Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Adesso capisco...

Toni ha preso un po' troppe sberle al campo dei pionieri.  Ma per la
maggior parte dei ragazzini Ungheresi non sembra essere successo...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2021271,00.html
Pioneers' spirit
Politicians who want to improve life for young people should look to
the Hungarian example
Zsuzsanna Clark
Twenty million Scouts around the world last week marked Founder's Day,
and with it the 100th anniversary of the Scout movement. Their
celebrations offer a powerful reminder of the ability of youth
movements to bring young people together in a spirit of friendship and
solidarity - qualities that have become all too rare in modern
Britain. "Isn't there more we can do to enable young people to come
together and give service to their country?" asks David Cameron. Well
yes, David, there is, and we did it in "backward" socialist Hungary
more than 30 years ago.
Unlike those brought up in Margaret Thatcher's devil-take-the-hindmost
Britain, I was fortunate to be raised in a society where solidarity
and togetherness were officially encouraged from an early age. The
Pioneer movement, of which I was a member, was not about
indoctrinating young people with the tenets of Marxist-Leninism, as
many believe, but engendering a sense of community among the nation's
youth.
Many of the Pioneers' activities were similar to the Scouts', but the
values were more collective and they involved all children and
teenagers in the country, not just a minority. Pioneer membership was
an integral part of school life, not just in Hungary, but throughout
the socialist bloc.
Our motto as Pioneers was Together for Each Other. It was not an empty
slogan: it was how we were encouraged to think. Being a Pioneer meant
taking special care of the weak and vulnerable. We helped the elderly
with their shopping and cleaning; we chopped up firewood for them and
carried their coal in and out from the cellar. There were
competitions, too: for collecting waste paper and waste metal, for
sports activities and for other acts of good citizenship. But,
reflecting the collective ethos of the movement, the prizes were
nearly always for groups, not for individuals.
Each class had different duties which were rotated week by week. When
we were on cleaning duty we had to go to school half an hour earlier
and sweep the pavement outside the school. But no one ever seemed to
mind: we carried out our tasks willingly.
The highlight of our year as Pioneers was our annual excursion. Every
class went to the country for two or three days. When I was 13 I spent
two weeks at Csilleberc, a camp near Budapest, with other Pioneers
from all over Hungary. We travelled there on the famous Pioneer
railway in Budapest. Opened in 1948, the railway was, with the
exception of the drivers, staffed entirely by children and connected
the previously inaccessible Buda Hills. The children worked the
signals, changed the points and sold tickets. At Pioneer camp, we
shared both tents and duties - just as it was at home, except we
didn't know each other as well. But by working and socialising
together we soon made friends. Rabid anti-communists and adherents of
the view that "there is no such thing as society" will no doubt sneer
at what I have just described, but the Pioneer movement did create a
real feeling of togetherness. Hungarians of my generation almost all
look back at their Pioneer days with great affection, regardless of
their views on other aspects of the socialist system.
"If we are unable to ensure young people the opportunities for
positive, creative deeds, then in some cases a gang will serve this
purpose instead." So warned Gyorgy Aczel, Hungary's minister of
culture in the 1970s. When I compare my childhood to the atomised
lives of so many young people in Britain today, one in which violent
and antisocial gang culture seems ever more to predominate, I believe
Aczel's words to be as relevant as ever.
· Zsuzsanna Clark is writing a book on her experiences of growing up
under communism in Hungary

appare irrilevante, perderci tempo č stupido.
Infatti.  La trovo una cosa molto ma molto ipocrita. (Persio)