CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Fleischer, Hilda |
|---|---|
| Title | The short memory of migrants: the exclusionary behavior of Hungary's settled immigrants towards contemporary migrants |
| Summary | Although the current migration-crisis in Europe is unprecedented in human cost and in the paradoxical behaviors of how countries are dealing with it, the continent has faced similar situations in the past. Hungary, for example, during the Yugoslav refugee crisis in 1992, admitted 60.000 refugees (the largest number after Germany with 200.000 hosted people). In comparison in 2016 it was the first country to build a fence to protect its borders from the influx of refugees. According to an OECD report, recent refugees from Syria are more skilled than those who came during the wars in the 90s , nevertheless the Hungarian society – among them many Hungarian nationals from Romania, Serbia and Slovakia, who fled their poorer hometowns just a couple of years ago in search of a better life – took a loud stand against the EU quotas and against the refugees. Hungary’s settled migrants, once in similar situation as today’s migrants, are nurturing inhospitable behavior towards the newcomers. A surprisingly controversial situation that for the time being has not yet been explained. Jon E. Fox argues that one of the reasons that might lie behind the anti-refugee attitude of past-migrants is a kind of racial supremacy, meaning that settled migrant minority populations “use racism as leverage to improve their position on the labor market” . According to Fox, racism doesn’t always come from the majoritarian population against minority groups, it can also be used by the minorities further down the chain to do similar work. To corroborate his arguments, he describes how Romanian and Hungarian economic migrants working in the UK are differentiating themselves by using color, by invoking their “putative whiteness to `darken` less white migrants on the labor market” . Other researchers are stating that people are warming up to right-wing populist because of cultural disorientation rather than economic fears, for they want to be assured that their “traditional” world is not totally lost to the post-materialist, cosmopolitan culture promoted by urban elites . The fear of cultural and religious collisions indeed plays an important role in this matter. It explains among others why in Sweden more and more foreign-born citizens are joining anti-immigration parties or why in the US a fairly high number of Latinos voted for Trump. As we can see the reasons why past-migrants are not welcoming new asylum-seekers with open arms vary across countries and across national minority groups. Considering that until this moment no concrete research has been done focusing on the anti-refugee attitude of settled migrants who recently got reconnected with their motherland, I wish to explore the Hungarian context in this “equation” by trying to answer the question why do Hungary’s “old migrants” refuse to show solidarity and support towards the new asylum-seekers, what is fueling their lack of empathy? Targeting this issue, understanding what triggers national minority groups to engage in populist rhetoric, might help improve social cohesion in Hungary. |
| Supervisor | Martin Kahanec |
| Department | School of Public Policy MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/fleischer_hilda.pdf |
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