Nation-Building and Contested Identities - MEK

Nationalizing Minorities and Homeland Politicsis that they are functionally complementary, although there is a permanentcompetition between them. The institutions and organizations belonging tothe civil sphere have such functions that resemble the functions of ministriesin a government. For instance, the Bolyai Társaság (Bolyai Society) correspondsto the Ministry of Education, and the Erdélyi Múzeum Egyesület(Transylvanian Museum Organization) resembles the Ministry of Culture.Such educational and cultural organizations become important in times ofcrisis. Also, crisis situations make it possible for some leaders to legitimizethemselves and enter into the political elite. In these cases, they lose theirrole in civic organizations and assume certain political responsibilities.These organizations are theoretically part of the Hungarian civic sphere,but since the cultural and educational problems are politicized, they enterthe political sphere and act as interest or pressure groups. Internal debatesare often channeled by these institutions, and the outcome of the debatesand decisions often have political consequences for the entire minority.In the following parts, I analyze certain cases of internal debates and divisionsthat, in my view, support the model described above. I briefly describeissues concerning education, the participation of the HDUR in the Romaniangovernment, and, in a separate chapter, the “Status Law.” Fora national minority, interpreted as a nationalizing minority, separate educationalinstitutions are of vital importance. It is not my intention to enter intosuch debates whether a national minority has the right for a separate, selfgoverneduniversity in their minority language; I simply take into accountthe expressed goal of the HDUR to establish a state-financed HungarianUniversity in Romania. This separate university is a key institution ofnation-building, since it is the institution where elite reproduction would bepossible. Therefore, the debate around the university in 1997 has to beinterpreted within the framework of nation-building or nationalization.Within the minority elite, there were two camps involved in thedebate: those who were in favor of a separate university, and those whofavored the current situation. However, the dispute was not about theusefulness of a separate university, but about the question of elitereproduction. On the one hand, the argument was that, at present,Hungarians are not able to run a high-quality separate university, andthe current situation serves better the purpose of having a well-educatedelite. On the other hand, those who argued for a separate universityassumed that, in spite of short-term sacrifices, separate institutionsserve better their goals in the long run. Besides the internal agreementsand disagreements, the Romanian government did not pass the lawregarding the state-financed Hungarian University. In my view, this isa clear sign that the state also considered the Hungarian University asa key institution for minority nation-building. A similar view is reflected259