Let's just forget for a second what 160 thousand plus people pouring over the border will do to people's attitudes; let's no discuss other aspects about the whole "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation the country is in presently. Let's not discuss right now how Fidesz and Orban are making things worse, because they are moronic nationalistic fucks, and clueless amateurs.
Let's talk about Islamophobia, and why the average Hungarian is worried about Muslim people.
There are a couple of reasons for this. (These are explanations, not excuses.)
One is isolation; there is a precious little exposure to Muslims and Arabs for most Hungarians. They don't really know people who are either.
There's a historical reason as well: Hungary did not have a very good experience with Muslims in the past. The Ottoman Empire effectively cut the country in three, depopulated enormous areas which later were populated by other peoples (leading to the trauma of the Peace Treaties after WWI), and made the country ripe for subjugation for the Hapsburgs. People don't have fond historical memories of the Turkish occupation, and for most -unfair or not- this is the only exposure to the Islam.
And there's the fact that Western media is extremely anti-Muslim in its narrative. The picture they give to their viewers of the Middle East is a horrible place where these uncivilized barbarians are living under horrible dictators and religious fundamentalists (forgetting to mention the West's role in this), where everyone is violent and would happily blow himself up after raping your daughter screaming Allah Akbar. This is the picture coming from abroad; no wonder people have warped views. It's kind of rich for the very same journalists to condemn anti-Muslim sentiments that they themselves helped to foster.
An other is the whole Israel-Palestine narrative. The country -in this respects as well as in many- is well behind the curve. Here if you say that maybe, just maybe the Palestinians might have a point, you are an anti-Semite. Here the "land without people, people without land" bullshit still holds water. Here, when a famous liberal commentator/writer (TGM) writes a damning article in HVG (Heti Vilag Gazdasag) about the Gaza war, other left-wing liberals slam him, and call him an anti-Semite; furthermore, they say only Israel stands in the way of the Muslim hordes threatening Europe -and it's perfectly acceptable in a left-wing paper! This narrative shows these dirty Arabs throwing stones and blowing themselves up -and only if they stopped, there would be peace in the Middle East.
And this leads to my favorite people to hate: the left-wing intellectuals in Hungary. I am left-wing. I have socialist views, I have liberal views (and some conservatives as well) - I feel more at home with Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton. However, the Hungarian versions of Chomsky are frankly spineless, intellectually corrupt little fucks. Tota W Arpad (who was one of those people condemning TGM for daring to express sympathy to the Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza), Agnes Heller, and yes, Imre Kertesz, the Saint Nobel Price Winner Holocaust Survivor, and Scourge of Hungary, who likes to point out how terribly racist Hungarians are, and how horrible that only in this country you can find racist people, and drawing subtle parallels between the Holocaust and the Fidesz government (while alluding collective guilt over the Holocaust).
What has this gentleman said not long ago?
Let's see.
“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,” writes Kertész in his book, according to a summary by the blogger Thomas Nydahl.
“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.”
Doesn't he sound like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, or Gabor Vona of the Jobbik? I think he remarkably does. (This, of course, was never picked up by the Guardian and other international news portals; after all, it's not Orban we're talking about.) Let me be clear of this: this is not an isolated statement, made by a rambling old man.
So. Xenophobia and racism is only bad if it's anti-Semitism. (As I said, this sort of thinking is quite accepted in the Hungarian left, which likes to depict itself as the epitome of liberalism.) As a little amusing side-note, someone actually told me that he is right to be afraid of Muslims; he was in the death camps... This person, of course, knew that the Nazis were not Muslims, but apparently, they must be just as bad.
So, Muslims are bad.
And NOW we hate Orban because he talks a lot more moderately than Kertesz himself? Are we surprised that this has a lot of effect on people who never in their lives met or talked to an Arab or Muslim person are worried? They get this from abroad and from home; from the left or the right. After all, Kertesz and the Jobbik finally can agree on something! It must be true!
So before you condemn the average Joe because he is worried about the Muslim hordes, perhaps you should condemn those who lit this fire and keep pouring gasoline on it.
