Antisemitism in Hungary

 When you read about antisemitism in Europe, Hungary always comes up in online conversations: the accepted wisdom (for whatever reason...) is that Hungary is a very antisemitic country. The fact that there are hardly any incidents (-and none of them were violent, compared to the "non-antisemitic" UK), does not really matter.

Interestingly, certain rabbis have a very opposing view to this narrative. Perhaps we should listen to them.

Putting your feet in your mouth -twice

So a small-time politician (he is the mayor of the Third District of Budapest) of the Democratic Coalition (DK) in Hungary had a very interesting insight: he thought Hitler totally deserved to be chosen "Man of the Year" by Time magazine in 1938, as under his leadership the German economy was soaring.
Well, yes. And there was the Crystal Night, the Night of the Long Knives, concentration camps and murder of "invalids". But yeah, the economy was good.

Not surprisingly the right side of the media and establishment jumped onto this with relish, while the left side tried to defend his misstep as a mistake, and used the age old "but you too" as well, saying that the "other side" would not have mentioned this gaffle had their own guys committed it. Which is absolutely true. But it is also undeniably true that if this was a right wing politician, the New York Times and the Guardian would have already justified a NATO strike on Hungary for this.

OK, so far we have a stupid comment, which demonstrates how Mr Imre László has absolutely no clue about history, and how the different sides of the political divide interpret this event. Amusing but not a big deal, really. If you thought this could not be elevated onto an ever greater level of absurdity and amusement - well, you were clearly wrong.

Mr Imre was offering an apology for his unfortunate historical parallel but, as he explained, he was taking part in a debate about naming a public square after Josef Mengele when he made it. You know, Mengele. The Angel of Death, the Nazi doctor who did horrific experiments on the inmates of the Auschwitz death camp, and all that. But before you start writing to the New York Times about that NATO strike, read on.

What actually took place was a debate about naming a public square after none other than Nelson Mandela. (The Right here are very much on the opinion that Mandela was a racist terrorist first and foremost, so he does not deserve any recognition - again: politics before history.)

… 

Let this sink in for a second.

Mengele, Mandela what's the difference? You say tomato I say tomato.

And people wonder how Fidesz is still in power. With allies like this, who needs enemies?

The reason Fidesz won in 2018 -again

There was a lot about why Fidesz won with an overwhelming majority again in both the international and the Hungarian media.

One narrative is the age-old trope about the primitive, easy-to-manipulate people living in the countryside, who just cannot deal with democracy; if only they listened to the smart people in the Capital. (This very popular opinion is quite wide-spread among certain demographics, and of course, it is very prominent in the media. This is obviously a sure way to win people over from those small villages and towns you'd need to win elections.)

Another narrative abroad and at home is that they won because they were pushing a ceaseless xenophobic campaign, playing on the worst fears of the electorate (and thus ~subtly~ implying how horribly racist everyone is in Hungary). I've wrote about this a lot; the campaign was idiotic and disgusting, but this was not something that could not have been pre-empted with some common sense by the Hungarian "elite", which jumped onto the pro-migrant bandwagon with elane in 2015, or the barrage of international condemnation which was frankly stupid and served only as an opportunity for virtue signalling. This was handed to Orban on a cushion; he did not even have to work for this; after all, he was the only one who got this whole mess right in Europe. Which, as a side-note, is freaking scary to think about.

The third narrative is about the free press. Apparently freedom of the media is no longer a thing; Fidesz was able to monopolize every single channel, hence successfully brain-washed the stupid, uneducated masses who had no other source of information but Victor wishpering in their ears day and night about the evils of Soros and the migrants who will rape them and their daughters. (Again: the government propaganda was stomatch-churning, no question about that.)

But the numbers say otherwise. The media is very far from the pro-government propaganda-machine people make it out to be; in fact, Orban is only wishing for the corporate media that was helping Bush getting the US into an illegal war or two, torture, and mass surveillance. Even if this picture was true, there's a problem: people even in villages have access to the internet. In fact, the access is higher than in most of the rest of the world. Sure, you can argue that most of it is probably facebook cats and porn, but you can't really make the case that access to any othe source of information is only financial news and political analysis.

And there's the whole "POPULISM IS ON THE RISE! THE NAZIS ARE COMING". (A "small" issue with these articles: Fidesz is right wing. NOT far right. If Fidesz is far right so are the Republican Party and the Tories.)

The actual reason why Fidesz won is much simpler and prosaic.

The opposition is shit. As this, and several other similar cases clearly demonstrate, they have no desire to cooperate, to have a coherent program, they are absoltely incompetent, and they refuse to do the hard, grassroots work. After it lost the elections in 2002, Fidesz did just that. Despite of having an overly hostile media, it went out, and talked to people, organized groups in the countryside, making people feel like they are valued (but still not offering any solution to their problems). And it worked. It's as simple as that.

So now we have a winning strategy to win an election, and there is the opportunistic career politician. Guess which one will get a 2/3 majority in the next election.

Double standards in the international press - Hungary and Romania (Hang 'em up high?)

Yes I complain a lot about hypocrisy and double standards; the whole blog is about them, after all. They infuriate me, regardless of whom they are applied against; and there's a good deal of them directed against my own country, which infuriate me even more.

Enter Romania.

The PM said something non-sensical (if you take the literal translation which Romanians insist), or he threatened with violence (which is the underlying meaning of his words) -depending on how you look at it. Regardless he said something unacceptable.

He threatened Transylvanian Hungarian politicians with hanging.

Let this sink in for a bit.

This is not an isolated thing. Hungarians have been severely mistreated in Romania since Transylvania was "reunited" with Romania a hundred years ago. Anti-Hungarian sentiments have been (and still are) quite high, as we can judge by other statements and actions.

Yet, not a peep from the Western, enlightened media.

Let's see what happens when an idiotic MP (and not the prime minister) says something stupid in the Hungarian Parliament. (You actually could make a rational argument why dual citizenship is not good in case of a lawmaker, but this statement did not do that.)

The reaction? The whole world went up in protest, while absolutely misinterpreting what he said (or rather, twisting it into some sort of a call for putting all Jews in the country on a list.) They also twist and lie about other things, too, while we're at it.

Not to mention the whole silence about Romania's corruption problem. Neither the media nor the EU leadership seems to be worried about that, but they pull the "nuclear option" on Poland.

I wonder why.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the real problem here. The term "fake news" have been overused a bit lately; I strongly suspect it's because the original practitioners feel slighted that Russia and others they don't like got better at it than they are.

Romania, Poland and the EU- interesting observation

Apparently democracy in Romania is in great danger. In fact it's in the gravest of dangers since 1990.

People have been demonstrating for years, prime ministers went to prison, and corruption, apparently is high.

Yet not a peek from the EU. No angry sermons, no talks about (Western) European Values, just a muted reaction essentially saying "whatever". I guess you could make the argument that the very presence of protests mean that they are less corrupt than other Eastern members of the EU, but that would be quite a torturous argument... The fact is they are probably more corrupt than their neighbours, hence the protests.

Contrast this lack of interest to Poland, for example, which is facing some serious backlash for -guess what- rolling back democracy. Same with Hungary.

If you are the tinfoil-wearing type, you might ask why this difference in reactions.

Perhaps because Romania does not act as a thorn in Brussels's side about migration? Perhaps because unlike Hungary and Poland the Romanian government is not right-wing, hence their shenanigans are acceptable? (Just like in 2006 the Hungarian police was beating up random people was perfectly fine with regards to human rights and democracy?)

One can only wonder.

The Satanic George Soros

Since I wrote a little tongue-in-cheek post about why it is not antisemitic to criticize Soros, I feel I should clarify a few things.

I don't like Orban. I don't even like Soros. To be honest I do not know either of these people personally. I do support a lot of what Soros is doing- the CEU, promoting free speech, etc., but I also dislike a lot of what he's doing. I do not agree with him on mass migration, I think there's a good argument that some of the NGOs he is founding are, in fact, taking part in human trafficking- or at least enabling it-, and I do not believe that national identity is an outdated concept. I think the Hungarian government's hysteric anti-Soros rhetoric is equally hilarious and embarrassing; especially comparing him to Satan.

However -and this is the important part. Bringing accusations of antisemitism, nazism into this argument completely invalidates the "progressive" side of the debate. There is no need to imagine some sort of hidden and vile antisemitic attacks, like how the WP and other papers do. There is enough ammunition there against Orban that would last until the end of times. This -also- hysterical flurry of accusations are only accomplishing two things: it polarizes the field into two sides with no room for subtleties, and it absolutely discredits the critics of Orban.

So stop it already. You don't have to make shit up; he has given you a lot (corruption, rolling back on checks and balances, state propaganda) you can genuinely criticise. You don't have to make him into a Nazi or a necrophiliac as well. It just makes you look stupid.

Racist Hungarians -Discrimination in the EU in 2015 report

Thanks to the media abroad Hungary seems to have acquired quite fame as a nation of the worst racists you can imagine. Articles, comments, reddit posts, google searches- all point to this notoriety, and none of them seem to be bothered by things like facts.

Rising antisemitism threatening all Jews in Hungary? Check. And check. And check. And check. And check. And check. (Again, which country are Jews fleeing from, and asking for special permits to carry weapons? I forgot. Perhaps someone could remind me.) It's so bad, we even need to lie about it to make it look bad.

They hate Muslims, too, of course. Who said they did not?

Racism everywhere? Check. And check.

Bigotry? Of course!

Second most nationalistic country? Check. (Even though the answers made no sense whatsoever: they asked if being born in Hungary was very important to be Hungarian in a country which is surrounded by areas where one third of Hungarians still live. There is something seriously fishy with these results when the most nationalistic Hungarians are the ones who are the most aware of -and most care about- the Hungarian minorities living outside of the country.)

Is the Far Right taking over everything? Do I hear goosestepping blackshirts every day? Check. And check.

Fascists? Of course! Are they downright Nazis? Check. Even their football fans are Nazis? Of course they are!

The question is: how deserved all this? Are Hungarians really just Nazis, waiting to fire up the ovens to destroy anyone who is not like them? (As if in such a mixed nation it makes sense talking about racial purity.)

Well, according to this survey, not very. I might point out that this was done in 2015, at the height of the migrant/refugee crisis.

Here's an imperfect map representation of the results.

As we see Hungarians are not special in any way; they fall into the middle of the pack when it comes to tolerance/intolerance; hardly the country in the brink of a Nazi takeover.


The question rather is: why so many articles pushing distorted half-facts or straight-out lies to support this agenda? Why do they spend so much time and effort to demonise a small, inconsequential country?


I have to say I have no idea. If you know the answer, please let me know.

Austria and Nazi references

So Christian Kern joined the (short) line of Austrian Chancellors who compared to Hungary's policies to Nazi Germany's, or made references to Nazi Germany in relation to Hungary. He, in this case, mentioned D-Day with relation to infraction procedures about the migrant quotas.

So, let me recap. This is the same country that confesses "European Values" yet builds fences between Schengen countries (OK, they called in a "gate with wings", so that's totally not the same thing), and that uses actual tanks (yes, tanks), on the border of another Schengen country to stop migrants entering. I guess the European Values are fine, when they are pulling shit like this; only the smelly Eastern Europeans aren't allowed to act on their own interests.

Oh well. I guess some are more equal in this wonderful Europe than others.

Hungarian brutality at the border

So now apparently the border guards are beating refugees, and taking selfies with them.

Allegedly.

They also commit all sorts of abuse.

Allegedly.


Proof is somewhat of a low supply in these reports; after all, who has a camera to document these things in those remote parts of the world? (Oh wait. Cellphones have cameras... Never mind.) And there is nobody else there; after all, that part of the world is not even on the maps; so there are no NGOs, other border forces, or Frontex officers present; only the wily Hungarians, and the poor, downtrodden war refugees from... Iran? Pakistan?

So. We get photos of everything. Of American guards taking selfies with Iraqis they tortured to death. Of celebrity dicks and pussies.

But somehow the security is so tight that the evil Hungarian selfies -which, by their nature, were taken to share with their friends on social media- somehow elude the heroic investigative reporters and NGOs.

Apparently Hungarians know a lot more about security than the rest of the world.

Or, but it's the unlikely possibility, is that it's all bullshit.

And these very same papers complain about fake news and Trump.

Hypocrisy at it's best.

Blackmail or not?

So Brussels will give an ultimatum to Poland and Hungary about the migrant quotas: accept them or leave the EU. The justification?

"They will have to make a choice: are they in the European system or not? You cannot blackmail the EU, unity has a price"


Ehm.

Isn't this blackmail? You can argue about accepting a Brussels mandate that was not exactly debated or decided upon democratically between member states, but you justify an ultimatum (aka blackmail) by saying you can't blackmail?

Woa.

Double standards, hyperboles and a complete lack of historical knowledge

That's one thing that the NYT's facebook page was full of idiots comparing Hungary to the Nazis because they have decided to detain asylum seekers until their status can be verified. I mean this is quite expected from the virtue-signalling part of the "liberals" who love to show how pious and true to the cause they are by condemning anything and anyone.

This, obviously, was not the first time. A certain Austrian chancellor did the same in 2015, the Romanian Prime Minister did the same, and several newspapers alluded to the same issue: just because a country does not agree with Brussels and Germany (and upholds the law as it is bound to do), it's essentially a Nazi country. (Although Orban makes it hard to agree with him; he is kind of a douche.) It's a difficult concept apparently: just because a country has a different take on how it imagines its future, and decided it does not wish to share the problems with large-scale immigration of low skilled Muslim immigrants (and what comes with it: enclaves, increased crime rates, etc., etc.), it does not mean that they are Nazis.

And now a Saudi prince has stood in line of the Nazi-train. It seems like we have finally reached a breaking point where even the most socially sensitive countries, the well-known bastions of humanitarianism have had enough and are now forced to say it how it is: Hungarians are Nazis for obliging the law, and making sure that only people who are bona fide refugees can get into Europe. Amid the huge outcry I still have not heard any alternative solution how to deal with hundreds and even thousands of people who can just disappear at whim after submitting their paperwork (if they bother to submit it at all). Strangely silent are Merkel and Junker about this whole issue; what I suspect is that everyone are secretly relieved that this is being done, but submit to the whole charade so that they don't look like they approve. Let someone else take the blame for an unpopular decision.

What I would like to know is how the "progressive left" feels like being on the same side as the Saudis... (Although to be fair it never really bothered anyone in the West. Beheadings, slavery, women's rights, illegal wars in Yemen never really appeared on the radar of these newspapers and politicians. Not to mention those millions of people they took in on humanitarian grounds.)

Concentration camps and migrants

So the Hungarian government has decided to set up guarded camps for asylum seekers until their application is processed, housing them in containers. This, obviously, set off a hysterical outburst from a lot of western newspapers, and the comment section of the NYT's facebook page filled up with Americans drawing parallels to cattle wagons and containers, and also brought up extermination camps.

Well, putting aside the lack of historical knowledge, and the fact that these containers are the very same ones workers use as temporary housing at building sites (and nobody complains about exterminating them, or keeping them in inhumane conditions), and the fact that the present clusterfuck in the Middle East is principally the US' fault (Americans don't like to clean up their own mess, but are quite judgemental of people who are left with it), let's look at this issue, shall we?

First issue. A large portion of these migrants are not war refugees; this has been established over and over and over. Bangladesh, Morocco, Pakistan, and Tunis (among others) are NOT war-torn countries.

Second issue (which ties in with the whole "closing the borders" thing): Hungary is on the Schengen border. (Well, Greece is too, but nobody expects them to be able to close it.) Hence it is duty bound to protect the border. Even Merkel is talking about protecting the borders, and stopping the influx of undesirable elements, even though she also screamed murder when this protection actually was taking place. Just to recap: the borders are not closed. Anyone can go through the border control points, and apply for asylum. The illegal border crossing was stopped by erecting a fence. You come in, you apply for asylum, you wait. Whereas the 1.5 million people ending up in Germany came through the fields, and did not stop until Germany to apply for asylum. Which is not according to the rules. In fact, it's highly illegal.

Third issue: terrorism and other shenanigans. The Germans lost about 130 000 people. They don't know where they are. They can't be reached after they submitted their paperwork. A lot of rejected asylum seekers -no surprise- also disappeared. A sexual predator or two, a couple of terrorists also have known to disappear until they surfaced with their dicks in some poor kid, or behind the wheels of a high-jacked truck. So, with the knowledge that there is free movement within the Schengen zone I really, really would like to ask anyone who's complaining how they envision trying to keep the undesirables under control. Ahmed the terrorist can come in, claim asylum, and then disappear if you don't keep him in one place. During the process you might find out that he was sucking some ISIS boss' dick, or cutting heads off in his free time, it's too late; he is already in Germany or wherever, planning to do what terrorists do.

So I would genuinely be curious how you guys expect to screen hundreds of thousands of people and how you think you can deport them in case their application is rejected, if they are free to bum around the whole of EU.

Snooper's Charter

So finally, the government has gone through with the mass surveillance bill even the Americans would admire: the so-called Snooper's Charter.

Good job, you. I wonder what would Orwell say, but let's forget about that part.

What I'm really curious about is the muted response from the EU and Western powers. You would expect a general outcry, based on what happens whenever a newspaper goes bust in Hungary (never mind it was seriously in debt), or the government flaunts some shady surveillance bill idea, but no. While these things are obvious signs of dictatorship and totalitarianism in Hungary, clearly it's not the case in the UK. No general condemnation, no fiery speeches about Western values (sorry, Values). So to recap: the UK enacts a bill that would make any Stazi leader wet his pants, and nobody bats an eye. It's fine. Some left-leaning newspapers write some alarmist articles, but in general the political landscape (and the media) does not give a shit. Not one little bit of shit. No calls to impose sanctions for breaching EU's fundamental values, or exclude the UK from the EU (I know, I know, but it is a symbolic gesture, OK? You're not leaving, we're throwing you out because, guess what, you are shitting on the fundamental values we hold dear). This is quite telling about the whole issue of hypocrisy, doesn't it? The tone is similarly muted from the Hungarian Left; somehow there are no hysterical cries of totalitarian take-over of the most admired democracy... they are fine with this; the "West" is still the idol to look up to. Sure. Let's ignore the worrying signs that things are seriously going wrong everywhere. And if you don't think the UK is in danger of losing personal rights and freedoms, think about these issues:

1. Spying on MPs
2. Forward Intelligence Team
3. Special Demonstration Squad

and let's not forget about surveillance of peaceful groups, to the extend of undercover officers having families with the subjects of surveillance. Good job doing this democracy-thingy. And even the Germans are doing it: as usual, they prefer to do it so that they can be seen as clear.

What we see here is a general trend moving towards a totalitarian surveillance state in the Western World, but of course it's only a problem when a shitty little country is trying to emulate the big brothers (the term used in more than one meaning here, in case you miss the reference). Nobody wants to point out that the emperor has no clothes; perhaps the supposedly free press is not so free after all. (Who would have thought? They must be free, since about 70% is owned by one individual...)

When are news news?

Weird stuff. Any time something happens in Hungary that can be used to put the country into negative light, the press is all over it. Yet it's absolutely not newsworthy to report about the continuation of mistreatment of Hungarian minorities abroad, and it never has been. You might argue that in Slovakia the situation is much better, but then again an American friend of mine who works there as a businessman asked me a couple of months ago why there is so much hatred against Hungarians in Slovakia, so there's that. It does not point to an improving situation.

Yesterday there was a great demonstration for the autonomy of Transylvania (well, Szekelyfold, which is part of it) within Romania. The ill treatment of Hungarian minorities are pretty well known and still ongoing in neighbouring countries: Slovakia, the Ukraine, Romania, Serbia all have their own ongoing histories of both state level discrimination.

I've only found one non-Hungarian report of this demonstration. It's funny how the fate of a minority in EU countries does not worry anyone, yet everyone is condemning an entire country when it is unable to deal with the influx of 400k people. (Weirdly when others do the same things -tightening borders, building fences, talking about defending European values-, nobody bats an eye.) I would be very curious what the reason is behind the anti-Hungarian attitudes of the Western press; after all, when the Keleti Railway station was full of migrants, the whole world was up in arms against the brutality and indifference of the Hungarian nation in general. After all, what civilized nation would allow such conditions within its own capital, asked these newspapers. Well, yesterday the French police started clearing out similar camps within Paris.

Fair enough. There's one issue here, though. I haven't even read about the existence of these camps beforehand.

I find it very curious. Apparently it's fine when the very same process is happening in France; after all, they cannot possibly as barbarous and xenophobic as the Hungarians, can they? And make no mistake, it is the very same process: a mass of people refuses to register in the country they are in, and instead opt to live under horrible conditions in makeshift camps in the hopes they could go to a more attractive country instead. You might be able to forcibly move them into closed migrant camps until they are properly registered, but that would be akin of the Holocaust. So that's out. There's not much more a state can do. It is well understood with the French or anyone else- but it's apparently not an issue when you condemn the Hungarians.


There's a clear double standard at work here- it's fine when us, enlightened Westerners do something (even when its horrendous), but god forbid something happened we don't approve somewhere else. I would be curious to know the reason.

When is a wall not a wall?

If you have not lived under a rock for the last year or so, you are very aware of Hungary's wall. In fact this is something so deplorable, the country should be ejected from the EU. (Let's ignore all the other walls coming up before Hungary's.)

And now, Austria, a country that likened the country to Nazis (literally), is building its own wall -the second one. The first one was between Austria and Slovenia (two Schengen countries); this one is going to be between Austria and Hungary.

The contrast between the two walls is incredible. (Well, between any wall and Hungary's.) If you look at what politicians say about these walls (next to nothing), and what journalists say about these walls (poor, overran countries trying to cope) and what they say about Hungary's (OH MY GOD, THEY ARE WORSE THAN THE NAZIS AND THE COMMUNISTS, THOSE BARBARIANS, AAAAAAAGH), you come to a conclusion: there is something rotten in Denmark.

How the narrative changed about Muslims on the Left in Hungary

Let's do some reading, shall we? Literature-time!

“Europe will soon go under because of its previous liberalism which has proven childish and suicidal. Europe produced Hitler, and after Hitler there stands a continent with no arguments: the doors are wide open for Islam; no longer does anyone dare talk about race and religion, while at the same time Islam only knows the language of hatred against all foreign races and religions,”

“I should say a few words about politics too… Then I would talk about how Muslims are flooding, occupying, in no uncertain terms, destroying Europe; about how Europe relates to this, about the suicidal liberalism and the stupid democracy… It always ends the same way: civilization reaches a stage of maturation where it is not only unable to defend itself, but where it in a seemingly incomprehensible manner worships its own enemy.”

So who wrote these lines? Farage? Le Penn? Some Swedish right winger?

Well the answer is: Imre Kertesz, the Nobel price winning Holocaust survivor (The Last Refuge).

It's kind of shocking, to be honest. Put "Jew" instead of Islam, and you get a Neo Nazi Manifesto.

Let's look for some more. When Israel did a little of the usual picnic and target shooting in the Gaza strip a couple of years ago, a prominent Hungarian thinker (as Leftist as they come), TGM, wrote a condemning article about it in the Hungarian (and leftist) version of The Economist, the HVG.

For this he got a tremendous amount of flak from his fellow left-wing writers (and even more horrible ones on the comment page). He got called an Anti-Semite, he was told to go and live with his terrorist buddies, and so on and so forth. The commenters were pretty brutal on Islam and Arabs, too - they were not shy calling the religion a fascist one, and its followers (all 1.5 billion of them, apparently) terrorist sympathisers. The answers too, which were published in both the HVG and other outlets were full of anti-Muslim sentiments: Israel stands as the last bastion against the Muslim menace, the Muslim culture is the culture of intolerance, terrorism, and so on and so forth. Reading this from the USA at the time I was quite shocked that this can be published in Hungary. (This is a very much living trend in Hungary when it comes to Israel. Israel can do no wrong, the Palestinians are always guilty -well, there are no Palestinians, as we know-, and any criticism of Israel amounts to Antisemitism. I was quite shocked when I started to read books about the Nakba in the library of the American university I went to. Things that you can write about in the New York Times or The Economist would land you in hot water in Hungary. I don't even dare to think what they would say if you translated The Holocaust Industry into Hungarian, either...)

Anyhow.

Fast forward to 2015. The Orban government does a quite disgusting, and idiotic poster campaign against the migrants who are flooding the country from the Balkans. Suddenly, the very same writers -Tota W Arpad, for example- forgot all their reservations against Muslims. The whole of the political and intellectual Left broke out in condemnation of the intolerance of the Government, and defended the poor Muslims against any unjust and xenophobic accusations. Surely if Islam really is that scary as you have described it back then, you should be giving a standing ovation to Orban, The Protector of Christian Values?

It's strange, really. Only two years before they said the Muslims had an intolerant, xenophobic culture, a culture that has the very idea of terrorism embedded in it. Now these intellectuals were the white knights of human rights and the protectors of the poor Muslim migrants, meanwhile condemning the Hungarian population for their stupidity, provincialism and Islamophobia. The very Islamophobia they had no problem with when it was about Israel's action in the Gaza Strip. The very Islamophobia they themselves expressed. This is really astonishing. Apparently people have even worse memories than I suspected; we trail behind goldfish when it comes to retaining information. 

Brexit and the media treatment

Well, things are changing all over the world (well, “world” defined as the US and Europe, so I think I’m being a bit arrogant here); since we can’t do anything about it, get the popcorn out and enjoy the show.

It seems like there are fundamental changes in our societies. The traditional left is sinking into insignificance, and the center-right parties are breaking up as their fringe is getting stronger. We see a general shift to the right, nationalism is on the rise, and people seem to be really, really angry at the established “elite”, so they are voting to hurt them (regardless of they themselves getting hurt in the process, too). So we have the Tea Party, OWS, Trump, Sanders, Boris and Farage, EU scepticism all over Europe (even the Austrians??), xenophobia and racism everywhere - and now we have something unthinkable: Brexit. Globalization did not work out very well for most people it seems. As more and more people got into the losers’ side in this game, as more and more people realized the cards were stacked against them, and as the winners overplayed their hand redistributing the wealth even more unevenly as before, anger rose to the surface. Even mainstream newspapers are full of analyses of this sort now, although even two years ago it would have been only a few voices on the “far” left (Chomsky, Greenwald and their kind) who were raising these issues.

That’s all good and well. Only one thing infuriates me. The Guardian and other papers are discussing this, they are talking about the worrying trends in racism and xenophobia embedded into the British society but their tone is very understanding, very constructive… contrast this to the tone they discussed the very same trends in Hungary last year, and the years before. The tone was very much reprimanding and ostracising. Those hairy barbarians, they have no place in civilized Europe, they said over and over again. They were thundering maledictions and painting the entire nation racist and worse… and now here we are. The UKIP’s popularity is explained as the rebellion of the poor and dispossessed (ignoring the seriously troubling racist and xenophobic narrative of the party). In contrast, the popularity of Jobbik, the Hungarian version of the far right, was explained with that Hungarians just simply hate Jews. This makes a good headline but ignores the fact that the trends are the same in both countries. People hate the establishment and anything promising a change (and also a national reawakening, apparently) will draw people in. Last week the United Kingdom has shown itself to be even more provincial, even more nationalist than Hungary –the country the British media (and others) were accusing of being the narrow sighted, regressive nation, a nation, which does not have a place in the EU. Apparently Britain is the one that does not have a place; at least this is how people voted here. What makes this double standard especially appalling is that never once in Hungary were violent and non-violent hate crimes on such levels as in the UK and in Germany, for that matter; never where the far right’s rhetoric as toxic as in these countries, yet the country was (and still is) depicted as the pariah of Europe. 

The Guardian, the refugee crisis and Hungary -again

The current editorial of the Guardian really shows something incredible: a complete 180 from what they have been preaching before.

They claim the solution has been laid out for this crisis, and then list the following:
1. pan-European resettlement efforts
2. strengthening of the EU's external borders
3. to make a deal with Turkey
4. negotiated repatriation of economic migrants who are not entitled for asylum


Well, guess what. Point 1 is absolutely unenforcable; no country who is not volunteering can be forced, and no refugee who is unwilling to receive less benefits can be forced into this arrangement. The Schengen borders make sure of that. As soon as you drop your refugee in Hungary or Bulgaria, they'd get on the road again towards Germany. (As they did the first time around, instead of claiming asylum at their points of entry, like the law requires. If they had not respected the law then, they'd probably ignore it again.)

But points 2-4... really? This was exactly what Orban said for which he was called an extreme-right wing leader, a xenophobe, and a Nazi. The Guardian -and the rest of the Western media- was very critical of everyone who dared to suggest that perhaps the borders needed to be strengthened, that perhaps we should talk to Turkey (if we're fucking up countries in the Middle East), and perhaps there ARE people who are not war refugees, but economic migrants. To this day this is a contentious point; this is the first time I've ever seen the Guardian admitting to this possibility that not all refugee are fleeing war an persecution.

This leaves us where, exactly? Orban -who is not exactly your model politician, and would be quite nice if was voted out of power- got a tremendous boost of prestige for the way he handled the crisis. (The only political figure in the whole of EU who did not run around like a chicken with his head cut off. How scary is this thought?)
The Guardian essentially vindicated him. His suggestions are accepted -but at at time when it's way too late. You can close the barn door, but the horse has already bolted.

The Guardian talks about bridges to be mended, yet it does not acknowledge that it had not only slandered Orban over this year, but the whole of Hungary, depicting the population as the collection of some backwards xenophobic barbarians, saying this flat out, or simply implying. How do you expect cooperation after this?

The "EU" is not a rich block; the Central and Eastern European member states cannot deal with an influx of unemployable migrants (according to the Germans only 10% if the refugee population is employable), even IF there were jobs to be filled. However, unemployment and poverty is high; you can't expect these states to add extra burden. So that is a blatantly untrue statement... another little slip in the truth. Yes, it would be desirable if you could convince these countries, however, the way they were treated (Greece and Hungary in particular) will make sure that they will not be open to persuasion.

So again -we have too little, too late. Even The Guardian realized not all was perfect in their own little world, and now it proposed solutions to a problem that has increased in proportion hundredfold since these solutions were proposed by those evil Nazis, The Guardian now parrots.

Separate moves do make things worse -if only the Western media's and political establishment's refusal to face reality had not forced countries to act separately. Good job, guys. We can always trust you to do the right thing after you have exhausted every other choice.

Double standards, the Media, Migrants, Refugees and Hungary

This is what really infuriates me: when people/journalists/politicians (I don't think the latter two are actually full members of the Homo sapiens species) blatantly lie (you can lie by not talking about something, too) just to uphold a pre-conceived ideological stance regardless of facts. This leads to the incredible double standards the international media and politics treat Hungary in general, but the way they have been treating it since the whole issue with the refugees finally made it into international news. (Because it has been going on for a while before; first in the countries surrounding Iraq and Syria, and also with the people trying to cross the Mediterranean, and then it slowly edged up the Balkans to Hungary.

So if you have read the news over the last half year or so, Hungary has been an unworthy member of the Union because she wanted to suspend certain parts of Dublin III due to the high volume of the immigrant influx, and let people through without registration, then it was a Nazi regime full of racists for NOT letting people through without registering first. And then they became villains again when they let the trains through due to Germany unilaterally suspending the Schengen agreement, which has allowed them to let the refugees through without registration. Then they decided to build a fence on the border to protect the Schengen borders as it was their duty as a Schengen country (which DOES NOT mean they closed the borders, regardless of what the media or certain organizations say; it means they cannot enter whenever they wish to, but have to use the proper border crossings), despite of the fact that several other EU members already had fences in place. It's rich, when a French politician is condemning Hungary for building fences, when they themselves had been fencing off the Channel tunnel and Calais previously. Or when the same douche is condemning police violence when they used riot police to clear out camps.

When Orban put up the idiotic anti-immigration posters, the whole world was up in arms; when the Danish publish similar adverts in the Middle East, it's fine.

When Croatia boasted they'd be more humane than those bestial Hungarians, and then not two days later closed their own borders, sent armed people over the Croatian-Hungarian border to dump refugees there, and channelled refugees through Slovenia, nobody bat an eye, though. (In fact, the Guardian was still praising them for being humane while they were already doing much worse than anyone in the EU has so far; their behaviour might not have matched the image the Guardian was building, but the facts did not deter them.) When the refugees who refuse to get registered (and being urged not to do so by certain organizations) on their own decide to occupy a railway station, it's Hungary at fault. When they decide to go on foot to the border, because -guess what- without valid papers you cannot just cross borders, it's Hungary at fault. I guess if they were taken off the streets by force, and made to stay in camps, it would have been Hungary's fault, too. (By the way, nobody mentioned how disruptive a lot of these people were around Debrecen and other places where refugee camps were built. Mentioning it would have been politically incorrect. The resulting animosity -which has not turned into violence, unlike in Germany-, was, however a sure sign that all Hungarians are Nazis. Nobody mentions that they refuse to obey the laws of the European Union; the same laws Hungary was trying to enforce, for which she was condemned -even though she would have been condemned if she had NOT tried to enforce them, too. )

When several people broke through a razor wire fence, and the riot police had to intervene, the images were of weeping, scared children with water cannons in the background in the international news, and came the usual condemnations. Never mind that if you watched the very same footage in its entirety, you'd have seen that the police reacted to a crowd storming the border, AND the child in question was dragged in front of a water jet against her will. Same thing with the policemen-throwing-food-at-the-masses video: the first few seconds, where the crowd loses patience and rushes forward the tables where the food is being distributed, are lost somehow. And now, the Austrians building a fence (which is not a fence, apparently), and employ the riot police to force back a violent crowd, and no international finger-wagging, and nobody is calling then Nazis. Neither were any objections when the French, Macedonian and Bulgarian riot police treated the refugees with appalling brutality. If the Slovenians use tear gas, that's fine, too... it only merits a small article, not the whole treatment. That does not count, apparently.

When a Hungarian camera-woman trips and kicks people in a crowd that's rushing her (who knows, she might have been just panicking; let's give her at least the benefit of the doubt), suddenly the whole country is composed of Nazis and racists. (Depending on who you ask.) But the fact that in Germany Neo-Nazis are actually demonstrating, setting fire to buildings housing refugees on a daily basis, and commit other acts of violence is somehow not advertised, or condemned the whole German nation as a bunch of Nazis. (Obviously they are reported, but  You only see the welcoming German crowds, as opposed to those barbaric, Nazi Hungarians. Never you mind that there were thousands of volunteers helping, and only very sporadic acts of violence (I can recall two, which includes the camerawoman).

And the Hungarian political left (and the so-called intellectual elite) happily assisted to drag the country's name in the mud for their own petty political purposes, forgetting that the only thing they can actually achieve is to strengthen Orban's position, which is NOT something I (and many other Hungarians) wish to see. They live in this strange, alternative universe, where Hungary is a Fascist dictatorship, and only they represent the worthy elements of the non-racist Hungarian population... It's bizarre.
Whatever the motivation of the writers and commenters are, the sad fact is: so far, in this whole mess, only this asshole (Orban) behaved with consistency, in line with the legal obligations, AND with any form of foresight. If it was up to Gyurcsany or any of the other douches, the country would be full of people it is not equipped to feed and house. Unlike Germany, Hungary is low on resources, and does NOT have a workforce shortage. In fact, there's a horrible unemployment right now, despite of all the hundreds of thousands who left the country to find work somewhere else in the EU.

 It seems to me the whole European Union has been running around like a headless chicken in the last six months. Certain politicians called Hungarians Nazis and racists because they tried to avoid drawing attention to the fact that they're half-way into prison already, and their population is very receptive to anti-Hungarian sentiments; others played the Nazi card because it made them feel warm and fuzzy about themselves (after all, they might have screwed over the Greek, but they are accepting a million refugees! Never you mind the issues of integration of such a large number of people, of how this does not actually solve any of the issues, and so on). The racist/Nazi card was played to the death by others as well: the Swedes, who are just hypocrites, and others because they were simple cunts, and thought they'd be safe on the Western side of the Hungarian border. (Which they were not, as soon as Merkel ignored the laws, as the recent events with Slovenia has demonstrated. So they started to build a fence, while claiming that Europe is no place for fences in the same time...)
Interestingly sometimes, someone actually gets it. But it's a rare occasion. Most of the time the voices of sanity are drowned by the self-righteous, self-serving condemnation of the "other".

I think what the original intention from the richer part of the Union was to let the poorer EU border countries become gigantic refugee holding camps (after all Dublin III serves this very purpose in this case), and when the Greek first, then Orban showed them a middle finger, they panicked, and did not know what to do. Now they have a gigantic mess in their hands, something they themselves created by

1. supporting the idiotic US/British/French interventions in the Middle East/Africa
2. relaying inconsistent messages about their refugee policies. Oh, poor Palestinian girl, we like you, but we can't have everyone come here. Oh, if only those Hungarians would let you, we'd have you all! Oh, even MORE is coming?? Who the fuck would have thought? Why are more people coming? Why aren't the border states doing something? Shit, put up the border control!!

So all in all. If you work for the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent, Der Spiegel, the New York Times, the Washington Post, or really, any other news organization, OR you are a politician, I have one thing to tell you: go and screw yourselves you hypocritical douchenozzles. Go and look up the definition of "journalism", and of "integrity", and then really, really think about what you have done. And if you have ever believed even one word of these amoral idiots, then wake up. You have been lied to. They take you for a fool, manipulated you, as they have been doing for generations now. This case angers me for one obvious reason: they dragged my country's name into the mud. But the other reason I'm mad is a less selfish one: this case is a prime example how politics and the media fabricates the world around you. They don't report on events; they MAKE UP the world around us. They can make millions of people demonstrating disappear (just think of the 2003 anti-war protests, and their media coverage), and can fabricate outrage at will about anything. Facts matter not; they will make sure facts will not stand in the way of their agenda. They give you shit, and they tell you it's caviare; and you have been eating it up without a question in every single case you can think of. This is a prime example how those in power will play those without power against each other. Congratulations.

Fences

Let's see, what sets this particular fence apart from these?

Well, apparently, some fences are more acceptable than others. Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia, France and the UK is perfectly OK fencing off Calais, and the Eurotunnel; Spain is fine with its razor wire fence, the US with its own border fence, not mentioning Israel's monstrous walls.