, and in this case the government, its leader and in the past weeks several other members of it, too are playing the “gypsy card”, to use us as an alibi for their refusal to give the most elementary aid to the refugees and for subjecting them to humiliating and disgraceful treatment.

Refugees have not taken and are not taking anything away from neither Roma or non-Roma people.

The integration issues concerning Romas and the issues of the refugees are two separate issues, they should neither be confused nor set against each other.

We have had enough of the exploitation of Roma people and Roma communities for political gains, we can not tolerate any longer being the instruments or target of hate-inciting campaigns and speeches.

Jenő Setét, organiser of Roma Community Network “Ide tartozunk”