My compatriots, Gipsy brothers and sisters!

I can fully understand that you are desperate. I am just as desperate as you are. While we should not forget that a lot of our non-Gipsy compatriots are also struggling with unemployment and are left with little or no hope of finding a job, and consequently live under miserable circumstances, Gypsies are the only group of the population the vast majority of whom live under appalling conditions in this country. While a lot of our non-Gipsy compatriots have to endure humiliation and discrimination for various reasons, we are the only ones faced with such an attitude each and every day from early childhood. We are the only ones who cannot conceal our identity – we are labeled as Gypsies at first sight since everybody can see that our skin is darker.

I can fully understand that you are desperate because most of us live in utmost poverty, we are discriminated against, and we are apparently members of a minority, and an easy target for a movement of those people twisted with hatred, trying to get hold of easy votes. And we are the ones who are even deprived of being considered human.

I can fully understand that you are desperate because the moderate political parties have all let us down. MSZP and Fidesz just shrug away when some of their own local and parliamentary representatives promote and encourage those who condemn us or take action against us themselves. I can understand that you are desperate, when the Gipsy leaders of these parties, themselves corrupt, become wealthy with your names on their flags, and only show up once every four years, before elections, and presume that you all are for sale for some cans of food and empty promises.

I do understand your despair and fear when uniformed Guardsmen are marching in front of your houses. I do understand your fear after they have murdered 6 individuals, including a 6-year-old boy, simply for their Gypsy ethnicity.

Violence, however, cannot, be an answer to violence by any means. We must not fall for provocations. The Guard and its overlord, the Jobbik, keenly awaits this. That's the reason why they march and incite. Jobbik consists of cynical villains. They're conducting an organized and premeditated war against us, and, through us, against freedom and all reasonable people. They're inciting to violence with the help of the Guard, and then they promise to quell the very violence they have inflamed. My Brothers and Sisters! We must not take part in the realization of their plans. We must not become obedient tools of realizing their evil and immoral goals.

We must confront them peacefully and with our heads held high. We must step up against them with dignity, pride, and in full awareness of our rectitude.

I would like you to know that you are not on your own. We are behind you, Gypsies and Hungarians who believe that this place is our shared homeland where we must find solutions together for all our problems. We must ensure that all of us live a life worthy of human beings; ensure lawful means to prosperity, education, and happiness. We can't accomplish all this as enemies but as allies only. There is no “them” and “us” but “us” only, citizens of this country, fellow patriots, Hungarians, all of us.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

(Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream”, 1963)

November 26, 2009

János Orsós
Member of the Presidential Committee, teacher, civil rights activist