Czeching Out

Sindbad and the Sky Lizard 4.

Sindbad had a single unpleasant experience in Oman, and that with a Czech hitch-hiker. They met on an afternoon beginning to turn into evening in one of the deserted portions of the coast. Sindbad was very happy to see a tribe member, apparently an experienced traveller judged by his little backpack. A world traveller discussion soon enfolded about experiences in different lands. Unfortunately the stranger soon breached the subject of the war in Ukraine. Sindbad carelessly remarked that sending so many young people to an unwinnable war might not have been the best of ideas. The other persons eyes flickered, his face became distorted and he began to hiss about Orbán and Putin, these satanic creatures from the neathermost reaches of hell. 

Sindbad, for the first time in his life found himself lumped in the same party as the father of the new Hungarian feudalism, which was a strange feeling. It was similar to the public hearing for the planned gold mine in Verespatak in Transylvania, where the ethnic Hungarian greens unexpectedly ended up in the same camp with Gheorghe Funar, the former criminal major of Kolozsvár¹, a right-wing extremist and Hungarian hater. Sindbad happened to loathe the Hungarian royal media and the American imperial media to about the same extent, getting his information from completely different sources. He found it fascinating how some surface resemblance can dump you in a political category. But there was no time to ruminate on that as events were irreversibly on the roll.

Sindbad, realizing his mistake, tried to straighten things in a very calm manner. He agreed with many of the points of his partner. Obviously, the population of Ukraine suffers the most from this war, he said, however, it might be more complicated than the fight of good and evil. After all, we are witnessing great power rivalry, where it could be useful to look at things in a more nuanced fashion. Here we are on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula, thousands of kilometers from the events, neither of us has been to the front, we are taking all our information from secondary sources. All media have a financial or political agenda, we have no objective knowledge of things so it might be useful to investigate several sources.

All this was like oil to the fire. The Czech did not budge one inch. He has been to both Russia and Ukraine. There are no complexities, it is a simple case of aggression, of one country attacking another for taking territory. Sindbad attempted to placate him, but he wouldn’t listen, or allow Sindbad to talk. When the situation started to become dangerously heated, Sindbad turned and walked away from the shouting man. Swearwords poured after him for quite some time. X§! Orbán, W%! Hungarians!

Sindbad’s bad feelings were usually triggered when it was him behaving in a psychopatic way, but his time he felt his conscience to be clear. Still, he was walking with a heavy heart. The other man was soon picked up by a car, so at least the territory was peaceful. I could have asked him, Sindbad grumbled to himself, how was it when the Czechs invaded northern Hungary after World War I. And when the whole of Hungary was occupied by foreign powers, they made the competely devastated country sign a “peace” treaty which gave nearly three quarters of its territory to neighbouring, mostly newly created states. All Hungary asked for was a plebiscite which was denied. The entire length of the new Czechoslovak-Hungarian border cut through territory inhabited by Hungarians. Ukraine will have the same fate, a part occupied by a military force will be annexed, although this time a so-called plebiscite  will be held.

And what would he have said, he continued his inner monologue, if I told him that my grandmother’s family was simply thrown out of the new Czechoslovakia. Their crime was writing a letter to their relatives complaining about the oppression of Hungarians which the authorities opened. You don’t like it?, they said. Out with you! So they had to continue their lives in a railway cart for cattle in a Budapest railway yard. In 1939, a strip of land with an over 80% Hungarian majority was given back to Hungary in the Ist Vienna Award. Even though the treaty was internationally recognised, after World War II. Czechoslovakia got the territory again, and this time they “officially” deported a large number of ethnic Hungarians, including my great-grandparents on the other side. My grand-grandfather had even his shoes taken by Czechoslovak border guards. He arrived bare feet to the Indian reservation mockingly called the state of Hungary. This is your great Western democracy, my friend.

Sindbad would only bring up this example for comparison, not as a guilt trip. (He had been relieved upon the realization that he can live without hating the great-grandchildren of those that beat his great-grandfather up.) But it would have been useless to say anything as the other man knew the truth, and he knew that everything that was even partly different was a vicious lie. So there was nothing to do but continue walking, with long strides up the mountain under the backpack, allowing the steep slope to slowly absorb the stress in the chest.

Part of the truth is, he thought, that, because of the “population exchange” forced upon Hungary, i. e. a large number of refugees without a home, a part of the ethnic German community was deported from Hungary. Not only were the Hungarians of Jewish descent (most of them Hungarian-speaking and with a Hungarian identity) betrayed by the state but now also our German fellow citizens. I think, Sindbad pondered, that aggression towards ourselves is worse than aggression suffered at the hand of others.

What is to be learned from today’s experience? – he asked himself to achieve peace of mind. It all happened so quickly, but how? He recalled the scene, what he said and how the other person reacted. Yes. There was a flicker in the eyes. This is the message: noticing the flicker in the eyes. As society keeps falling apart, there will be more and more nutcases, people unable to communicate or inhabiting all sorts of strange realities. Sometimes you can see this right away, but not always. The best thing is to realize who you are dealing with before they lose it. But at the very least you can pay attention to the eyes. The eyes always tell what’s inside. Strange times lie ahead and we have to watch people’s eyes.

The road turned away from the sea, up to the mountain, more and more steep, without a single car or even motorcycle. It was now really getting dark. Sindbad was looking left and right trying to find a spot to spend the night, but the rocky, sloped surface didn’t offer any good places to sleep. He had given up the possibility of getting a ride that day when he heard a noise. A car was coming from behind. He put out his arm.

Seeing the tanned skin of the driver he started with a salem aleikum when the woman to the right of the driver opened the door and greeted him in English. An Oriental face looked at Sindbad, who, for the first time in his life, got a lift from Chinese tourists. Real, PRC Chinese who had not been allowed to leave the country for four years because of Covid. They were making their first exploratory journey to a guest-friendly, easily accessible foreign country. The unaccented English of the female partner was a result of years spent in Australia.

Trudging and sweating gave place to an intellectual discussion, a hundred kilometres of easy ride on the empty night road. Sindbad hardly relaxed in the seat when they became aware of a figure waving on the road. It was the Czech man. The driver started to brake and Sindbad had to explain very fast why this time hitch-hikers’ solidarity would not work and the best idea would be to just go on. The car lurched and the peace-loving traveller, whose heart must have already jumped at the sight of the slowing car, was left in the night.

This story is again too didactic, Sindbad said to himself. Not mentioning the fact that the small backpack of the traveller would not have a tent in it. I feel so sorry for him, he shook his head, for having to sleep on rocks while being bitten by all those mosquitoes.

1. Former capital of Transylvania. Rumanian: Cluj. Official Rumanian: Cluj-Napoca. German: Klausenburg