The Autonomous Region of Mars

The Autonomous Region of Mars

Mr. Laszlo Tokes plays with fire once more: "We were your cat's paw when we backed you up in front of your adversaries, so you should now be grateful and give us the autonomy!"
• In return, Mr. Traian Băsescu called him disguised names: "All of us living in this world, we who live on Earth stand a chance: the chance that the Earth is round and each of us may believe that his/her standing point is the centre of the Earth. Likewise, if we look at our Solar System, we all say that all planets revolve around the Earth. If we were on Mars, we would say that the Earth revolved around Mars".

I figure Hungarian extremists' disappointment when the Romanian president started his speech at the "Central Europe - Europe Centre?" from the "Tusvanyos" summer school with the above mentioned phrase. Meaning that Băsescu Traian seemed a man of the right sort of timber, we, the Szeklers, helped him when suspended and we put our shoulder to the wheel of his reelection, and now he acts out as Andromeda Nebula. This guy Tokes Laszlo has a rush job involving the autonomy and Băsescu Traian gives him a "Hump it swag!" treatment, he chases him on the Planet, as if the Gopo's little man. We talk to him about Covasna and Harghita, he points out Pluto and the Ursa Major.

• Mr. Băsescu's entire political career is a sum of these sorts of moments. Usually, when you say that he is under attack, pushed and driven to the wall, you come to yourself smacked and you end up at a loss as you don't know where the hit came from. This time, Mr. Băsescu hasn't practiced his punch, but his roll-out: this is how Mr. Tokes fired loudly in the air. You might say that Laszlo Tokes would have deserved a much harsher reply on behalf of the Presidency for his outrageously defiant question (no matter how hot-blooded you might be, this is not a proper manner to greet a guest) and for the threat involving Szeklers' demonstrations to support the "Catalan type" autonomy. This sort of reaction coming from the highest Romanian official would have only inflated the straightforward, almost primitive, agenda of a politician who is minoritarian even among his ethnical and political group. In silence, Mr. Tokes has no success at all: as any other extremist, his highness needs to stir things up, to challenge, to shock, to shake the media, to take people to the streets, to ask for the passport at the border of the "Szeklers Land" (as one of his "militerized" followers tried at Băile Tuşnad, with the president of the country as a witness). An intelligent answer to Laszlo Tokes is mockery and his platform derision, and not to try and find a balance by having C.V.Tudor as a guest in the studio. And Mr. President is quite good at mockery and pulling legs.

But could Mr. Băsescu's mere presence next to Mr. Tokes, only two days after "taking the Szeklers to the streets", be a victory of the extremist Hungarian wing? Quite possibly Mr. president's unquenchable thirst for adrenaline led him amidst autonomy believers, and not his need to make a historical statement. If he really wanted to meet Viktor Orban (who by the way had a lucid discourse that was connected to the present and not to the past), he could have done it somewhere else, without the mediation of the problem kid.

But, in a way, Mr. Băsescu may believe he is responsible for Mr. Laszlo Tokes' recent career. In the last years, he's systematically supported him, trying to break the monopoly of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania among Szeklers. Even his election as a vice-president of the European Parliament happened with the support of Băsescu and of the DLP (as a matter of fact, Mr. Tokes even thanked him for this backmost success). Mr. Băsescu took it as an elective step, Mr. Tokes as an opportunity: when nobody minded him anymore and while being lost somewhere in the political galaxy, somebody took him at his word. Somebody who is also into playing with fire. We may still stand a chance as the Earth is round, but it is surely a great misfortune that politics is made by too many wooden heads.

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