Foreigners just say 'relax'

I SEE that this year Budapest has once again jumped straight from winter to summer. What has happened to spring? One day it's overcoat weather, then it's time to stash the heavy gear in the back of the wardrobe and dig out shorts and T-shirts.


I SEE that this year Budapest has once again jumped straight from winter to summer. What has happened


to spring? One day it's overcoat weather, then it's time to stash the heavy gear in the back of the wardrobe and dig out shorts and T-shirts.


Perhaps cutting back on the number of seasons in a year is one of the many stringent economic demands made by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to tighten up Hungarian fiscal policy.


Spring, it seems, was a Kádárera indulgence, a sepia-tinted nostalgic era of government subsidies, shorter working hours, free holidays at trade union hotels by Lake Balaton and other much missed comforts.


Clearly, harsher economic climates and the chill wind of capitalist reality demand more rigorous seasons. Perhaps autumn will be next to go. One day in mid-October Budapest will lurch from warm Mediterranean sunshine to arctic winter gloom. I think it was the former prime minister Viktor Orbán who once announced, "Hungary is no longer a transition country," so perhaps it doesn't need transition seasons.


Thankfully, though, summer is here. The hot season brings many benefits, not least of which is the city's ever-expanding selection of pavement cafés, so fluently described by my colleague Lucy Mallows in last week's issue.


But returning to the topic of Tshirts, the warmer weather also heralds the reappearance of the World's Most Annoying Garment: Printed with a white on black message proclaiming Magyar Vagyok Nem Turista - "I am a Hungarian, not a tourist."


My first thought when I see someone wearing one of these is that I should go and congratulate them. A Hungarian in Hungary. Well, fancy that. In these complicated and troubled times, it's always good to be secure in your own national identity. So much so, you are obliged to tell the world. Then I want to ask the Tshirt wearer if he (it's always a he) has ever visited a foreign country, or even visited somewhere outside his home town, which would make him... a tourist. But although the T-shirt singles out tourists, it is really directed against foreigners of all kinds, temporary visitors or longer-term residents. The message is clear: "Hungary for Real Hungarians," whoever they might be.


I most recently saw the offending item on the chest of a young man walking down the körút. I considered asking him if he knew that after 1945 and 1956 tens of thousands of Hungarian refugees were welcomed abroad - and not as tourists . Or I could direct him to the Budapest telephone directory - as I have mentioned in a previous column - and take him through a list of all the foreign names. Or perhaps refer him to the saying of Hungary's most revered King, St István, who called for foreigners residing in the midst of the Magyarok to be treated humanely and with respect.


It was amusing to see that as well as wearing the annoying Tshirt, he was dressed in shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, sports shoes, and he had long floppy hair.


He would have looked quite at home on the streets of any Western capital, as he was dressed in the style affected by disaffected youth across the globe: In short, a perfect example of the globalization he appeared to be protesting against. But I think the irony would be lost on him.


So here's a call for Hungary's growing community of foreigners - and increasing numbers of tourists - to hit back against the narrow-minded nationalists. I propose that we design and manufacture our own version in reply to the Magyar Vagyok edition.


It should say something like: I am a Foreigner, a citizen of one of the many countries whose friendship, expertise and investment capital have helped make Hungary one of the region's biggest success stories, boosted its economy, provided many thousands of jobs, and speeded up Hungary's entry into the European Union and NATO.


And we wear them all year round.




29.05.2003