Rechtsrahmen für Minderheitenschutz völlig unzureichend

Rechtsrahmen für Minderheitenschutz völlig unzureichend

19.02.2007

Von Peter Josika

In dem vom Standard am 16. Februar 2007 veröffentlichten Interview mit dem Politikwissenschaftler Samuel Salzborn wurden von diesem haarsträubende Aussagen über den Minderheitenschutz in Europa getätigt, die unbedingt klargestellt werden müssen. In dem Interview wird dem Standard-Leser der Eindruck vermittelt, dass sich Europas autochthone Minderheiten „künstlich reaktivieren“ und dass sie bereits genügend kollektiven Schutz geniessen. Statt einheitlichen europaweiten Kollektivschutz will Herr Salzborn das Individualrecht ausbauen. Ich möchte diesen Denkansatz aufs schärfste zurückweisen und auf folgendes hinweisen.

 

Die Deutsche Minderheit konnte sich im kommunistisch-nationalistischen Polen, wie auch in der ehemaligen Tschechoslowakei, kaum zu ihrer Sprache und Identität bekennen. Solche die es taten wurden benachteiligt oder abgeschoben. Zu behaupten, dass sich diese Gruppe, die bis 1989 unglaublichen Repressionen ausgesetzt war, aufgrund von finanziellen und ideellen Anreizen nach der Wende „künstlich reaktiviert“ hätte, ist eine komplette Fehldarstellung der Situation. Herr Salzborn vergisst auch darauf hinzuweisen, dass es heute in Europa viele Millionen deutschsprachige Menschen gibt, die ihre Wurzeln und Identität in Polen und Tschechien haben, und dass der kollektive Schutz des deutschen Spracherbes in diesen Ländern für diese Menschen entscheidend für die eigene Identitätsfindung und ihr Selbstwertgefühl ist. Wenn wir im neuen Europa nur die Identität einiger schützen, aber gleichzeitig die vieler anderer einfach ignorieren, werden wir es nicht schaffen Vorurteile abzubauen und langfristig den Frieden zu sichern.

Einerseits erklärt Herr Salzborn im ersten Teil seines Interviews ganz richtig, dass die meisten Minderheitenprobleme Mitteleuropas auf die Entstehung sogenannter Nationalstaaten nach dem 1 Weltkrieg zurückzuführen sind. Andererseits nennt er das berechtigte Streben dieser über Jahrzehnte unterdrückten autochthonen Minderheiten nach Anerkennung, Gleichberechtigung und Identitätsfindung „bedenklich“. Bedenklich ist vielmehr, dass Mehrheiten, deren Identität und Rechte keineswegs durch autochthone Minderheiten gefährdet sind, einen Teil der eigenen historischen Bevölkerung ausgrenzen wollen. Sowohl das Spiel Jörg Haiders mit der slowenischen Minderheit in Kärnten, als auch die Weigerung Tschechiens und Polens die Zweisprachigkeit in den historisch mehrheitlich deutschsprachigen Gebieten dieser Länder, vollumfänglich anzuerkennen, sind klare Menschenrechtsverletzungen.

Wir können dann beginnen über einen Übergang vom Kollektivrecht zum Individualrecht zu diskutieren, wenn es ein Europa der Regionen gibt, und die staatlichen Einheiten nicht mehr Deutschland, Polen oder Tschechien, sondern Bayern, Sachsen, Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien heissen. Ein solches Europa der Regionen ist allerdings gegenwärtig weder existent noch realpolitisch vorhersehbar. Daher gibt es nur eine Lösung um ein gerechtes und friedliches Europa aufzubauen: Ein einheitliches Gesetz zum Schutz des europäischen Spracherbes, in dem alle autochthonen Sprachen Europas in ihrem traditionellen Siedlungsraum geschützt sind. (19.2.2007)

 

 

Zur Person:

Peter Josika ist Koordinator des Projektes „Netzwerk Zwei- und Mehrsprachiger Gemeinden Europas“ in Biel/Bienne in der Schweiz und Mitteleuropakorrespondent der Nachrichtenagentur europäischer Minderheiten Eurolang. Außerdem ist er Verfasser eines Entwurfs für ein Gesetz zu Schutz des europäischen Spracherbes.

Interview mit Politikwissenschaftler Salzborn: "Rechtsrahmen für Minderheitenschutz völlig ausreichend"

 

http://derstandard.at/2774796

Villains or Victims?

Villains or Victims?

03.01.2006

By Peter Josika

Two different messages about the Sudeten Germans confront Czechs in their day-to-day lives. They are still taught about the German colonialists who turned Nazi and wanted to destroy the country. And yet one cannot escape reports of postwar death marches, expulsions and mass graves, where Sudeten Germans were victims not perpetrators.

While some politicians prefer to talk about gestures of reconciliation, others stress the irrevocability of the postwar order, and with it, the country's No. 1 taboo issue: the Beneš Decrees.

In a state that wanted to completely eliminate memories of Czech-German coexistence, it has become difficult to form a balanced view about the Sudeten Germans, their history and contribution to the country — and also the importance of the German language and culture to the modern-day Czech Republic. Various myths and prejudices about those people that T.G. Masaryk referred to as "our Germans" persist, while there is very little unbiased and complete information about them.

 

Here some myths versus the facts:

 

Myth: The Sudeten German minority consisted of narrow-minded "Bavarian-style" country people

 

Until their expulsion in 1945, Sudeten Germans formed the majority of the population in west, north and south Bohemia, as well as in parts of north and south Moravia. There were also large German-speaking populations in Prague, Brno and Olomouc. Towns with German majorities included Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad), Český Krumlov (Krumau), Znojmo (Znaim) and Liberec (Reichenberg).

The 3.5 million Sudeten Germans were not a homogenous group — they were intellectuals, scientists, aristocratic landowners, members of the urban middle class, farmers, government officials and laborers.

They were Catholics, Protestants, Jews and even Hussites. They spoke Frankish-Egerlandish in west Bohemia, Saxon in north Bohemia, Silesian German in Silesia and north Moravia as well as Bavarian-Austrian in south Bohemia and Moravia. Many dialects of the German language became extinct as a result of the postwar expulsion.

 

Myth: The Sudeten Germans came to the Czech lands as colonialists

 

Germanic tribes actually lived on modern-day Czech territory well before Slavic tribes arrived around 500 AD. However, neither the Germanic nor the Slavic populations of the fifth century would have qualified as German or Czech in the modern sense. While from the second to the fifth century the population was probably mainly Germanic and Celtic, it is generally acknowledged that Slavic settlers became the majority by the seventh century. Most of the remaining populations assimilated with the newly arrived Slavs, although west and northwest Bohemia remained mostly Germanic due to strong Frankish influence. German and Latin remained the prevalent language of the Royal House and the aristocracy, even among the Přemyslid dynasty.

Between the 11th and the 16th centuries, Germans and Dutch were called into the country by Bohemian kings to establish modern forms of agriculture, develop urban centers and introduce new trades. During this period, German also became the prevalent language in south Bohemia and Moravia, as well as in parts of north Moravia and northeast Bohemia. Major cities such as Prague, Brno, Olomouc, Plzeň and the former Budweis flourished in the late Middle Ages due to trade and arts.

 

Myth: The Sudeten Germans all voted for the Nazi Party

 

Sudeten Germans supposedly all voted for the Nazi puppet Sudeten German Party (SdP) of Konrad Henlein with the sole purpose of destroying Czechoslovakia, Central Europe's last island of freedom and democracy at the time.

These accusations are based on the theory of collective guilt, or, as the Constitutional Court argued in defense of the Beneš Decrees, the principle of collective responsibility. The current state uses historic events like the 1935 election to defend and justify the forced expulsion of one-third of the country's historic population and the resulting disappearance of one of the country's historic languages.

Although much literature contains detailed analyses of these elections, few facts have become public. A close look reveals that a substantial part of the Sudeten Germans did not vote for the SdP, despite the enormous anti-Czech propaganda coming from Nazi Germany. Henlein received around two-thirds of the votes of the four main German parties but a strong communist vote also marked the highly industrialized north Bohemia.

Also, some Sudeten Germans did not vote, while others supported Czech or Hungarian parties. The SdP is likely to have received 50 percent to 55 percent of the Sudeten German vote. Among all the German-speaking population, Henlein received only 35 percent. And those who voted SdP voted for an official party program calling for Sudeten German autonomy within a democratic Czechoslovakia.

 

Myth: When Hitler marched into the Sudetenland, he was greeted with flowers and all Sudeten Germans screamed "Heil Hitler"

 

The pictures of Hitler's triumphal arrival are shown regularly here. However, can pictures of a few thousand people screaming "Heil Hitler" really be considered an indication of collective responsibility by an entire ethnic group?

The Nazis were masters at staging events. Every Hitler speech was accompanied by a folk fest with music, food and giveaways. It wasn't difficult to draw the masses to give the impression of unreserved support. In reality, most Catholic Sudeten Germans surely felt as outcasts in Centralist and Czechophile interwar Czechoslovakia, but were equally critical and suspicious of atheist Prussian-style Nazi Germany.

Films about events staged by the pro-Nazi Czech fascists in the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia remain mostly hidden away in archives, such as those of the German Wochenschau. Do thousands of Czechs participating in regular political demonstrations of the Czech Fascist Party in Prague prove widespread support for fascism?

 

German guilt is black and white

 

European politicians today agree that we must defend pluralist democracies and prevent the re-emergence of dictatorships in Europe. We must also overcome the simplistic theories that make it easy to whitewash collective responsibility.

The victorious powers of World War I — including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Italy — carry their distinct share of responsibility for the emergence of Nazism in Europe. The tough and uncompromising peace terms forced upon Weimar Germany created a fertile ground for radical nationalism in Germany. And multi-ethnic interwar Czechoslovakia failed to let Sudeten Germans identify with their new homeland.

All occupied territories collaborated widely with the Nazis. In a landmark speech in 1998, French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac conceded France's joint responsibility for many crimes committed during the war.

One can only hope that issues like the controversy surrounding the Czech-run concentration camp at Lety will help to start a thorough self-reflection in the Czech Republic. Perhaps one day a Czech president will dare to follow Chirac with an apology — though it will undoubtedly not be the current one.

— The author, a resident of Biel, Switzerland, is coordinator of the Network of European Bilingual Cities project and a correspondent for the news agency Eurolang (www.eurolang.net).

Playing the blame game- Collective guilt ignores historical responsibility

Playing the blame game- Collective guilt ignores historical responsibility

06.07.2005

By Peter Josika

The postwar mistreatment and expulsion of German speakers from Czechoslovakia remains a European issue, one of the key factors for future co-existence of the nations of Central Europe. It remains of utmost importance that we never forget the terrors of war and ethnic cleansing that led to indescribable suffering by millions of innocents. It remains equally important that we mourn each innocent death, regardless of whether it is Jewish, Czech, German or any other ethnic origin.

This becomes particularly important in a country where the population has always been extremely intermingled. A look at the list of expelled Germans will uncover as many Czech names as there are German names among Czech politicians today — for example, allow me to mention just a few "dangerously" Germanic names like Klaus, Ransdorf and Kühnl.

If anyone 100 years ago had predicted that 40 million people would be brutally killed, and well over 20 million Europeans expelled from their century-old homelands during a mere 50 years, he would have been considered a lunatic. The 20th century, however, provided all nightmares imaginable, and there remains no doubt that all Europeans must take equal responsibility — and we all must do what we can to prevent a repeat of these most shameful and dreadful events.

Any attempt to blame "the Germans" or "the Russians" collectively for all evil, as is still commonly done in the Czech Republic, represents an act of self-denial. Czechoslovakia after World War I, though often glorified as democratic, still had many deficiencies, including its inability to come to terms with its minorities.

In contrast to Switzerland, a country that created a strong multinational identity through a federalist system with a large degree of autonomy for its regions, Czechoslovakia took the opposite course and centralized its political structure. Because of that, the large minorities — Germans, Hungarians and Poles —increasingly felt like outcasts without an identity.

A Constitutional Assembly legislated the Czechoslovak constitution without including any Germans, Hungarians or Poles. No wonder most of the non-Czechoslovaks could barely relate to the identity of this state when it emerged from the ashes of Austria-Hungary in 1918.

The name Czechoslovakia ("land of the Czechs and Slovaks" — hence, others do not belong to the new state's identity) had already been badly chosen for a country in which Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Ruthenians made up 40 percent of the population. Instead of an all-inclusive state for everyone — similar to Belgium or Switzerland — a monolingual state similar to France, Germany and Russia began to take shape.

The most divisive piece of post-World War I legislation, however, was undoubtedly the introduction of "Czechoslovak" as the nation's official language. Historians often take little note of it, but this seriously damaged inter-ethnic relations. It led to the introduction of Czech signage and topographic names across the ethnically German, Hungarian and Polish regions of the country, seriously provoking anti-Czech sentiment among many people.

More importantly, however, the law also cost thousands of German, Hungarian and Polish officials their jobs (mainly in the postal and railway services), as they did not speak the new "national language." Many had been too old to learn a new language overnight, one still virtually unknown in many parts of the country. To make matters worse, thousands of Czechs arrived to fill their former positions.

Add to this a number of other devastating factors: a worldwide recession, which hit German-speaking northern Bohemia the worst; a land-reform policy disadvantageous to Germans and Hungarians; infrastructure developments channeled preferentially to Czech-speaking areas; and Czech schools opening in German-speaking areas for only a handful of students, while larger German and Hungarian schools suffered closures if the German or Hungarian population in town fell below 20 percent. In such an explosive atmosphere, Germans then became bombarded by Nazi propaganda. It is a sad fact that it wasn't until a few weeks before the Munich Pact that Radio Prague even introduced a German radio station for 3 million of its nation's citizens — too little, too late.

These remain historic facts, known well but often downplayed to defend simplistic views on "good vs. evil." The coexistence of Germans and Czechs before 1945 had been much more complex and multifaceted than usually portrayed.

Regardless, if we envision a politically united Europe, or even only the loose economic union supported by Václav Klaus, we must focus on creating a Europe for everyone, one that addresses the identities not only of Germans and Czechs in their respective countries but also of Sudeten Germans, Czech Poles, Serbs, Slovak Hungarians, South Tyroleans, Basques, Bretons and so on.

The treatment of minorities in the Czech Republic, just as in most other European countries, has never been exemplary. The Polish minority in Czech Silesia has decreased by more than 70 percent since 1930 — without an expulsion. The German language, estimated to have been spoken by almost half the population in the mid-18th century, has virtually disappeared. Of the 3.1 million Czech Germans counted in 1931, only 30,000 remain, a decrease of just over 99 percent.

Will this issue go away by ignoring it, as some Czech politicians seem to believe? How can we deal with this issue? Not through half-hearted apologies, like the Czech-German declaration that bypassed the suffering and injustice felt by millions of Czechs, Germans and Jews.

Every psychiatrist knows that we can only cope with emotional pain if we deal with it. Every sociologist knows that disagreements can only be solved through openness, discussion and an appreciation of the suffering of others.

It seems that Czech politicians, however, remain scared to finally, officially reach out their hands to Sudeten Germans, though such an important move would be met with enormous appreciation by many.

Any attempt to heal the wounds may or may not touch controversial issues such as the Beneš Decrees. But Czech politicians can actively recognize the part-German and part-Polish heritage of the country through a number of different gestures: bilingual signage in formerly German- and Polish-speaking areas, for example, or through a greater support of German and Polish minorities by establishing bilingual schools across their traditional settlement regions.

This may be met with more appreciation among Sudeten Germans and Poles than the return of a rusty hut in western Bohemia or a few hundred euros of symbolic compensation for their suffering.

 

— The author resides in Bern, Switzerland.

 

https://archive.today/AAufY#selection-637.0-769.43