Arabs, Afghans, Blacks and others in Hungary

While the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Hungary strongly oppose the European Union to settle thousands of migrants from the third world, quite a few Arab, Afghan and Black African people live continually or settled permanently in Hungary. How do they feel like in our country, how do they see us, and what they think about the migration crisis?

One of many fast food shawarma restaurants in Budapest run by immigrants.

In these days Hungarians like the Arabs the least of all the minorities. According to a survey conducted by Závecz Research in November 2016, only a fifth of the people surveyed would accept an Arab as their neighbor, and thus their judgment is worse than for Gypsies. But the result is deceptive. In the Hungarian discourse, “Arab” is often a synonym for someone from afar who is brown-skinned or happens to be a Muslim. Indeed, the less informed citizens rarely distinguish between people from different Arab countries and those resembling them like Persians, Kurds, or even between Pakistani & Bangladeshi.

And then the matter has not been brought to light that the Arabs themselves are very diverse. According to the CES 2011 census data, approximately 6,000 Arabs live in Hungary. Half are Syrian and Egyptian, and the other half come from the other twenty Arab countries. Two thirds belong to various Muslim denominations and the rest are Christians.

ARABS

Although half of the Arabs in Hungary live in Budapest, they don’t have a cohesive, integrating community. There are small circles of friends, but members of the diaspora live scattered and are mainly in contact and associate with Hungarians on a daily basis. As men are more mobile in Middle Eastern societies, 75 percent of Arabs living in Hungary are men. Most women have already come to Hungary as wives.

The first generation arrived in the 1970s and 1980s as a student on a scholarship from a friendly socialist country and then married a Hungarian woman. So they had the time to integrate and learn the language.

“Back then, it did not matter who was Syrian, Palestinian, Iraqi or Yemeni. Here, in Hungary, we were foremost all Arabs” – remembers Abdulhamid Dakakni.

The 75-year-old Palestinian poet, literary translator and interpreter arrived in Hungary in 1963. Finished his studies at Marx Károly University of Economics and been happily married for fifty years to his Hungarian wife.

Abdulhamid Dakakni

Comprehensive research on minorities outside Europe, including the Arabs, in our country, was last commissioned in 2010 by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The study suggests that those arriving from Arab countries are educated above the average, and most of them have a high educational degree. This trend contrary to rest of Europe is due to the fact that while those going to Western European countries came from lower social groups as guest workers, the Arabs living in Hungary came from middle and upper middle classes, and two-thirds specifically came to Hungary to study. As the wind of politics has changed, the composition of Arabs coming to Hungary has also changed. Although university exchange programs remained unchanged, in the 1990s, many had chosen Hungary for business purposes.

– Our generation had poise. We believed in our duty to our people and our political responsibility, “says Abdulhamid Dakakni. But among those who came from the ’90s on, there were a lot of wheeler-dealers. We have often been ashamed for them.

Thus, no close bond between the old and the new generation really develop. The majority of those arriving after the regime change (from Eastern bloc) still deal in trade, money exchange and restaurant business. Interestingly, however, those who arrived later do not form a unified community.

“It is better to avoid the Arabs,” concludes Ahmed, who asked to refer to him only by his first name.

The Egyptian man, who came to Hungary in 1993, sells phone parts. According to him, he has only three or four compatriots he is close with. His wife is Hungarian too, and although a bit broken but speaks Hungarian fluently.

The majority of Arabs had brought the mistrust within their own from home. It is necessary to understand that societies in Arab countries are fragmented, and the various denominations, classes, and family members associate only superficially and approach each other with cautious diplomacy. For true confidence to develop, similar backgrounds and a long time is needed.

Although we would think that this kind of behaviour will fade by the distance from the motherland, and “being Arabic” comes to the fore, this is exactly the opposite. If an Arab meets another on the streets of Budapest, the first thing one does is to thoroughly map out the background of the other. Which country did he/she come from? From which social class? What religion? What is his/her occupation here? Are there any common acquaintances? If so, how good of a reference do they signify? True friendship and sincere cohesion are most likely to come from people from the same country or from people of similar financial position with a similar level of integration. However, there is little of these, therefore majority of Arabs have Hungarian friends as these constraints from home are not applicable on them. But often, originating from the same country can also be a dividing factor: for example, the Syrian civil war has permanently split the Syrian community. Decades long friendships have been ruined, and new circles of friends have evolved merely because of political sympathy.

Going into Arabic shops and restaurants, it is striking that the TV is always showing channels from home. Notwithstanding, talking with Arabs living in our country, reveals that they are well aware of the public affairs of Hungary. Their party sympathies are mixed but traditionally linked to the right side, sometimes even to the radical right. In the 1990s, the relationship to the Palestinian affairs and the rejection of the war in Iraq endeared many hearts to MIÉP and later to Jobbik too. According to the MTA survey, in 2010, more than half of them were already Fidesz-sympathetic.

The majority of Arabs – irrespective of their religious affiliation – have conservative values ​​that coincide with the world view of the traditional Hungarian right. In large majority, they reject Western dominance, liberalism, and homosexuality. In addition, the Arabs are highly respect oriented: in their eyes Viktor Orbán – as opposed to Ferenc Gyurcsány – is a respectable leader.

But did the government’s response to the migration wave of 2015 and the ongoing political campaign affect the relationship with the ruling parties?

– All countries will let in who they want to. The politicians will decide – summarizes Abbas Khaled, who arrived in the early 90s. He began his studies at the Technical University and then jumped over into the clothing business.

There are those at the same time who, although agree with the main orientation, but view the rhetoric to be indignant.

“Majority of migrants are victims,” ​​opine Abdulhamid Dakakni. – People who are misled and exploited. It is not them we have to blame, but those who are behind the whole process – he says.

Within our conversation partners we had different types like doctor, interpreter, clothing store owner, restauranteur and currency exchanger. None of them, however, seemed to take personally (or at least pretending not to) the message of the migration campaign. For the Arabs, their pride is important. Complaining for them is a sign of weakness. Everyone says that they are not a “migrant” because they

are legally present in the country and speak the language. The majority of Christian Arabs, according to the posts on Facebook, are in awe of the government. The growing anti-Islamic rhetoric of the conservative side proves their highly subjective self-image brought from home that they represent a “more European” – meaning higher-ranking – culture than Muslims. Thus have every right to reside in Europe.

AFGHANS

Like the Arabs, the first Afghans came to Hungary as scholarship students in the 1970s. Although there were those who married in Hungary after completing their studies, the majority of graduates went back home to put to use their knowledge and diplomas. Then, politics interrupted. In 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and security gradually began to deteriorate. In the southern Pastu areas, the Taliban strengthened, and in the north the dreaded warlord, Ahmad Shah Masoud and his armed men had taken over. The country was torn apart by ethnic strife, and life was becoming increasingly dangerous outside Kabul.

So, many of the students who have graduated from Hungarian universities decided to come back to us. Using their old contacts, they got a new scholarship or a job and along with their families they came back to Hungary. Although the majority claimed – and perhaps even thought so at the time – to want to go back home soon, by moving together with the family foreshadowed that they would stay for the long haul. 90 percent of the returnees moved to Budapest or Pest County, where a cohesive community of three hundred people developed, mostly from middle class intellectuals.

– It did not matter that somebody was a Pastu, a Hazara, a Tajik or an Uzbek. We stuck together – remembers Khalil Duranaj, who studied medicine in Hungary in early 1970’s and later returned with his family like many others.

Meanwhile, the situation in the motherland has deteriorated. By 1996, the Taliban occupied most of the country, so more and more people were trying to bring their relatives over to Hungary. As a result, the Afghan community in Hungary grew by about one hundred in the early 2000s. At the same time, the cohesive power of the community was shaken. Afghans, Pastus, Hazara, Uzbeks, and Tajiks from different ethnic backgrounds have now spent their free time with their families and not with each other. But politics also played a role. While the vast majority of the Pastus support Afghan nationalism, the Tajik and the Hazaras are strongly opposed to this.

– It’s like the Hungarians of 1956 in America or Australia – draws the parallel Mirwais Janan . “Everyone thinks he knows best what’s good for their motherland.”

Mirwais Janan

The 32-year-old Mirwais is of Pastu origin. He came to Hungary as a child with his parents in the early 1990s. He can be regarded as an example of successful integration: he studied law, he considers himself Hungarian, and if one is to talk over the phone with him, could not tell that he has

foreign roots. Replying to our question he tells us that the domestic Afghan political divisions are not as fervent here in Hungary. We are together in life and death – says the Afghan proverb. And indeed, despite their possible debates and fractions, funerals and weddings are still bringing Hungarian Afghans together.

“My sister’s wedding had three hundred Afghans and eighty Hungarians,” Mirwais remembers.

Although among the Afghans living in Hungary, there are both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, there is only one mosque, situated by the Jozsefvaros market. Most of the congregation are Sunni Muslims. No external aid is given. The community itself covers the costs of maintaining the apartment being used as a prayer room. The two Imams, who are Hungarian Afghans themselves, keep their speeches on Fridays alternately in Pastu and in Dari languages. In general, Pastus are the most religious, and the ones who attend the least are the Hararas and the Tajiks.

Within the community, it is not the political or ethnic, but the generational difference is the most significant. The children who arrived in the early 90’s have come to adulthood. Traditions for them are quite different from their parents.

“I am speaking exclusively in Hungarian with the Afghans of my generation.” says Mirwais “This is our home now.”

Of course, the majority of parents would like their children to preserve the culture of the old country. Young people, on the other hand, increasingly tread their own way. Aziza (her original name changed for her request) is a 22 year old girl. A real Oriental beauty with strong facial bones and almond eyes, characteristic of her ethnicity. She finishes school this year, and her family has already selected her future mate, a son of a well-situated merchant.

It is difficult to get Aziza to speak. It is not proper to talk about family matters with strange men. However, when asked about her marriage, she does not shy away from exhibiting her unhappiness. If it was up to her, she would not marry yet. Would like to work and party like her Hungarian girlfriends. However, she has no choice.

“He’ll be a good husband. He will provide for his family.” – giving us the short answer.

This is a trump card. Like most eastern peoples in general, the Afghans measure success primarily in money. The vast majority of Afghan people living here have some business. But social rank is also important. For the generation of people who came in the 1990’s it is important that their children get a diploma. The Afghan culture is authoritative (respect of prestige). Older people call each other not by their name but by their rank. The engineers are addressed as “Engineer Sajb”, doctors are “Doctor Sajb” and teachers are referred by as “Ustaz”.

The picture is, of course, not entirely idyllic. The Afghan community also has some none law-abiding members. According to police statistics, proceedings against Afghans are mainly related to drug abuse, document forgery and smuggling of people. The latter are most likely to be linked to the 2015 refugee wave when Afghans here have been involved in hiding migrants and refugees in Budapest and then getting them to Western Europe. There were about half a dozen Afghans doing this at the time, from whom the community visibly distanced themselves from. Since then, the situation has largely been consolidated.

BLACKS

The Africans we talked to are those who came to Hungary and living here before the migration wave about what their views on Hungary are.

“When you board an airplane, you will be in London, Paris or Brussels in two hours and you can experience how colourful the world is. Many different people are able to live side by side very well. In every community, as in the foreign Hungarian community, there are people who do not behave appropriately, but if we begin to generalize Hungarians from their bad apples, this will obviously feel bad for the majority. Our task is to live normally, by example. If everyone thought this way, then there wouldn’t be a lot of problems in the world” says Kembe Sorel-Arthur, who is a movie & TV show actor. He is also the spokesman for the Hungarian Africa Society and under the same status he attended this year’s FINA Waters World Championship in Hungary.

Kembe Sorel-Arthur

His father came to Hungary in the early seventies under the Hungarian scholarship framework. He was born here, and as he recalls in the early nineties, he had to fight a lot with skinheads in his youth who saw the enemy in blacks. Over time, this changed, the weight shifted to other groups from the far right, but it is likely that the current immigration situation could return it upon them. His thoughts on the current migrant problems is that any euro, dollar or Swiss franc spent smartly in Africa would just as easily ease Europe’s problem as the same amount they are currently spending on crisis mitigation.

“If people are able to secure their own livelihood in their own place, then there is no smuggler who can persuade them to go to a place that they have not heard of, read about, and above all is cold. It is not normal for them to come to a totally foreign culture where they do not know anyone; they do not speak the language, and are not well received. Local investment and job creation would offer a much better long-term solution. However, this requires a stable economic and political environment. At the moment, however, the opposite is true: it should not be happening, for example, that a country will take the fruit from Africa, process it somewhere else and then return it. Do not forget about natural resources either. These processes should be done by the locals. And thus we have arrived at the burning questions about education, health care and agriculture.” – comments Kembe Sorel-Arthur.

According to a survey conducted by KSH in 2007, just over half a decade before the refugee crisis, the number of foreign nationals living in Hungary was nearly 175,000, of which about 45,000 were from the EU, 17,000 from Asia and only 1,100 from Africa. [Hungary’s population in 2007 was 10,076,581.]

African communities – according to Kembe Sorel-Arthur- are not as closed-up like Asians. There are increasing numbers of children from mixed relationship in educational institutions too. Communal existence manifests in way that by walking on the street when Africans meet each other, they talk to each other while on the tram between stops. It’s totally irrelevant for them whether the other comes from the Congo or Uganda.

This is characteristic not only in Hungary but also in other European countries. In addition, there are groups of similar minded artists, entrepreneurs and other small communities. He thinks that an other sign of cohesion is that typically they live in a relatively small area, the Népszínház street.

Band leader of Chalaban Band, Said Tichiti was born in Guelmim, then studied in Paris, where he met a Hungarian girl and moved to Budapest in 1998. Since then, he has lived in the capital and has been the ambassador of Moroccan traditions together with his band in the Carpathian-basin. They have two children, both of whom are studying to be classical musicians. When he came to us, he felt the society to be very open and experienced an extremely dynamic artistic life. At that time Hungary was not yet part of the EU. However, after nearly twenty years, he does not look at Budapest as an exotic world but his second home and is interested in current political developments. With regard to current events, he thinks that Hungarian democracy is still very young and therefore not mature enough yet.

Said Tichiti

He believes that there should be separation between migrants and refugees: “I feel it is the duty of everyone to deal with this, because they come from places where they cannot live. In Indonesia, for example, a volcano eruption caused the need to save people from the area. It is our humane duty to help these people. Migration, however, is another issue; each country has the right to defend its labor market, not having to accept everyone. If you want to move to America, you have to go through a lot of filters: assess what job you are doing in which sector, how to ensure your livelihood, and so on. In Canada, they also look at the size of labor shortages and allow people in accordingly. Hungary also needs to protect its market in the same way” – explains the musician.

His answer to the question whether he experienced people treat him differently since the migrant crisis, he claims that since living in the sixth and seventh districts that have a very cosmopolitan atmosphere, he did not experience anything about this himself. He only hears about it when his friends tell him about articles they read on the internet or what kind of posters they saw on the street.

He adds, despite his skin color he does not feel black as he is of part Arabic descent, so he could almost be classified into all the minority groups, but because he lives in Hungary, he has many Christian, Jewish and atheist friends. He does not belong to any community, and he clarifies: “I belong to all yet to none”.

When he sees other Africans walking on the street they greet each other but it is not his habit to stop to talk with them. He is from Morocco – a former French colony – so, in many cases they do not even speak a common language, and the Francophone world is closer to him than the Anglophone.

Népszínház street was an outskirt area of Budapest until the end of the XIX’th century. With the sudden growth of the city and the opening of the National Theater at Blaha Lujza square, it grew into an elegant neighborhood in the early 1900s. Nowadays, only the crumbling decorations on the walls of buildings remain as a sign of those times. As Kembe Sorel-Arthur says, his father always advised him that if he wanted to live cheap anywhere in the world, then it’s worth finding where Africans live because they are not the most expensive neighborhood in the city and are likely to be more value-for-money . Thus, the Népszínház Street became the center of Africans living in Pest.

Stepping in from the boulevard to the street, we find a cosmopolitan world, along with the habitants of Turks, Arabs and Gypsies, it is immediately evident that much more blacks are here than in other parts of the city. Within a few blocks, you can find a number of shops, bars, hairdressers, buffets and African stores that they visit. It will soon become apparent when the conversations are initiated, that the people living there are rather secluded, most of them can’t speak at all or at a very basic level of Hungarian. We don’t get any further with English either, the passers-by do not want to stop, and finally we go to a small canteen where the lady working at the desk seems ready at first, but immediately tells us that we can not take a picture and can’t record her voice either.

To our question, where she came from, she says she came from Nigeria. When we start our inquiry of what her opinion is in general about Hungary, her simple response is that there are good and bad people everywhere. Then she tells us that her boss would not be happy if found about her talking to us, so she does not wish to speak to us any further.

In the vicinity, at a similar restaurant, a guest voluntarily undertakes our short interview. He also came from Nigeria; he came to Budapest 20 years ago, studying at the technical university, which he did not finish. He has settled, has two children and deals with the sale of car parts. He does not want to talk more about himself though. He does not even give his name and won’t allow a picture of his face, because many people know him in the area.

Moving onto politics, it quickly turns out that he is not a big fan of the government. His biggest grief is that when he was required to extend her residence permit, he was treated exactly the same like fresh immigrants, although he has been living in Hungary for two decades and has established a family. He had to wait four months for a judgment. About the management of the migrant crisis, he believes that even though he thinks a country must protect its borders and eliminate possible terrorists, immigration would have a positive impact on the economy in his opinion.

When we are inquiring about what he thinks of Hungarian people, he says some are his friends, but his closest acquaintances are African, and they get along best with the Gypsies, because they, as he said “they look at blacks as a brother, but in whites I see hostility”. When we ask whether or not he had been harassed, he nods, but can’t recall a concrete example, but he does get stares on the street.

We meet with Thomas in front of a hairdresser operated by Africans and specifically targeting them on Rákóczi Square. He also came from Nigeria, well-dressed man by the looks in his early forties. He studied in Serbia at first, but he did not like the atmosphere there, so he returned home abandoning the school and then applied to the Budapest University of Technology and Economics at his family’s advice. At first he had to live in difficult circumstances, had to pay a five thousand euro scholarship per semester, which was hard to come up with on top of rent and subsistence. According to him, not only in Hungary, but in Europe, it is not easy to get a job in his field because he only speaks English. He’s just recently returned from Germany where he worked as a warehouse and currently looking for a job.

Thomas

The Hungarians are extremely suspicious, his experience is that if even just asking for directions on the street from passers-by they first carefully put their bags under their arms keeping their valuables safe. The only place where he did not experience this prejudice was in Romania, where he lived for a short time, claiming that everyone was terribly friendly to him, and that is why the Romanians are the coolest of the Union. When we note that we are not so fond of them, because of Trianon, she says, “That is your issue”.

Omar Sayfo

Translated from Hungarian by Péter Minár

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *