Székelyföld is the best place in the EU - says Sándor Tamás, chairman of the Kovászna county council, as a true local patriot.
At the Sepsi Tabakó Festival, Farcádi Botond, the editor-in-chief of the Háromszék daily paper, talked with Tamás Sándor RMDSZ politician, the chairman of the Kovásza county council in Székelyföld. Their performance is "Székelyföld - the west of the East or the east of the West?" was titled
The Székelyföld leader told us at the beginning of the conversation: he is now 58 years old and was young in the 80s, during the darkest period of Romanian communism.
After graduating from high school in 1985, he prepared for university entrance exams in Hungarian, as was the practice until then, but this option was withdrawn shortly before the exam, so he could only be admitted in Romanian. After unsuccessfully passing this test, he went to complain to the management of the university with the current constitution of Romania in hand, since the basic law guaranteed the right to education in the mother tongue.
In vain, since they told him that what the constitution says is good, but that is not what the Romanian Communist Party expects from them now.
He had similar experiences as a conscript, especially during Friday morning political briefings. Here he said that, contrary to the submitted material, the Szeklers lived in Transylvania earlier than the Romanians, and this is also proven by written documents. Also, the fact that the Gheorghe Doja in the curriculum is actually György Dózsa from the village of Dálnok, which was also not successful among political officers.
The moderator then asked the audience whether Székelyföld should close its doors to the West. Since no one really thought so, he declared that Székelyland was already part of the West.
He then asked Sándor Tamás what the West meant to him in the 1980s. For him, for them in Kézdivásárhely, where he grew up, owning ten bottles of Coca-Cola meant the West.
According to him, Hungary did not represent the West in the eyes of the Szeklers at that time, but it was still much freer.
From there, not cola, but jeans with straps and chewing gum were smuggled into the country, accompanied by books not available in Transylvania. "The West actually began with the Berlin Wall," said the leader from Székely.
The moderator recalled the early 2000s, when he graduated from high school, and explained that at that time people here did not yet feel that they belonged to the West. Everyone thought that Székelyföld and Romania should catch up with the West. He then turned to the audience and asked the young people who wanted to study or live abroad - but no one really applied.
Sándor Tamás considered it important to clarify what the concept of the West means. "What do we like about the West?" he asked. “The infrastructure? The quality of life? But do we see into the substantive issues?" According to him, now you can get not only cola, but also coffee like in Italy. The infrastructure in Székelyföld is the same as in Western Europe.
The question is rather, do we want to belong to the West in terms of values, which today means illegal migration, the woke and the attitude to the war taking place in our neighborhood?
I don't want to identify with these trends, he stated firmly.
Farcádi mentioned that nowadays young people like to study or work in the Union during or after university. The interlocutors agreed that the EU is a good thing and provides a wealth of opportunities for a young person. The European community means mobility and convectiveness. However, the politician emphasized that it is also thanks to the EU that more and more Western Europeans are coming to Transylvania to study at university, as they also have quality education.
He goes on to say that he graduated from university in Budapest and encourages young people to go abroad to study or work, unlike many of his fellow Transylvanian politicians. Gain knowledge, money and connections there. They will come home and bring with them everything they have acquired outside.
The moderator asked his interlocutor what brought him home to Székelyföld. Sándor Tamás told us that his wife is also from Székely, but he also studied and worked in Budapest. Since family and friendship ties are important to both of them, and even the education of the teachers of their former schools, after discussing their affairs well, they decided to move back.
"I can say that I moved home out of a desire for adventure. I like living in Romania, because only the viable ones survive here. This is a difficult field, so many of my friends from the motherland do not understand this decision," said the Székely politician with a mischievous smile under his moustache.
When asked why it is good to live in Székelyföld, Sándor Tamás replies that it depends on who wants what. If you want to leave a mark on posterity, if you want community life and experiences, then choose Székelyföld.
The philosophical debate lies in the difference between liberal and conservative approaches: the question is who should be good? The liberal places the emphasis on the individual, and this leads to singles or one-child families. With us, the family, the village community, the national community, in other words: God, family, home are important. According to Tamás, this is what the debate between Viktor Orbán and the West is about. According to him, people rent almost everything in the West, but he still mows where his grandfather's grandfather did.
When asked how many years he thinks ahead as the president of the Kovaszna County Council when making his decisions, Sándor Tamás said: he has to think ahead until the end of his unborn grandchildren's lives, that is, at least 80 years.
When asked by the editor-in-chief of Háromszék what the concept of home means, the politician stated: where one feels good.
That's why they started building or renovating nurseries, kindergartens, schools, and playgrounds in Kovászna county, so that people could feel more at home and as many as possible could move back from the west.
In the past, Brasó, with a population of roughly a quarter of a million, sucked people from Székelyföld, but now that has changed.
Companies from Brasov are now looking for locations and people in Székelyföld. The airport near Brasó, which has been operating since last year, is also a great benefit to Háromszék. Székelyföld has become a desirable place, which has its advantages, but also its disadvantages, which must be managed well - Sándor Tamás confessed.
The advantage of Háromszék is that it is as developed as the West, but it has not been dominated by the ideologies that are fashionable there, which is why Székelyföld is the best place in the EU - concluded the politician.
Cover photo: Sándor Tamás at the Sepsi Tobacco Festival
Source: Facebook/Sándor Tamás
