LGI / Resources / Ethnic relations

Hungarian Perceptions of the American Peace Forces

© Éva Kovács / Teleki László Foundation
e-mail: kova@compuserve.com

The American IFOR troops arrived in Taszár and Kaposvár in December 1995. Our research program was launched only a bit later, in March 1996 and lasted one year on the average. The individual subprograms had varying time spans. The field survey in cultural anthropology was executed between April and November, 1996, The remaining time was spent for the writing of case studies. The economic analysis embraced a longer period, that is, the economic years of 1995 and 1996, while the media survey covered to 12 months between November 1, 1995 and October 31, 1996. The difference in the time frames of the subprograms stemmed from the differences between the individual research techniques. The anthropological analysis relied on a deep-going field survey and the reinterpretation of the resulting data. The economic subprogram focused on the changes effected by the presence of the American troops, therefore the ex ante situation had to be examinate as well. When monitoring the press, we were interested in the preliminary expectations of the opinion leaders. That is why we started the media analysis by the release of the first news on IFOR activities in Hungary.

The program was based on the work of the following research teams:

1. Helga Baja, Betti Gergely, Ildikó Huszár, Kata Járosi, Andrea Kováts and Anna Vándor, students in the Department of Mass Communication of Janus Pannonius University (Pécs), under the supervision of Margit Feischmidt and Zsolt Szíjártó, assistant professors;

2. Graduate student Zoltán Hermann (Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and his colleagues;

3. Tibor Misovicz, assistant professor of economics (Department of Industrial Economics, Budapest University of Economics), Éva Kovács, research fellow (Institute for Central European Studies), and Levente Szabó, student (Department of Anthropology, Lóránd Eötvös University).

The OSI grant made it for us possible to study a new topic in the life of Hungarian society, and gave a chance to undergraduate and graduate students for making independent research in social sciences.

Our research program focused on three themes. First, we wanted to explore what kind of images of the United States were emerging in the minds of the local population through the encounters with the American soldiers. Secondly, we examined the impacts of the stationing of the IFOR troops upon business life of Kaposvár and vicinity. Finally, we made efforts to understand the changes in the images of the United States in the media, and to see how it was formed by the local and national press. In what follows, we would like to summarize briefly the main results of our research program.

I. Cultural communication between the Americans and the indigenous population of Taszár. A survey in cultural anthropology

Cultural communication was studied in four fields:

1. Redistribution of social space

2. Spontaneous and ritualized encounters

3. Work contacts

4. Consumption

1. Redistribution of social space

1. 1. Taszár village and the IFOR forces (Kata Járosi)

Since 1950, the inhabitants of the village of Taszár has been divided in two parts: to original village dwellers and to the military quarter of Hungarian air force officers and their families. The two groups were separated not only in geographical terms but also in their social status. The members of the air force unit were privileged and as such they were feared and envied by the locals. This privileged position of the air force officers was largely modified in 1989, when the sreamlining of the army started in Hungary.

To a certain degree, the military unit became exposed to the village dwellers and, simultaneously, the two groups started to merge: the officers began to buy houses in the village, and the community of Taszár decided to contribute to the maintenance of the air base. Also, the air force unit started opening up to the village by organizing so-called Aviation Days in the 1980s. Since then, the villagers have been proud of the air base and the distance between the two social groups has diminished.

It is this situation, that the American soldiers arrived in. The US troops took over the Hungarian air base, including the officers’ canteen, which is located in the center of the village, while they set up their own camp outside the city limit. Thereby, they have completely rearranged the social space of Taszár. This shocked the Hungarian officer corps, because they had to move far away to work on the Pápa air base, and lost their symbolic central position in the village. Finally, in December 1996, the Hungarian Ministry of Defence dismantled its Taszár air base and, with the exception of a small number of young officers sent the whole unit in pension.

The field survey demonstrated that in the village it was the officers that were the most affected by the appearance of the IFOR troops in Taszár, because their social prestige, which had been deteriorating anyway, got completely broken. Yet, the officers blame not the Americans but the Hungarian military leadership for that.

1.2. Trucks and damages (Helga Baja)

Right after the arrival of the IFOR troops, the American military trucks left Taszár for Bosnia. As a consequence, serious damages were reported from Taszár and Kaposvár: streets and highways sank, cracks emerged in the houses along the streets, the resulting noise injured the inhabitants psychically and the number of traffic accidents increased, etc.

The conflicts caused by the damages were rapidly institutionalized and party solved. In January 1996 a new highway avoiding Taszár was inaugurated. Following the example of conflict resolution between the American troops and the local authorities in Germany, insurance contracts were signed in March and compensation for the damages began in June.

Like in the case of the Hungarian air base, the deconstruction of which was not started but accelerated by the arrival of the American troops, the reparation of the highways between Taszár and Kaposvár were also long overdue. The damages served as a pretext to start the road works including canalization and raise funds for them. Some clever inhabitants of Taszár and Kaposvár were free-riding on the conflict and managed to have their crumbling houses repaired.

From a psychological perspective, many village dwellers, in particular, the older ones who had first-hand war experiences from World War II. or from 1956 revolution, had hard times to cope with the sight of the monstrous military vehicles, which were rolling in front of their houses night and day.

In spite of all this, the majority of the local citizens do not blame the Americans but the war in Bosnia for the damages. Furthermore, they explain the increase in street accidents with the differences in traffic customs rather than the American drivers themselves.

2. Spontaneous and ritualized encounters (Ildikó Huszár)

2.1. Spontaneous encounters

Spontaneous encounters between the Americans and the population of Taszár are relatively rare. The reason for that lies in the fact, that the American soldiers live under strict military supervision. Thus, in particular during the first phase of their stationing in Taszár, they hardly ever saw the Hungarians. Another obstacle to the spontaneous encounters is the low level of English among the indigenous population. Accordingly, the stereotypes of the American soldiers in local mind were primarily based on the images communicated by mass media and direct visual perception.

In any event, the preliminary expectations of the local community were clearly shown by the fact, that on the basis of the information gained from the local authorities in Germany, which host US troops, the local government in Taszár initiated the establishment of an independent police unit in the village to prevent the increase of prostitution, drug trafficking, etc. Today the ordinary people in Taszár believe that the initial fears were exaggerated.

The foreign culture represented by the IFOR troops attracted the locals in its outward characteristics. From one day to another, military Jeeps began to race in the streets of Taszár, a remote village in Somogy county. In these vehicles man and women (!) in uniform (among them black and colored people) were smilingly waving to the Hungarians, soldiers whom the village people knew only from films on the Vietnam war. The attraction was great also for the Hungarian military personnel, who were observing the unknown technical equipment, work organization and instruments with admiration and envy. The spontaneous encounters have by now become habitual, nevertheless, the continuous change in the IFOR units hindered the establishment of lasting personal contacts.

In forming the opinion of the people in Taszár it was the official and self-appointed mediators, that played a major role. The official mediators were Hungarian air force officers, who were transmitting the missionary attitudes of the Americans to the local citizens. The self-appointed group consisted of Hungarian GI’s who were making friendship on the verge of illegality with their colleagues in the IFOR units. A special mediating activity was performed by the translators, who, if they were women, embodied all prejudices directed toward the Americans. According to local gossips, they - as „sweethearts" of the US officers - benefitted the most from the presence of the IFOR troops in Taszár. While the Hungarian officers portrayed the Americans as agents of a „different" culture, the ordinary soldiers emphasized the similarities between the two cultures, and the translators were supposed to show the cultural subordination of Hungarians.

The village people used the most traditional technique of understanding otherness: they tasted the food of the US soldiers. Although they despised the foreigners for drinking their own canned water, almost all Hungarians ventured to eat MRE (meal ready to eat) of the US soldiers. Later the MRE packages became ritual presents in the village. During holidays, the locals were keen on feeding the Americans with Hungarian national meals such as „pancake" and „goulash".

Contrary to the expectations, the appearance of black people in Taszár did not mobilize racist prejudices typical in the West. The locals are divided with regard to their views of the black soldiers. The majority consider ethnic diversity as an integral part of American society as they see it, others try to include the blacks in their own cultural horizon using the analogy of the gypsies. We may conclude that so far the experiences of the spontaneous encounters have not created a single collective narrative and the mass perception of the Americans in Taszár is basically positive.

2.2. Ritual and institutionalized encounters

Because initially the spontaneous encounters were sporadic, the organized meetings became crucial. These meetings are built on four institutions: 1. joint holidays, 2. religious ceremonies, 3. teaching activity of IFOR officers, 4. sightseeing on the air base.

In the light of their civilisatoric mission, the Americans contacted the locals right upon their arrival in Taszár. By taking over the officers’ canteen of the Hungarian air base, and by transforming it into a press center, the Americans assumed a central position on the map of the village. Nearby, in the bus stop they set up an information booth, in which the visitors can sign up for organized bus tours to the air base. The media and information centers reinforced the differences between the „ghost-town" of the former Hungarian air base and the lively IFOR camp.

The cultural mission of the Americans extends to the support of certain social groups in the region such as the elderly and the children. The representatives of the US troops visited the Club of the Elderly and the Zita Orphanage in Kaposvár. In these places they were distributing presents which they had collected in Germany. They regularly visit the elementary school in Taszár, in which they not only teach English but also give courses in military education. The mission seems to be successful thus far: the elderly people adore the US soldiers, and the children bring home kind stories about the GI’s, thereby increasing the goodwill of the Americans.

The church and the civic holidays also served as a bridge between the two cultures. The local youngsters went to church to learn how the Americans pray, while the civic holidays gave a chance to the Hungarians for self-presentation (music, cuisine, folklore).

3. Work contacts (Betti Gergely, Helga Baja)

The image of the Americans is also influenced by the economic relationnship between the local citizens and the American military entrepreneurs. On the one hand, these types of encounters take place under conditions of organized cooperation. On the other, in the framework of these work contacts the Hungarians learn to know another group of the IFOR troops, the civil employees. The economic impacts of the work relationships will be discussed in Chapter II. Here we will sum up two case studies, which explain the anthropological aspects of the most important joint ventures.

First, let us see the so-called kitchen scandal, which was widely discussed by the media. This scandal revealed the shortcomings of legal regulation of the relationship between the foreign employer and the native employee in Hungary. In our case, the American entreprise (Brown and Root Inc.), which is in a monopoly position, has selected one of the rivalling Hungarian firms, and started a joint venture based on an irregular work contract. This contract made it for the Hungarian firm (Somogy Korona Rt.) possible to reduce the wages of its employees. The firm did so because, in accordance with the American requirements, it had to make large investments in kitchen equipment.

Three months later, the Hungarian employees expressed their dissatisfaction over wage reduction while B&R also wanted to cancel the contract because of the laziness of and stealing by the Hungarian employees. From among the 300 kitchen workers, 60 was fired in March 1996. In order to defend themselves, the workers established their own labor association, which was supported by the National Labor Union (MSZOSZ).

The labor activists almost succeeded in agreeing with the American entrepreneur on a wage settlement when a case of alleged sexual harrassment was scandalized by the local media. The case, which was more than painful for the IFOR leadership, resulted in a situation, in which B&R cancelled its contract both with its American and Hungarian partners, and with the help of new translators wrote a new contract with Somogy Korona Rt. In November, 1996, the Central Labor Court of Hungary declared the original contract unlawful.

The kitchen scandal reveals not only the incompatibility of American and Hungarian legal regulations, but also shows the business strategy of a group of employees in Hungary, which is more organized and slier than the average because it has been trained in the informal economy of the Balaton area. Moreover, this case reflects cultural differences between the US and Hungary, as sexual harrassment had not been publicized in the Hungarian press before. The journalists and their informants rapidly realized that through this scandal the leaders of the American troops can be blackmailed. Finally, the scandal proves how the tabloid press can counteract collective bargaining.

Our second case is based on the story of the Kaposvár Volán workshop and the Dombóvár MOL gas station. Both Hungarian firms are parts of large enterprises, therefore it is small wonder that they won the tenders. Both firms signed contracts with B&R in the hope of high profits. Direct work relationships generated different images of the Americans among Hungarian workers and their bosses.

The workers do not attribute special importance to the Americans in their own everyday life, although they complain about the differences between wages and technical equipment. Nevertheless, they find not B&R but their own leaders responsible for the disadvantages. Like in the village, the difficulties in personal relationships originate in pure knowledge of English language, though they can be overcome in joint work activity rather easily.

The Hungarian managers consider the cooperation with the IFOR related enterprises a useful challenge and do their best to deepen the business contacts through commmon rituals, such as MOL Days, the US Day of Independence, birthdays of the business partners, etc. Nevertheless, they were also anxious about the unusual mobility of the IFOR facilities because this mobility reflects the transitory character of US presence in Hungary and also the provisional nature of their own gains.

4. Consumption (Anna Vándor)

As a consequence of the well-suplied IFOR base and strict military way of life, the American soldiers have only rare opportunities to visit local bars and restaurants. Yet, the arrival of Americans was preceded by great expectations: not only the local restaurants were face-lifted but also half a dozen new entrepreneurs rushed to Kaposvár from Budapest and the Balaton area. The fact that some of these restaurants were eager to make profits too quickly, not infrequently on the verge of illegality, was shown by the black list of Hungarian restaurants issued by IFOR commanders. Although we asked the employees of the most of the restaurants, it was difficult to get information about the Americans from them. They were afraid of revealing business secrets to us.

What the old and new bars and restaurants in Taszár and Kaposvár offer to the customers displays the willingness of the Hungarian businessmen to streamline their activities to match American demand. This is evidenced not only by the English language menus, American dishes and the above-the-average prices, but also by the design of the facilities. At these places one can enjoy Hungarian symbols, such as the national flag, the map of Hungary, commercial objects of folklor, and - paradoxically - the Russian matrioshka doll. These design elements are complemented with the Stars and Stripes, American whisky, etc.

II. Impacts on the local economy (Zoltán Hermann)

Local governments, some small enterprises in the commerce and service sector and big firms in the food and construction industry in the Kaposvár area expected the establishment of the IFOR-base to be at least a temporary remedy for their prevailing problems. These expectations on the whole turned out to be exaggerated. We attempt to give a brief account of the extent of the direct and indirect economic effects on the local economy.

Among the direct economic effects, the employment created by Americans seems to be the most important. In 1996, organizations of the American army (AAIAAEFS) and the main supplier company (Brown & Root) created 1000-1200 new jobs on average in a town with 2724 registered unemployed and an 8.1% unemployment rate at the end of the previous year. Though not only people from Kaposvár and not only unemployed got these jobs, the majority of the Hungarian employees with low qualification belonged to this group. However, the effects of the new jobs do not appear in labor statistics; the unemployment rate at the end of 1996 remained 8,0%. In the first place, this can be imputed to other unfavorable changes in the local economy: some companies were privatized or went bankrupt (i.e., a middle-sized dairy company). At the same time, some jobs were taken by formerly employed (or economically inactive) applicants from Kaposvár or people from the surrounding villages. Briefly, the new jobs offered by the American organizations offset the adverse impact of the lack of prosperity on the unemployment rate in the local economy.

We tried to evaluate the other direct economic consequence, that is, the impact of the additional demand on the revenues of local firms and enterprises with two methods: on the one hand, by gathering data on changes in local tax revenues (local business tax paid by firms and enterprises on the basis of their net revenues) and data about the American spending in Hungary (in order to estimate the extent of the additional demand or the changes in local aggregate demand). On the other, by interviewing CEOs and managers of big firms to gain insights in business relationships at the micro-level.

At the first glance, local tax revenues seem to have increased considerably as compared to the previous year but this arises from the increased tax rates on properties (these are not affected by the possible economic effects considered here) and a supervision and retrospective collection of business tax. Subtracting this extra revenue, local business tax revenues increased approximately as quickly as the production price index. This fact suggests that the presence of the IFOR base did not entail significant additional demand on the local markets.

Data about overall IFOR expenditures in Hungary confirm this result. We can estimate wages paid by the IFOR and the American companies to be 7 to 10 million USD and American contracts in the region to be 40 to 50 million USD at the maximum, but the latter figure seems to be too high considering the practically unchanged local business tax revenues and the fact that the biggest companies of the town did not manage to establish extensive business connections.

Particularly, local firms in food and construction industries expected great American orders but the food was exclusively provided by West European and American suppliers. Local firms had no chance to compete successfully with the well-established supplier connections, while in construction works they were crowded out by bigger Hungarian companies, which had stronger network relations to the Hungarian Ministry of Defence. Moreover, the Americans signed only fixed-term contracts for short periods and strove to find cheaper solutions if it was possible.

The third group of potential gainers consists of enterprises in the service sector: restaurants, bars, small hotels etc. Though the presence of American soldiers unquestionably involved some extra revenues for these enterprises, we can not estimate the extent of these incomes as they are partly (or mostly) unobservable through local tax revenues and they come from Americans' private spendings which is hard to appraise. However, entrepreneurs' expectations turned out to be exaggerated in this field as well, as compared to the preliminary plans and inquiries at the local government for shops and building sites to rent or buy.

Finally, indirect economic effects, that is extra government subsidies and direct foreign investments, were also evaluated. Local governments of the region, including Kaposvár tried to take full advantage of the American presence: they attempted to increase financial resources for development coming from the central budget and state funds. Their claims were based on the damages and extra costs caused by the IFOR troops on public roads, the necessity of building new bypass road sections and the extra needs for certain local public utilities, i.e., the enlarging of the capacities of local waste disposal sites and sewage treatment plants. The local government of Kaposvár claimed almost 600 million HUF, but only half of this sum was actually received. These development grants did not lead to the increase of local governmental expenditures for investments, they just offset for a year the impact of the decreasing local budget, thus the proportion of investment within the overall expenditures could be kept at the level of the previous years.

A potential negative effect should also be mentioned. It is related to the availability of central resources for regional economic development. Long-term local economic development strategies are based on the logistic position of Kaposvár, and in these plans the civil utilization of the former military airports plays a crucial role. Nevertheless, after the establishment of an IFOR (and later an SFOR) base on these airports, it is likely that, with Hungary joining NATO, the airports will continue to operate as a NATO base.

Direct foreign (first of all American) investors were expected to be attracted by the frequent appearances of Kaposvár in the leading news in international media at the beginning of December, 1995. This was certainly a unique opportunity but the leaders of the local government did not realize that it was only an opportunity: they were just waiting instead of creating an active city marketing program in order to make investment opportunities known in the US. (It should be mentioned that the period of these 'hot days' was not so long and the city leaders had no experiences of this kind.) All in all, one multinational firm (Purina) built a factory at Kaposvár.

III. Media survey (Éva Kovács, Tibor Misovicz)

In the framework of media monitoring we collected appr. 1600 newspaper articles from a wide variety of national dailies and weeklies (Magyar Nemzet, Népszabadság, Magyar Hírlap, Új Magyarország, Tallózó, Heti Világgazdaság, 168 óra, Élet és Irodalom, Magyar Fórum, Magyar Narancs, Beszélõ, Hócipõ) and obtained a full sample of the local newspapers (Somogyi Hírlap, Új Dunántúli Napló, Somogyi Krónika, Somogyi Gazdaság) We established a systematic press archive for the period between November 1995 and October 1996, which is accessible for other research project in the Library of the Teleki László Foudation.

The articles were processed with the help of quantitative contents analysis through a special questionnaire. This questionnaire examined how the press related to the IFOR units. The first results of the quantitative analysis are the following:

1. The chronological distribution of the articles on the IFOR troops demonstrates, that the initial period of the stationing of US military unit in Taszár were preceded by heated expectations but by very small number of newspaper articles. The opposite was true for the next six months: the positive appraisal ofd the US soldiers weakened to a large extent as the number of articles grew. From June 1996 on, the appraisal and the frequency of press information have been balanced. (See Table 1.)

2. The quantitative analysis clearly shows, that there is a significant difference between national and local media in terms of the image they communicate on the Americans. The national press primarily reports on the international aspects of the IFOR presence in Hungary and on the scandals taking place in Taszár and Kaposvár. These reports are usually based on information provided by the Hungarian Information Agency and the local press. The opinion they express is more positive than the average. In contrast to that, the local media keeps the IFOR problematic on the agenda even in those cases, in which the original purpose of the journalists is different. At the same time their general attitude tends to be more negative. (See Table 2.)

3. If we examine the main themes and actors in the newspaper articles, we find similar differences between the central and media. While in the national press the stationing of the IFOR troops looses step by step its local everyday context, and appiers as an aspect of Hungary’s move toward NATO, in the local press the daily cases of conflict and cooperation are dominant and the international ramifications are relatively neglected. Therefore it is more than surprising that the greatest tragedy of Taszár, i.e., the dismantling of the Hungarian air base, was not discussed even by the local press.

4. The rough analysis of the press photos proves, that the journalists prefer to portray the Americans as black women soldiers standing in front of high-tech military equipment and smiling at Hungarian soldiers or members of the civil population (children and elderly). The national press is to be blamed for that because the journalists tend to use the same limited number of pictures for their reports.

Because we have collected twice as many articles as we originally expected, and the collecting of the reports and the processing of data took more time (and money) than planned, we were not able to complete the qualitative analysis of the media. Two final steps are still missing: a) the discourse analysis of the main themes, b) the image of Americans in the press photos and caricatures.

Forthcoming publications

Following our original research program we are in the process of preparing three kinds of publications:

1. Quite a few students who took part in the survey are completing their diplom works focusing on their case studies of Taszár.

2. The three main chapters of our project will be published in the journal Regio as a special thematic bloc.

3. The project leader will summarize the final results of the research program in one of the leading Hungarian social science journals.

LGI / Resources / Ethnic relations