"Without autonomy, there is no Hungarian future in Székelyföld", and it is everyone's responsibility to act "in their place and with their means" for self-determination.
Local communities lit watch fires in many settlements of Székelyföld on Sunday evening as a sign that the native population of the area is demanding territorial autonomy, said Zoltán Gazda, the executive chairman of the Székely National Council (SZNT), the main organizer of the movement.
At the bonfires lit after dark in the larger squares of the settlements or on the surrounding heights, the local organizers everywhere read out the manifesto of the event, which was signed by the president of the Székely National Council (SZNT), which initiated and organized the bonfire, Izsák Balázs.
The territorial autonomy of Székelyföld is a pledge of peace, security and prosperity, a legal framework that guarantees the full and effective equality of all citizens of Székelyföld, the document points out.
According to the manifesto, the test of the coming period will be for the SZNT to submit to the European Commission the citizens' initiative launched a decade ago in the interests of the national regions.
"We are aware that the international economy is by no means favorable to the cause of national regions. However, the nearly one and a half million supporting signatures oblige us to make the ideal of self-determination a success with the help of the community's will," reads his manifesto.
According to the SZNT, with the lighting of the guard fire, they want to make it a personal experience for all Hungarians to realize that "without autonomy, there is no Hungarian future in Székelyföld", and that everyone has a responsibility to act "in their place and with their means" for self-determination.
More than a hundred settlements in Székelyföld have announced that they will join the movement.
According to the executive president, the lighting of the guard fire has become a tradition and is now a regular demonstration led by local initiators, and many settlements that are not "registered" with the SZNT take part in it.
For the first time, the map of Székelyföld was drawn with sentinel fires lit on the borders of the region, but the residents of the inner parts of the region disapproved of the fact that they were left out of the action, explained the main organizer. Therefore, their current appeal addressed to all the settlements of Székelyföld to "make the Székely homeland visible with watch fires", indicating that they will not allow it to be melted down or dismembered.
According to Zoltán Gazda, the initiative has now found such a response outside of Székelyföld that roughly the same number of settlements in the motherland participate in the lighting of guard fires as in Székelyföld.
In 2016, the SZNT, which was reconstituted in 2003 and founded more than a hundred years ago, declared the last Sunday of October to be the day of the autonomy of Székelyföld, when they pray together for the autonomy of Székelyföld in the churches, and in the evening they "make visible" the region demanding self-determination by lighting watch fires.
MTI
Cover image: Guard fire at Mikó Castle in Csíkszeredán on the day of the autonomy of Székelyföld, October 27, 2024
Source: MTI/Nándor Veres
