This past month has been hectic to say the least. Although the holidays came and went, the daily frenzy of activity did not stop and we continued to hunt down stories. We traveled to a Roma settlement, met with local community leaders and visited people who lived in what we witnessed to be unfathomable conditions. Then on the last day of 2003, we met with Hungarian Foreign Minister and Hungarian Socialist Party Leader László Kovács.

In meeting with political figures, and trying to get to the core of the issues, I couldn’t help but recognize that politicians can be more concerned about their own political aspirations than with the issues they are mandated to tackle.

This happened when we visited Jászladány – a Hungarian town thrust into the spotlight for a case of alleged school segregation. There, we found a local Roma leader who called for the resignation of a host of government officials and threatened to march to the human rights court in Strasbourg, because of the plight of the Roma. In the meantime, this man did not offer solutions to problems he wanted tackled, and seemed more involved in a political game of brinkmanship, where the problems of his people somehow were lost in a game of high politics.

Then came our interview with the Foreign Minister. Perhaps I am an optimist, and most assuredly an idealist, but I think politicians should believe in their professions, possess strong convictions and have the desire to serve society. After my interview with the Foreign Minister, I tried for days to reconcile how this man could have served a government while, as he alleges, trying to change the very system that he led. I realize that when you want to change a system, you choose your route of protest: either you try to change the system from within, or protest from the outside. At the time, all of Hungary was trapped under the former system, and different people chose different ways to tolerate living under such a regime. I guess that each individual has to justify their choices – primarily to themselves – but if in public life, to the electorate.

During the spring of 1999, I spent a day with one politician whom I strongly suspect believed what he stood for all of his life. Accompanying him on the stops of his last official visit to Hungary has been one of the most memorable days of my life. This man was then-South African President Nelson Mandela. As he made his way to speak to Parliament and visit various government officials, conviction and commitment shone through his eyes.

At that time, NATO was undertaking a bombing campaign of Serbia just as Hungary had joined the military alliance.

" I condemn without reservation the ethnic cleansing which Milosevic is engaged in," he forcefully said. "I will be excused if I go so far as to say that I cannot imagine normal human beings committing such crimes and such behavior against women, children and the aged."

But Mandela went on to say, "I also condemn NATO for taking action outside of the United Nations and doing precisely what Milosevic is doing … We must strongly condemn any country or group of countries that take action of this nature outside of the United Nations."

The words of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and human rights advocate shook any hall he entered, and his beaming eyes garnered a kind of respect that I have never seen before. It was the result of a true believer in his convictions. I think it has to do with the fact that this man, having spent years in a prison cell for his beliefs, has lived by and will die fighting for the principles he stands firmly behind.

Andrew Princz
Editor