In light of the migration crisis, the European Youth Press organised a training course, "World Perspectives: Diversity Voices’, which was held in Budapest earlier this month. The aim of the training course was to bring together young media makers who are passionate about minorities’ rights, to increase their knowledge of how to represent a balanced report when reporting on minorities. Participants coming from different cultural spectrums, with different and unqiue experiences enhanced the project in itself.
The training course was a remarkable experience where participants had the opportunity to work together to produce a feature story on minorities and also had the chance to meet Timea Szabo, a humanitarian worker, journalist and a Hungarian politician. Szabo researched the Afghan conflict after the 9/11 attacks and spent two years in Afghanistan as a member of a UN team and as a representative of CARE International. She then returned to Hungary in 2003 where she became a coordinator of the international activities of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee’s Refugee Program.
Timea Szabo shared her views about the refugee crisis that sparked off last Summer when thousands of migrants made their way across the Mediterreanean to Europe. Szabo believes that a "multicultural society can enrich the country’s culture, as we say – the more flowers the better ".
Hungary was in fact a major transit country for migrants, many of whom aimed to continue on to Austria and Germany. However, Hungary’s rightwing government saw migrants as a threat to the country and decided to close the borders between Serbia and Hungary and lately, even the borders between Croatia.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, the Hungarian Prime Minister emphasised that tougher border control should be adopted and also expressed his idea, that "not every migrant is a terrorist but every terrorist is a migrant’. On this regard, Szabo says that “It’s a very dangerous rhetoric to use in public. Our party is trying to fight that, but it’s very difficult because media is mostly dominated by the government. Unfortunately, the state propaganda is working.”
Whilst everyone has a say on what should have been done or on what should be done, only few have the right to take decisions that directly affect us and Europe. However, we are in control of our actions. It is up to us, as humans, to realise that every human being deserves the right to live in a place and call it home regardless of where he comes from or the religion he practices. It is only up to us to integrate migrants into our society and realise that they are humans just like you and me, looking for safety, peace and stability.
All fruits of this course can be found at:
https://diversityvoices.wordpress.com/
