"Shame on you Orban" rally in Budapest,September 2015. Demoted/ Martin Juen. All rights reserved.In Hungary, the radical right spearheaded by Fidesz is exploiting the
refugee crisis for political gain. Through a politics of fear, Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán is fashioning himself as the defender of the nation and European
Christian civilization. While Orbán’s xenophobic campaign is nurturing Islamophobia,
concerned citizens are resisting the government’s illiberal turn.
The illiberal turn
Since Viktor Orbán’s return to power in 2010, his party Fidesz (Alliance
of Young Democrats) has drawn Hungary in the direction of an illiberal
state, imposing an intensely nationalistic style of politics. To
bolster popular support, Orbán
has used his party's two-thirds
majority in parliament to pass policies traditionally associated with the
country’s second largest party, the right-wing radical party Jobbik (Movement
for a better Hungary).
In July 2010, days into office, Orbán
passed a law declaring June 4 an official day of commemoration for the Treaty
of Trianon, the 1920 peace agreement resulting in Hungary losing two-thirds of
its former territory. In a similar move appropriating popular nostalgia for
Greater Hungary, Orbán passed a law making it easier for Hungarian minorities
in neighbouring countries to obtain citizenship.
Other controversial Jobbik-supported measures include the erection of a
statue commemorating the Hitler-allied Miklós
Horthy, and a memorial monument diminishing the Hungarian state’s
responsibility for the systematic deportation and genocide of nearly 440,000
Hungarian Jews. These symbol-laden actions are symptomatic of how Orbán paves
the way for radical Hungarian nationalism to move from the margins to the
mainstream.
Islamophobia without Muslims
While flirting with similar irredentist impulses, Orbán is keen to
distance his party from Jobbik, known for its openly antisemitic and anti-Roma
rhetoric. The worst refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War has brought the migrant as a convenient stranger at hand
into Fidesz’ grammar of exclusion.
Eight months before the suffering of refugees from war-torn countries
such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq was broadcast to a global audience, Orbán
launched a massive “awareness campaign” on the alleged threats posed by
economic migrants.
In January 2015, shortly after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the
government displayed anti-immigration billboards across Hungary reading, “We shall
not allow economic migrants to jeopardize the jobs and livelihoods of
Hungarians” and “If you come to Hungary, respect our culture”.
Continuing his scaremongering efforts, in May, Orbán conducted a “public
consultation on immigration and terrorism”, sending out a 12-question survey to
8 million citizens over 18 year of age (the total population of Hungary is 10
million). Among them were leading
questions such as: “We hear different views on increasing levels of
terrorism. How relevant do you think the spread of terrorism (the bloodshed in
France, the shocking acts of ISIS) is to your own life? “Do you agree that
economic migrants jeopardize the jobs and livelihoods of Hungarians?”
The questions framed the migrants from Muslim countries as an imagined
collective with certain inherent features held to be alien to Hungary’s way of
life. Migrants were associated with terrorism and seen as posing a threat to
Hungarian security, jobs and welfare. Other questions blamed Brussels for their
“lenient policy” and “mismanagement of the immigration question”, implying that
the refugee crisis could not be solved within existing European legal
frameworks.
The warning of a “Muslim threat” to the Hungarian nation is paradoxical
in light of the absence of any sizeable Muslim population in Hungary. The vast
majority of migrants only want to travel through Hungary. Orban is thus hyping up his role as the defender of European
civilization.
In a parliamentary speech on September 21, 2015, Orbán stated that it is
Hungary´s historic and moral obligation to protect the borders of Hungary that
in turn is also protecting Europe. Summarizing his position on the refugee
crisis to enthusiastic applause, Orbán said that migrants “are now not
just knocking on our door, but breaking it down. Our borders are in danger, our
way of life based on respect of law is in danger, and Hungary and the whole of
Europe is in danger.”
Defending European civilization
The anti-immigration billboards, questionnaire and political speech show
how Orbán exploits the refugee crisis to his own political gain. Shifting
public attention from Hungary´s economic difficulties and scandals of
corruption, he has turned to the safer ground of immigration and national
security.
Presenting himself as the authentic voice of the people, Orbán has with
the support of Jobbik passed anti-immigration measures and policies, including
the construction of an $80 million razor wire along the country´s border with
Serbia. The introduction of a state of emergency allows the army to use rubber
bullets and tear gas against refugees, criminalizing border crossing with potentially
several years in prison.
The anti-immigration actions enjoy public support. A poll
released on October 8 by Median Public opinion and market research on
Hungarian attitudes to the refugee crisis, shows that 79 percent of the 1200
respondents would like to introduce even harder measures against the migrants.
In contrast to other western European countries such as Norway and
Finland where the right-wing populist Progress Party and True Finns opposition
to Syrian immigration have put them out of step with many voters, Orbán’s
popularity is increasing. Fidesz rose
in polls to 24 percent by mid-September from 20 percent in June.
Jobbiks’s ambivalence
In contrast to far-right parties in western Europe such as the French
National Front and the Dutch Party for Freedom that largely support Israel and
focus on the Muslim threat, Jobbik politicians frequently deploy anti-Israeli,
pro-Palestinian and pro-Iran rhetoric.
The party leader Gabor Vona’s traditional praise of Islam contradicts
the anti-immigration scaremongering posted daily on the party’s social media
platforms and in recent issues of its party magazine Barikád where
migrants from Muslim lands are associated with pollution, disease and
terrorism.
Echoing the Fidesz populist position that links migrants with security
threats, Gábor Vona recently posted on his Facebook page that: “We must prevent
the imposition of the quota because we can´t decide who are refugees, who are
immigrants and who are terrorists.”
A recent
poll by Median shows that 54 percent of Hungarians are
fearful of the alleged Islamification of Europe, with 70 percent of Fidesz
voters and 63 percent of Jobbik voters believing that sooner or later the
Muslims will become a majority in Europe. An emerging Islamophobia without Muslims coupled with
Jobbik’s ongoing effort to “de-demonize” the party have, at least on the
surface, brought Fidesz and Jobbik closer.
“The
campaign of hatred loved you”
Not all Hungarians are passive consumers of right-wing nationalism and
xenophobic campaigns by any means. “The real danger in Hungary is Orbán’s
propaganda”, Maria Kovacks, a historian at Budapest’s Central European
University, says over coffee. “The Orbán government wants to rewrite the
nation’s history, rather than confronting it like other European states have
done.” Together with other historians she has initiated an action
against the falsification of history.
At Szabadság Square (Freedom Square), an alternative Holocaust memorial
consisting of personal items, family photos, books and documents built by
children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors provides a powerful act o resistance
against the government monument. Since the erection of the statue in July 2014
there have been daily protests gathering intellectuals, pensioners, members of
the Jewish communities and other concerned citizens. The protest I observe on
Monday October 12 is the 553th in line.
Orban’s xenophobic anti-immigration campaign has prompted similar civic
engagement. Like in other European countries where state responses to the
refugees have been slow, hostile or absent, thousands of Hungarians express
their compassion in various ways. When the refugee crisis unfolded at the
Kilati railway station, ordinary Hungarians arranged emergency relief.
On a larger scale, grassroots activists raised 33.3 million forints
($115,000, euro105,000) from over 7,000 people to launch a protest against
Orbán’s xenophobic campaign. Hundreds of billboards mocking the state’s
scaremongering were set up with messages like “the campaign of hatred loves
you”. Others posters carried statements in English such as “Welcome to Hungary”
and “I have survived the Hungarian anti-immigration campaign”.
These examples of civic engagement reflect the ongoing struggle over
values and identity in post-socialist Hungary, between a vision of
inclusionary, open society and that of exclusionary ethno-nationalism.
A sentiment shared by many Hungarians worried about the government’s
xenophobic campaign is summarized by the poster that says “Sorry about our Prime Minister.”
But an apologetic message alone cannot curb the worrying waltz that
Orbán and Jobbik have embarked on, embracing a politics of fear that seeds
cultural racism and intolerance.
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