a reply to:
NihilistSanta
Perhaps if Orban was a true nationalist like the rulers of South Korea when that nation managed to come up to be one of the First World nations, I
would support him despite my conviction that equal rights and democracy were good in the long run.
I would not argue that it is OK to let a million aliens here suddenly in a country of 10 million people. Though there is such rampant unemployment
that if this meant serious work issued by the UN or the EU one would think about it. But this whole question is phony on two counts (make that three).
One, refugees do not want to stay here - we only have a few hundred people from last years, mostly Albanians from Kosovo opening bakeries, and a few
Syrian doctors who speak excellent Hungarian, but they usually escaped before the war. Two, Hungary spent enormous amounts of money of building razor
fences and civilians were distributing food and medicines for the transient migrants while the government did next to nothing. Three, the PM lost a
large popular base last year because of things like trying to tax the Internet by volume and cutting the budgets of all universities and hospitals. He
needed this refugee crisis because TV watchers would swing back (most media is in state hands) seeing how he "protects Hungary" against Arabs who
don't actually want to come here at all... And it worked.
Imagine, the government spent hundreds of millions (dollar millions) on giant billboard ads across the country warning refugees that they should
respect Hungary and its traditions. IN HUNGARIAN. I mean, the posters are IN HUNGARIAN. (For speakers of Arabic, Pashtu, and some with English.)
The trouble is that a lot of what these plastic nationalists in the post-Soviet world do isn't clean at all. Just like in Russia under Yeltsin, a few
undeserving mafiosi seized control of all the stuff that Communism took away from private citizens. Nothing like this happened before in modern
history as Bálint Magyar points out in his sociological study "The Hungarian Octopus". This is a specific pattern of post-Communist societies.
No competition here, and while you can point at corrupt methods of neo-colonialism and peddling influence in the West, that's ALL you find here since
1989. Just because one block sways the masses with nationalist slogans they are not necessarily telling the truth. In simple words, their actions
prove day by day that they do not want to protect ordinary citizens. Day by day, I see evidence that his friends and relatives get immensely rich out
of nothing, while people critical of him undergo harassment by all authorities. Culture is defunct, funds cut except to friends. The Constitution
rewritten. We are no longer a republic.
Janos Lazar, pretty much his deputy once last year voiced the opinion that "if you have nothing, that's how much you're worth." This is not an honest
nationalist, this is a world of Dickensian capitalism now, and they are perfectly fine to cooperate with Western industry and accepting EU funds. The
whole thing is a sham. Plastic nationalism.
But, as Santa remarks, the times are like this, many nations are back at a protectionist philosophy at the ideological level.
Too bad the economy and the laws they make over here do not match this ideology at all. If the reality gap widens, a really violently nationalistic
party - Jobbik - will seize power in 2018. At least they are honest about what they want to do - the average citizen will say. OK, they want Gypsies
in concentration camps and gays in reeducation centers and abortion banned and paramilitaries, fine...