Ditrau, a village in Harghita
\ncounty, has been making headlines for a few days, sparkling heated debates on
\nthe political, civic and media scene. The officials in Bucharest have reacted
\nafter the local community vehemently took against the employment by a village
\nbakery of two workers from Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The locals protested in the street
\nbecause they say they are afraid of immigrants coming to their village and imposing
\ntheir culture and putting their safety in danger. The owners of the apartments
\nrented by the two workers received threats from the angry villagers who say
\nthey will never eat bread knead by black hands. The employer found
\naccommodation for the two workers outside the village, but said he would keep
\nthem in their initial positions. Earlier, he said he would find other posts for
\nthem in order to diffuse the situation, but this offer was also rejected by the
\nlocals. The village’s Roman Catholic priest, who joined the protest, was
\nrebuked by his ecclesiastical superiors, while the mayor, who tried to appease the
\ntensions, had a nervous breakdown and burst into tears. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
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The story is all the more strange as
\na fifth of the inhabitants of the village work abroad. This horrible episode,
\nwhile similar to others reported elsewhere in Europe, from Scandinavia to
\nSicily and from Madrid to Moscow, has much deeper connotations according to
\ncommentators. The president of the Romanian Academy Ioan Aurel Pop speaks about
\nexclusion, xenophobia and racism. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The setting to the drama, Harghita
\ncounty, is, together with Covasna and part of Mures counties, part of the
\nso-called Szeckler Country, the only region in the country with a majority
\nethnic Hungarian population. Poor, isolated and conservative, the rural
\npopulation in these parts is in many cases monolingual, does not speak Romanian
\nand supports Szeckler autonomy. Hungarian TV channels have monopoly in this
\narea and some blame the attitude of the villagers in Ditrau on the
\nanti-immigration discourse of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. These
\nTV channels insist that the protest of the villagers is not against the Sri
\nLankan workers but against the owner of the bakery, who is himself an ethnic
\nHungarian. Former employees have complained that he treated them inhumanely,
\npaying them only the minimum wages and systematically forcing them to work
\nextra hours without paying them. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
The labour minister Violeta
\nAlexandru has ordered an inspection at the bakery, the police have started a
\ncriminal investigation and the National Council for Combating Discrimination
\nhas taken note of the situation. A former deputy prime minister and former
\nleader of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, the writer
\nMarko Bela says he regrets that we have failed the test, because we demand
\ntolerance from others, but allow our communities to be intolerant. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bakers, priests and local and national politicians are among the protagonists of the drama unfolding in an until now anonymous village in central Romania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":84508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[39871],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-84507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-racism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n