Re: MIC commentary on the report about Bulgarians in Macedonia

To: MINELRES list submissions <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 19:16:49 -0800
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: MIC commentary on the report about Bulgarians in Macedonia

From: MINELRES moderator  <[email protected]>

Original sender: Laszlo Kurti  <[email protected]>

Re: MIC commentary on the report about Bulgarians in Macedonia


Dear Boris, I would like to offer MINELRES and its readers some
thought with regard to similar news and nationalistic polemics. I have
been researching contestation of national and ethnic identities in
Hungary and Romania and I have had the chance to read both pro and
con Romanian/Hungarian views. But since this is a discussion forum
for minority affairs in eastern Europe, I would like to preserve some
sort of scholarlyness and neutrality without legitimating censorship.
I would like to suggest the following not as hardline facts but more
like loosely framed ethical guidelines:

(1) If you receive any information, you as the MINELRES moderator
have the right to screen them, cut them and/or check them for content
and message (just like a journal or professional newspaper would do).

(2)  As a rule, do not print or forward any message that is not signed
and cannot be verified.  This is basic: anyone who wants to submit
anonymous information is out of luck!

(3)  I am in favor of allowing differing voices, debates and scholarly
arguments when and only when they seem to make (i) points that
have not been raised before; (ii) address important insights not
available elsewhere; (iii) advance our field and the general knowledge
about the issues at hand; and (iv) balance the one-sided picture.

I know that with national conflicts and ethno-national debates it is not
always easy to determine what is the hegemonic or the dissenting
voice. I read the messages posted by the Roma Press Agency from
Hungary concerning the anti-Gypsy feelings in Hungary with the same
ethical standards I just mentioned above.  Many times, I feel upset to
read some of the dry "facts".  As if there are no other perspectives on
the same issue.  It is hard at times to say who is right and who is
wrong. That is why you have to take the step and make your decision
what to allow for circulation and what should end up in the recycle bin.

Sorry, but I thought these could be of some help,

Laszlo Kurti.

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