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: I am quite amazed how someone that shows an interest into a problem (like you seem to show into the Transylvanian problem) is so much disinformed and can make judgements and statements like you just did. Also, the history of a place can never be understood better than in that particular place. You just have to try to get all the relevant information (nothing less, nothing more). |
: I am quite amazed how someone that shows an interest into a problem (like you seem to show into the Transylvanian problem) is so much disinformed and can make judgements and statements like you just did. Also, the history of a place can never be understood better than in that particular place. You just have to try to get all the relevant information (nothing less, nothing more). |
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: And no, the lecturers were not fired just for posting the signs. They were fired for repeated actions and statements in the media against the institution where they were working. This would have happened anywhere in the world. [[User:Alexrap|Alexrap]] 21:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC) |
: And no, the lecturers were not fired just for posting the signs. They were fired for repeated actions and statements in the media against the institution where they were working. This would have happened anywhere in the world. [[User:Alexrap|Alexrap]] 21:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC) |
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::What you are writing can be very offensive for any Hungarian since Kolozsvár used to be a Hungarian town and Erdély used to be a Hungarian province before Romanian occupation. For most of history, Hungarians were the majority population in Kolozsvár and in Erdély (Romanians are only recorded sporadically in the 13. century), after the Turkish occupation, there was a massive Romanian immigration from Moldva and Wallachia which changed the ethnic composition of Transylvania, just as during the Ceausescu regime, Hungarian cities in Transylvania received many Romanian residents (colonists) settled from Moldva or Oltenia/Muntenia in order to suppress their original character. Nevertheless, if someone walks around Kolozsvár, he can still see that most of the original buildings and cultural edifices come from Hungarian rule whereas Romanians were not able to add anything except what they confiscated (like the old Hungarian national theatre) or some awful-looking residential blocks. If I were a Romanian, I would be much more modest when addressing problems related to old Hungarian cultural centres where I am just an intruder and a colonist. [[User:Árpád|Árpád]] 07:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC) |
Revision as of 07:01, 27 January 2007
November 2006 controversy
Recently an unregistered user added the following text at the end of the History section:
It has however been the sight of recent controversy as two Hungarian Professors were recently fired for hanging up ordinance signs such as "No Smoking" in Hungarian next to the Romanian versions. The two Professors were in fact implementing a decision of the Academic Senate which had been reached a year before but never acted upon. The decision to fire the Professors has met with much controversy amongst the universities academic community.
I have removed it from the article as it was inaccurate and very POV, and I don't think it is something that needs to be added in the article. It was a disciplinary action decided by the whole Senate (including the majority of its Hungarian members). If the author of the text insists to have something about those events into the article, then I definitely don't think it should be in the History section. And of course, it should be written in a NPOV way. But I repeat, I really don't think that it is something that worths mentioning in a Wikipedia article. Because if we start to do that, then we will have to add something in here every time someone is fired. Alexrap 14:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
- I will put it in a language you can understand.
- PROTEST
- În data de 26. noiembrie 2006, Senatul UBB a decis excluderea pe motive disciplinare a două cadre universitare, Péter Hantz şi D. Lehel Kovács. Din scrisoarea a prorectorilor Levente Salat şi László Nagy, rezultă că excluderea s-a efectuat în mod neregulamentar din mai multe puncte de vedere.
- Nu putem să fim de acord în totalitate cu obiectivele asumate de către CIB. Totodată protestăm împotriva excluderii din universitate pe motivul exprimării opiniei, chiar dacă aceasta depăşeste forma declaraţiilor şi - respectând regulile democraţiei - se obiectivează in acţiuni.
- Multilingvismul este cadrul natural al educaţiei şi cercetării universitare moderne, astfel este inexplicabil de ce conducerea actuală a universităţii tergiversează instalarea inscripţiilor în limba maghiară.
- Suntem convinşi că exprimarea liberă a opiniilor şi dreptul la critică este condiţia de bază a funcţionării universităţii, de aceea ne rezervăm dreptul de a ne exprima punctele de vedere în mod nuanţat fără a deveni subiectul unor jocuri care doresc să ne scindeze pe criterii etnice.
- Haven't you learned with the EU and the end of the communism you can't just keep discriminating the Hungarian minority as you please? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.182.70.182 (talk) 09:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
- This being the English Wikipedia, it helps more if your edits are in English. Also, please sign your posts. Now a few points about the controversy. There are two separate things that are worth explaining in here and I'll try to do that now:
- 1) About the bi-lingual signs in the BBU buildings. Well, it is common sense that the institution itself is the one responsable for posting those signs and you cannot have individuals posting those signs wherever and whenever they wish to do so. Also, it is at least funny to see that exactly the ones who are asking for an ethnical division of the university (against its multicultural status) try to make us believe that some "No smoking" signs in Hungarian would improve the same multicultural attribute they are fighting against. The university is an example of multiculturalism in Europe and several independent reviewers have attested this status. And it is not for the "No smoking" signs, but for the large number of Hungarian specialisations and the fact that the Hungarian sections of every faculty decide for themselves. Also, it is common knowledge within the students of the BBU (both Hungarians and Romanians) that the Hungarian students are positively discriminated every year in the admission exams by getting access to free education with significantly lower marks than their Romanian colleagues.
- 2) Why were the two lecturers fired? They were fired for repeated actions and statements against the institution where they were working. I don't know any place in this world where an employee repeatedly asking in the media for the destruction of the institution, would not be fired by his/her employer.
- However, as I already said, personally I don't think that the incident is worth mentioning in this article. But if you insist to put it, then try to write it in a Wikipedia NPOV manner and find an appropriate section for it ("History" certainly is not an appropriate one). And again, please sign your contributions. Alexrap 12:43, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
different perspective
Thanks for the update on the wikipedia etiquette, I am working on a profile and want to become part of the community. Also, if this talk page is the incorrect place to carry out this debate please fill me in. I am neither Hungarian nor Romanian, but have had the fortune of living in both countries. I enjoyed Romania immensely, but I have to admit that I and countless foreigners have had the experience that the worst place to learn about Romanian history is Romania itself. I come from Arizona, on land that surely once belonged to Native Americans. The Americans committed genocide against the Native Americans, you can only find them in Arizona in pockets now. However, growing up in Arizona on land that once belonged to Native Americans seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me. I imagine that is how most Romanians must feel, that growing up in houses and land expropriated from Hungarians and Germans is the most natural thing in the world. I am by no means using the word genocide to describe what happened in Transylvania, I just wanted to say that taking over someone else's property and calling it your own is the easiest thing in the world. How else can you describe how Oradea, Timisoara and Cluj have all gone from being 80-90% Hungarian to having less than 20% in Cluj and Timisoara. Furthermore, if in Arizona a Mexican Professor hung a sign up in Spanish there might be some debate but he would not be fired. I, and I think most EU citizens and informed Americans, view the recent firings in Cluj as a symbol of how little civil society and openness towards the past exists in Romanian society. John Lazio —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.182.70.37 (talk) 15:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC).
- I am sorry to say but you are very disinformed about the historic Transylvanian population. As a Transylvanian Romanian, I feel quite offended by your statements. I will try to offer you some facts that will hopefully give you a true image of the issue.
- 1) Romanians have always been a large majority in Transylvania and this FACT was attested by all the Censuses. We all know how Censuses were organised in the past by the authorities (who were trying to artificially increase the numbers they liked). However, even these censuses (conducted by the Hungarian authorities) showed that in Transylvania, during the Hungarian occupation (e.g. in 1869) Romanians were 60% of the total population and Hungarians only 25%. After almost 150 years, the corresponding percentages changed to 74.7% and 19.6%, respectively. This means that in almost 150 years (most of them of Romanian rule in Transylvania), the percentage of Hungarians remained more or less the same. I really cannot understand how you can compare their situation with that of the Native Americans.
- 2) Yes, many Transylvanian cities used to be largely Hungarian or German (Timişoara never had more than 40% Hungarians though), but you should ask yourself why was that the case, in a region where Romanians were a large absolute majority. The answer is that the Romanians were not allowed by the authorities to settle into the cities. They had no social rights, although the cities were built with their work also.
- 3) After the integration of Transylvania in Romania, it is true that the percentage of the different ethnic groups in the cities changed significantly. But this was just a result of the natural process of urbanisation. The cities grew, and like everywhere else in the world, they grew with people from the surrounding rural areas (that were largely Romanian). In this way the ethnic composition of the cities became more or less like the ethnic composition of the Transylvanian counties. Could you tell me what is wrong with that?
- 4) The expropriated land and houses that you mentioned were a result of the end of modern feudalism maintained in Transylvania for too long by the Hungarian authorities. Who should make use of the land and houses if not the population that built them and had not been allowed to enjoy them before? Do you suggest that the Romanian authorities after 1920 should have kept the feudal society in Transylvania?
- I am quite amazed how someone that shows an interest into a problem (like you seem to show into the Transylvanian problem) is so much disinformed and can make judgements and statements like you just did. Also, the history of a place can never be understood better than in that particular place. You just have to try to get all the relevant information (nothing less, nothing more).
- And no, the lecturers were not fired just for posting the signs. They were fired for repeated actions and statements in the media against the institution where they were working. This would have happened anywhere in the world. Alexrap 21:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
- What you are writing can be very offensive for any Hungarian since Kolozsvár used to be a Hungarian town and Erdély used to be a Hungarian province before Romanian occupation. For most of history, Hungarians were the majority population in Kolozsvár and in Erdély (Romanians are only recorded sporadically in the 13. century), after the Turkish occupation, there was a massive Romanian immigration from Moldva and Wallachia which changed the ethnic composition of Transylvania, just as during the Ceausescu regime, Hungarian cities in Transylvania received many Romanian residents (colonists) settled from Moldva or Oltenia/Muntenia in order to suppress their original character. Nevertheless, if someone walks around Kolozsvár, he can still see that most of the original buildings and cultural edifices come from Hungarian rule whereas Romanians were not able to add anything except what they confiscated (like the old Hungarian national theatre) or some awful-looking residential blocks. If I were a Romanian, I would be much more modest when addressing problems related to old Hungarian cultural centres where I am just an intruder and a colonist. Árpád 07:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)