Hungary. The Monster is at the Door.

[Bliss Notes]

May 28 2012
Hungary. The Monster is at the Door.
"Today, if you live in Hungary and you are Roma, Jewish or a member of the
LGBT community, you have a problem."
http://jewishinfonews.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/hungary-the-monster-is-at-the
-door/
SPECIAL REPORT

By Ronald Eissens.
A 1937 letter from Berlin I read a couple of years ago said: "The streets
are clean, people have jobs. The café's, restaurants and terraces are filled
every day. The women are lovelier than ever. Yet, there is this strange
undercurrent. All this marching and uniforms, it makes me uneasy. One hears
things about beatings and about people being taken away, disappearing. Jews
and others. We try not to talk about it, not to think about it. Yet it feels
like a beast is awakening, ready to destroy."
These lines came to mind while I was sitting on a terrace drinking coffee on
a square just off Vaci Utca, the famous Budapest shopping street. Last week
I was in Budapest as part of a group at the European Youth Centre that
trained young people to counter online hate.

Photo credit: The Contrarion Hungarian
In Budapest the streets are clean and beautiful, everybody laughs and
smiles, while the Hungarian Guard, a paramilitary outfit modelled on the SS,
marches in the street and people are beaten up. Today, if you live in
Hungary and you are Roma, Jewish or a member of the LGBT community, you have
a problem.
During recent years, waves of anti-Roma violence, antisemitic attacks,
bumper-stickers with the text 'Jew free car,' homophobic attacks on the
annual Gay pride parade, antisemitic defacement of synagogues and Jewish
graves, all became 'normal.'
In 2010, during a recent speech by the mayor of Budapest, right-wingers
shouted slogans such as 'send Jews to the concentration camps' and 'Jewish
pigs!'
"Vilified for claiming Holocaust restitution"
In Hungary, antisemitism and hate against gypsies were always present, but
they were swept under the carpet by communist governments. The new
constitution however, does not protect the rights of Gays and Lesbians.
Roma live in fear and the Jewish community tries to endure the new
pogrom-like atmosphere. Before World War II, there were half a million Jews
living in Hungary. Now there are only 100,000 and they are under growing
attack and vilified for claiming Holocaust restitution.
Márton Gyöngyösi, Hungarian parliament member for Jobbik (Jobbik
Magyarországért Mozgalom), a Hungarian radical nationalist political party,
has said: "It has become a fantastic business to jiggle around with the
numbers of dead Jews." Last month, another Jobbik MP, Zsolt Baráth, held a
speech in parliament reviving an anti-Jewish blood libel from 1882.
During a briefing I attended by Hungarian NGOs and other experts, it became
clear that the current situation is dire. Peter Molnar, Senior Research
Fellow at the Centre for Media and Communication Studies at Central European
University in Budapest, and a former Member of Parliament remarked, "Right
now, if I have to make a hierarchy of the minorities under attack in
Hungary, I would say first the Roma, then the Jews and then the LGBT
community."
In 2010, during the last Hungarian election, Jobbik became the 3rd party of
the country, winning 17% of the vote. The coalition government that was
formed after the election, does not have Jobbik in it - but the largest
party, the nationalist conservative Fidesz relies on Jobbik support and
openly tries to please and appease it. Jobbik itself denies being fascist or
racist, but its leader, Gabor Vorna, says that Jobbik is not democrat.
In a smart back-stage, front-stage strategy Vorna has created the Hungarian
Guard, who march the streets in Nazi uniforms and have been said to be
responsible for most of the hate crime and attacks against Roma, Jews and
LGBTs. On top of that, unaffiliated skinheads and neo-Nazis create even more
trouble. During 2008 and 2009, a number of Molotov cocktail and gun attacks
against the Roma community resulted in the death of six Roma. The killers
were neo-Nazis.
"Jobbik loves extreme Islamists and especially Iran"
So, does Jobbik like anybody? Well, 'normal' Hungarians of course, who are,
in a familiar sounding mythology, the descendants of a great and pure
Central-Asian 'Turkic' race, which also includes the Persians. It may
therefore come as no surprise that Jobbik loves extreme Islamists and
especially Iran, feeling very comfortable with shared antisemitism and
Holocaust denial.
This is not 1937, but it seems there are too many similarities including a
bad economic situation, high unemployment, the Euro-crisis, inflation of the
Forint, the national currency as well as anti-democratic strong leaders
about to take over.

Photo credit: Budapest Daily Photo
As the saying goes, 'history repeats itself the second time as a farce.'
Well, for a start, there is very little farcical about repeating pogroms.
Hungary is not Germany in 1937 and Hungary is not the only European country
suffering under an increase of populism, neo-Nazism and extremism. But,
Hungary could well be a new flashpoint.
While I was having my coffee, I read on my Blackberry that the Budapest
monument for Raoul Wallenberg had been desecrated. Hanging from the statue
were pig legs covered in blood.
All of a sudden, the coffee didn't taste so good.
In 2010, former Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai, in an unwitting allusion to
the 1937 letter from Berlin said, the "monster is at the door, threatening
to crush Hungarian democracy."
I don't like coincidences like that at all.
Ronald Eissens is General Director and Co-Founder of the Dutch NGO Magenta
Foundation, which focuses on international human rights and anti-racism.
Along with Suzette Bronkhorst, he founded in the Netherlands the world's
first complaint bureau for combating hatred on the internet. He is also a
Co-Founder of INACH, (International Network Against CyberHate).

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