ABSTRACT
By communism’s final years, most people regarded the official propaganda with attitudes that ranged from indifferent skepticism to outright derision. One may have “lived the lie,” as Václav Havel described life under communism, but one knew all along that there was not an ounce of truth behind it. Yet, in Hungary, as throughout the former East bloc, there was at least one bit of disinformation that most people somehow seemed to buy. Even after the communist leaders had packed their bags, Hungarians sincerely insisted that racism did not exist in their country. As if repeating it from a textbook, students, teachers, and professionals would mouth the same words as the party apologist: that there isn’t and never has been racism in the good land of the Magyars. If pushed on it, some would admit, as if surprised to think of it that way, that anti-Semitism was a form of racism that some Hungarians had once subscribed to a long time ago. Resentment against Roma, however, people tended to put in a category all its own, not quite deserving of such an ugly title. The same applied to the “Arab money changers” who, popular wisdom had it, made millions illegally exchanging Hungarian forints for hard currency in Budapest’s train stations. In fact, many Hungarians’ response to racism is to point out the “anti-Magyar racism” practiced against the ethnic Hungarian minorities in neighboring countries. How can racism in Hungary even be an issue when ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Slovakia, and Serbia are the victims of such persecution?
