Central European University

Once again, I think that this is a manufactured controversy on both sides. It's more posturing than substance, as far as I can see. All CEU has to do to conform to the new Hungarian law is to renounce its superfluous NY "charter" and operate as a wholly Hungarian university. Not so difficult, is it? It already has all the necessary approvals.

Of course, it would help if they weren't serving as the foreign-funded focus of anti-Democratic opposition against a popular Hungarian government whose philosophy CEU's bosses abhore. (Hungary exercising control over its own borders because that's what its voters want? Never!)

I'm sure that's what motivated Orban's government to poke CEU with a stick. But Soros and his people are too proud (and self-righteous) to back down even a little bit. So a collision of elephantine egos was inevitable.

 

Well, the government is unhappy with CEU issuing "American" degrees... and that conceivably refers to accreditation rather than NY charter. Giving up that is too much of a disservice to students and alumni. Either is rather random and unreasonable demand.

Of course it would, and this is probably accurate approximation of Orban position. I find it strange, though, that it finds American supporters. Could you quickly walk me through the novel concept of "anti-Democratic opposition"? It sounds like you use the word "Democratic" as in "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" rather than the mainstream way.

Yes. Orban moves to silence dissent. As much as both Orban and Soros are unappealing egomaniacs, Soros is clearly in the right here. And people who support and normalize crackdown on dissent (like you) are the ones that must be stopped. Thankfully, in Orban's case, it looks like the EU is moving to do just that.

 

Oh how are we such fools?
Fools who utter words we seldom mean and reckon.
Casting a blind eye,
to those that heed to words spoken.
Oh what fools are we?
That fathom from earth’s best
But become its worst.
Oh how we are such fools
As we spit out words;
Words we mean not;
As we make them slur
To confuse endearing hearts.
What has become of our kind?
What has become of this generation of ours?
Oh what fools we are;
As we tread on words that hath no depth
Words of deceit.
Wouldn't the very best of our ancestors be dismayed?
Oh what fools are we?
Fools that carry hearts delicately
To a place of supreme jubilation
With no intent of tarrying there long.
When did it become of pardon?
A great bard once scribbled
“Speak clearly if you speak at all;
Carve every word before you let it fall;
And do not forget to act on it”
Oh what fools we have become
Betrothed to a world of nothing but treachery
A great bard’s word we have taken
So lightly, so without regard
Oh what fools we have become
Fools who speak ever so eloquently
With nothing but malice we intend
Oh lord, what fools we are
What fools we have become.

Herzel Poshiwa

 

THE HANGMAN

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame on the courthouse square.

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.

And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime,
That Hangman judged with the yellow twist
Of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead;
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raise the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree."

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief.
(...)

-Maurice Ogden

 

CEU gets reaccredited

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/europe/ceu-hungary-soros.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Feducation&action=click&contentCollection=education&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront

 

Great news!

 

“Our university is proud to have secured reaccreditation here in Hungary, where we belong,” the president and rector of the Central European University, Michael Ignatieff, said in a statement. Canadians, do you remember that guy. He was almost prime minister. Very smart guy, but sucks at retail politics. Apparently, he is a grand child of the Romanovs, the Russian Czars .

 

update

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-06-26/soros-university-says-it-plans-stay-in-hungary

 

update

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/amid-illiberal-revolution-in-hungary-a-university-with-us-roots-fights-to-stay/2018/09/03/7061771c-a547-11e8-a656-943eefab5daf_story.html?utm_term=.cc8cbae8b3dc

 

Time to open a center in another Central European Country?
Maybe this is already considered. If they get to stay its good but also should prepare for the worse.

 

No he isn't! His grandparents were in fact a Count and Countess - but they weren't Romanovs. They fled Russia at the time of the Revolution. OML - where do you get these stories from? Michael Ignatieff may suck at politics, as you say, but he did fine as a Harvard professor for any number of years - and he's one hell of a writer. I have his family biography, "The Russian Album." Great read. You'd enjoy it.

 

Slight correction. Michael Ignatieff's grandfather was indeed a count, as I said - Count Pavel Ignatieff, the Russian Minister of Education during the First World War. However, Count Pavel's wife was born Princess Natasha Mestchersky - from a noble family indeed, but again, not the Romanovs. A bit on Grandma's family here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshchersky

 

Well, only a fool will rely on the facts of an anonymous poster. Thanks for fact checking. So here is my correction “apparently Michael Ignetief is the grandson of Russian’s Count and Countess, not the Romanov”. I sweared I heared that he was related to the Romanovs.

 

Not related - his grandfather just worked for one of them (Czar Nicholas II) as Minister of Education.

 

update - a deadline is set

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/soros-founded-university-says-it-will-pull-out-of-hungary-without-a-deal-by-dec-1/2018/10/25/20410466-d7b8-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html?utm_term=.f69ce308567f

 

I think CEU will leave Hungary. Orban wants to get rid of CEU and now all he has to do is wait. It seems CEU will move to Vienna: https://www.apnews.com/95ffa493b458400d8dfe584106cc5430

 

It looks like you were right

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/deadline-ends-hungary-reach-deal-soros-university-181201020956629.html

 

Yes, it really is very close. However, Vienna has much higher living costs. That could be a real problem for students from some Eastern European countries like Ukraine.