Orthodox Palestinians – between Muslims, Jews and Greeks

Palestinians are not a homogeneous group. One of the minority groups are Christians, the majority of whom is Orthodox. Although relatively few have stayed in their homeland, they still play an important role there. The Orthodox Palestinians have a strong feeling of identity, both ethnically, as Arabs, and religiously as Orthodox Christians. They face problems in three main domains. First, they are exposed to the same forms of discrimination from the Israeli regime as the rest of Palestinians – they are deprived of the opportunity to create and be part of their own, fully independent state. Second, they are a minority living among the Sunni majority nation. Thirdly, despite being a majority in their Church – Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem – they are under Greek domination in various areas. All these factors render the situation of Orthodox Palestinians very complex. The aim of this article is to show this situation and its potential influence on the Palestinian question and the Orthodox Church issues.

After the Second World War, the Italian Republic adopted in its system the principles of regionalization and decentralization. This was largely due to the separatism of ethnic and regional groups within the territory of the country, and particularly concerned the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and border regions: The Aosta Valley, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino-South Tyrol. Until the end of the 1960s, the latter was the site of a strong ethnic conflict between a group of German-speaking Tyroleans and a dominant Italian-speaking group. The situation of the Rhaeto-Romance (Ladin) group living in the Alpine valleys remained somewhat aside from their confrontation. The violence used by both sides led to a solution unique for the Republic. The transfer of a large part of the competences down from regional to provincial level led to a gradual calming of the situation. Today, the Tyroleans enjoy broad autonomy in the province of Bolzano, where they are a dominant group, and, at the same time, have a strong influence on the functioning of the entire region through statutory guarantees of their participation in the regional legislature and executive power. The rights of the Italian-speaking minority in South Tyrol are similarly and proportionally protected. The rights to preserve the language and culture of all three language groups are also widely protected by law. The purpose of this article is to examine the principle of protection of the Tyrolean minority’s rights as an example of the implementation of the principle of the protection of linguistic minorities’ rights, present in the Constitution of the Italian Republic.

The regulations concerning the definition of the official language at the constitutional level have not been unified in the constitutions of European Union countries. The importance of a language, the level of its protection, and care for the language are immanently connected with the cultural awareness of a given nation, its historical conditions, national aspirations, and other factors allowing to distinguish it from other subjects. The number of languages used in individual regions of the EU depends on social migrations, the uniformity of nationalities, historical conditions, as well as the level and directions of patriotic aspirations in a given society. Therefore, the attempts to impose on the members of the EU the adoption of the unified solutions, which de facto imply - in the case of most of them - the need to amend the constitution, is a demand that now seems completely unfeasible.

W artykule zostały przedstawione i omówione konflikty o charakterze narodowo-etnicznym zachodzące w ostatnich latach w województwie podlaskim. Autor wymienia szereg czynników wewnętrznych i zewnętrznych, które powodują występowanie na północno-wschodnim pograniczu Polski zwiększonej liczby sytuacji konfliktowych o podłoży etniczno-narodowym. Wskazuje, że pojawiające się konflikty nie oznaczają osłabienia pozycji mniejszości etnicznych i narodowych. Wiąże je ze wzrostem świadomości w zakresie obrony wartości rodzimych.

The Constitutional Dimension of the Protection of the Rights of National Minorities in Austria

The article indicates such research problems as the features of the Austrian constitutional order, the history of Austrian constitutionalism and the main legal acts of a constitutional nature. The aim of the analysis was to determine: a) what is the level of protection of national minorities in Austria, resulting from the constitutional order?, b) can we speak of continuity of protection?, and c) what is the balance between legal regulations and practice? The article indicates that the level of protection of national minorities in Austria resulting from the constitutional order should be assessed as high. The minority status has been defined in a number of constitutional legal acts. We are dealing with the continuity of legal protection, and any problems do not concern strictly the law itself, but its practical application.