in memoriam

A brief commentary on the world system, post-state-socialism, economic
restructuring, structural adjustment, the 'eastern enlargement' of the
European Union, and "race".

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In Memoriam

Nepszabadsag, (Hungary's leading daily) March 4, 2003.

by P.G.

I did not know him; never met him, never talked to him. While he was alive, I
knew nothing about him. His death shook me. His name is unimportant--his
story is crucial. The time is now; the place is here. He was one of us.

He was buried on the last cold Monday of the winter, one week after his
death. He was 48 years old. At work he is remembered as a quiet, sickly man.
A very diligent person, he was the jack-of-all-trades repair man in a small
town high school in rural Hungary, member of the "auxiliary personnel". He
was hired last summer, due largely to humanitarian considerations, and he was
a very proud worker.

The school management unit, established by the local municipality as a way to
centralize maintenance of the district schools, is rumored to be laying off
over 60 people these days. The technical-auxiliary personnel of the
schools--it is hard to tell which of those designations is more
humilitating--are employed by this unit. Or, rather: used to be employed. It
was his turn on Friday to be told that that was his last day on the job.

The cleaning ladies at the school say he was desperate. He could not
believe he could find another job in his life. "This was the first place
in my life where I was treated as a human being, where I was addressed as
a fellow man," he argued.

He was a Roma man. Divorced, living with his former wife and three children:
the youngest is 10, the oldest is 17.

On the third day he hanged himself.
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(English transl.: József Böröcz)