Why the West puts up with this guy is a mystery to me. The even bigger mystery is why Hungarians put up with him.
(Translated from German)
The reaction to Viktor Orban's anti-EU speech shows how isolated Hungary is
Beata Zawrzel/ZUMA/picture alliance Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban
Southeastern Transylvania is an idyllic area. There is hardly any industry and a lot of nature. The villages seem to have fallen out of time, life in them seems like a museum.
Here, in the Székely country, lives the largest part of Romania's Hungarian minority, around 600,000 people. For Hungarians, the area has a mythical significance, because the Székely Hungarians speak a rustic Hungarian and are considered proud, freedom-loving and extremely tradition-conscious people.
For more than 30 years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party has been organizing a so-called free summer university every July in the Székely mountain resort of Bad Tuschnad (Baile Tusnad). For a long time, it was a forum for Romanian-Hungarian dialogue - a dialogue between politicians from two nations who were historically enemies of each other in a similar way to Germany and France. In the past decade, however, the Tuzhnad Summer University has made headlines mainly because Viktor Orban regularly let off steam verbally here.
Weak West, strong HungaryThe Hungarian prime minister delivers his most important programmatic speech of the year here - outside Hungary, mind you, but in an area that belonged to the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy until 1918. In 2014, Orban first presented his concept of an "illiberal state" in Bad Tushad, and last year he spoke of the Hungarians not wanting to become a "mixed race".
In general, Orban presents himself as both a prophet of doom and a saviour in Bad Tuschnad. He paints a picture of a weak, depraved West, which he opposes with a strong Christian-nationalist Hungary under his leadership. Incidentally, the Budapest prime minister likes to strike polemical and hostile tones against Romania - in a way that Transylvania is still part of Hungary and he, Orban, is the master of the country.
Beginning of a beautiful friendship?This year, however, there seemed to be a surprise in the offing. For the first time in many years, Orban had traveled to Bucharest shortly before his speech in Bad Tushad, where he met the current Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. His Social Democratic Party (PSD) is ideologically very close to Orbán's right-wing nationalist Fidesz. Over a private lunch, Ciolacu and Orban drafted the massive project of a high-speed rail line between Budapest and Bucharest, and Hungary's prime minister also promoted Romanian investment in his country. On Facebook, Orban wrote about the meeting: "This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
But anyone who had expected Hungary's prime minister to strike a moderate tone in Bad Tuschnad, be it towards Romania or even towards Europe, was disappointed. Orban's speech was a sarcastic, at times vicious polemic against the West, the US and the EU. Western values are "migration, LGBTQ and war". The U.S. has lost its leading place in the world to China, so it is dangerous and could plunge the whole world into war. The EU wants to realize the project of a "population exchange" by migrants and strives to undermine the traditional Christian foundation of Europe through "LGBTQ ideology".
Enlightenment failedOrban unceremoniously declared that the great European project of the Enlightenment had failed. "More than 200 years ago, left-wing internationalist and liberal intellectuals and political leaders thought that by rejecting religion and Christianity, an ideal enlightened community would emerge," Orban said. "It was pure illusion. By rejecting Christianity, we have actually become hedonistic pagans."
Hungary is the only country in Europe that has drawn the right conclusions from this, Orban said - because it has the only constitution in Europe that does not focus on the "I" but on the "we". Hungary's new constitution was not promulgated at Easter in 2011 for nothing - an allusion to the feast of the resurrection and victory over death.
"Transylvania is not Romanian territory"And finally, Orban destroyed the "beautiful friendship" with Romania, which had not yet really begun. He derided his counterpart Ciolacu as the "20th Romanian prime minister" since he took office in 2010 (which was wrongly counted, he was 18th). And he made fun of a diplomatic note he had received from the Romanian Foreign Ministry, in which he was asked not to talk about certain things that were "sensitive to Romania". Among other things, Orban quoted him as saying that he should not talk about "non-existent Romanian administrative areas" - an allusion to demands for autonomy for Hungarians in Székely country. "We have never claimed that Transylvania and Székely Land are Romanian territorial entities," Orban polemicized. It was the moment in his speech when he received the longest applause.
All in all, Hungary's prime minister did not express any fundamentally new ideas in his speech and nothing that he had not already said in one form or another, sometimes openly, sometimes in a cloistered way. What is new and remarkable about this year's speech in Bad Tushad, however, is the depth of his anti-Americanism and contempt for Europe, as well as his admiring glorification of China and offensive leniency towards Russia. What is also new is the ever-increasing courage with which Orban distorts facts, for example when he talks about the Enlightenment or insinuates that war is one of its fundamental values to "the West".
Hungary: Internationally isolatedOrban has also been nostalgic for Greater Hungary for years - for example, a historic map of Greater Hungary hangs in his study. What is new is that he openly questions the affiliation of Transylvania and the Székely country to Romania, even if he chooses the sophisticated - and formally correct - statement that these are not Romanian administrative regions. In fact, none of the major Romanian regions is an official administrative area - Romania has 41 counties.
It is unclear what diplomatic aftermath Orbán's speech will have. Only Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala voiced sharp criticism of Orban after he said that the Czech Republic had "fallen over" in the face of Brussels. So far, there have been no official statements on Orban's speech in Romania, nor in Brussels or Washington. People seem to be tired of the Hungarian prime minister's provocations, but at the same time the silence could also be a sign of how isolated Hungary has become internationally. Orban himself wants to leave no doubt about where he stands and what to expect from him. In his speech, he said: "We have no other choice. Even if we love Europe, even if it belongs to us, we still have to fight."
Author: Keno Verseck |
