It is true that my country of birth, Hungary, is under unprecedented pressure as a wave of immigrants Europe has not seen since the end of WW2 is sweeping through its borders.
But the Hungarian government’s response is nothing short of despicable, and sadly, they have all too many supporters among nationalists or political opportunists.
Here are a few gems from recent days.
The Guardian decided to call prime minister Viktor Orban simply “Orban the awful“, referring specifically to the treatment of refugees at the Keleti train station in Budapest, but more generally, to Orban’s policies that have been consistently undemocratic, contrary to European values, and downright undermining a united European response, e.g., to the Ukraine crisis as he is cozying up with another dictator in the making, Vladimir Putin. To their credit, The Guardian do point out though that Orban’s policies find support among other Eastern European leaders (leading to a possibly widening rift between Eastern and Western Europe) and meanwhile, many well-meaning Hungarians decided to step in where the government wouldn’t, offering significant help to the refugees flooding the country. They did so despite the fact that sometimes, they received death threats from other “proud Hungarians”.
The Guardian also commented on the Christian duty to help the unfortunate, and how this duty is neglected by Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo. Erdo declared that helping refugees would amount to breaking the law on human trafficking. This happened two days before Pope Francis declared that it is the duty of every Catholic to help refugees… I wonder if the Pope and the Cardinal had a conversation since.
Meanwhile, Hungary’s prime minister made another astonishing statement. Referring to Western European plans to introduce a refugee quota system, he declared that: “Hungary is not requesting the relocation throughout Europe” of the country’s Roma population. Rather, “when they begin a journey to Canada, we ask them to stay.” Sadly, I have a feeling that humanity can be clearly divided into two groups: some people understand clearly that only a racist bigot says such things, whereas others feel that Orban is speaking the truth and that only brainwashed liberal retards don’t see the obvious. So while I belong firmly to the former group, I have a feeling that convincing the latter is a lost cause already. Very few racist bigots actually know that they are racist bigots… most take offense when you tell them that they are. But I feel that the time for mincing words is over.
Finally, to top off the list of events from these last few wonderful days, here is a glorious video of a reporter working for a far-right Hungarian television station, tripping a refugee father carrying a child:
Bravo. Must be a proud day for Hungary.