Is Orban A Freedom Loving Patriot, Or An Apprentice Fascist?

Viktor Orban

Is Orban A Freedom Loving Patriot, Or An Apprentice Fascist?

“the principles that Europe has been built on are in mortal danger”

“Allegedly we are hostile xenophobes, but the truth is that our history is also one of inclusion, and the history of intertwining of cultures”

There is a crescendo of criticism in the media, led by lefty publications like The Guardian and the New York Times, painting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as some kind of Hitler in waiting, a trainee fascist.

The lazy mainstream media (MSM) goes along with it, perhaps because it’s too difficult and nuanced to explain exactly what’s going on in Hungary so they shrug shoulders and just accept the caricature painted by the left. A bit like climate change, where the left shouts at the top of its voice, over and over; Climate emergency, we’re all going to die if we don’t stop driving, flying or heating our homes and cooking hot meals. (But not us). This is the Goebbels principle, where if you are going to lie, you might as well make it a big one, and the more often you say it, the more believable it becomes.

This, it seems to me, is what has happened to Orban and Hungary. It started in Germany with Merkel’s disastrous open door immigration move. She triggered the problem of mass Muslim immigration without as much as a by your leave from other EU countries. In Germany, this triggered an accelerating support for the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), a Conservative party promptly labelled hard right by the lefty MSM, when in fact it’s a good, strong, sensible Conservative party. Merkel then demanded the rest of the EU accept quotas.

Hungary fought against this arbitrary decision. It refused to be bullied into accepting a quota of Muslim immigrants with a largely incompatible culture and notoriously immune to assimilation, if not the reverse. This triggered a wave of attacks from the left on Hungary in general and Orban in particular. This policy was said to be inhumane, a denial of human rights. Hungary was an outcast from the civilised world. Orban was an affront to good people of the world and should be treated henceforward as a pariah. 

Criticise Soros? You’re anti-Semitic
Then we had talk of anti-Semitism, as billionaire lefty financial backer George Soros became involved. Soros was born in Hungary and sought to persuade his old country to open its borders to the thousands of refugees. Soros has a high profile in the U.S. as a backer of extreme left, radical causes. Weirdly, any criticism of Soros, who is Jewish, was quickly labelled anti-Semitism, as the left sought to close down the argument. I recently watched an interview by C4News’ Matt Frei with an Hungarian official, where he pushed this preposterous notion that effectively said any criticism of Soros was anti-Semitic. There was no discussion of the actual argument. It had to be anti-Semitic to disagree with Soros. I’ve long despised Soros and his campaigns to undermine sensible Republican and Conservative parties, but I had no idea he was Jewish. It makes no difference to me.

Meanwhile I’ve been very suspicious of what looks like an orchestrated attempt to belittle Orban, led by the likes of The Guardian and The New York Times, using nudge-nudge innuendo and not much in the way of facts. The Times has used issues like control of the arts as a fake issue to beat Orban with, saying he was trying to dictate what it can do, when in fact Hungarian Theatre is hugely state funded. It can do as it pleases if it finds its own funding. The Times thinks that any opposition to immigration, no matter how inappropriate in terms of culture, is a fascist outrage, and attempts to please local opinion is fascist too.

The Guardian mounts similar superficial attacks on the arts in Hungary without making clear any big state-funded operation invites intervention. If you raise your own money, there’s no problem, but that’s probably unacceptable to those weakened by subsidy. And the Guardian accuses Orban of tightening rules on opposition parties, without saying how he did it. Both publications have a sordid history of lying and distorting news to pursue their political aims, specialising in faux blackening of characters at the expense of facts. It’s hard to know what to believe when much of the lazy mainstream media goes along with this.

Trust Douglas Murray
Thank goodness for the likes of Douglas Murray and other writers at The Spectator. I read Murray’s stuff in The Spectator, his books, and listen to his facebook contributions. He’s earned my trust. In his book “The Strange Death of Europe”, he points out that Soros accused Orban of stopping his plan to uphold European values with open borders to help refugees.

“The dialogue ceased before anyone could ask Soros how long those European values might last once Europe could be walked into by people from all over the world,” Murray said.

Murray quotes Orban saying this –

“….. the principles of life that Europe has been built on are in mortal danger. Europe is the community of Christian, free, and independent nations; equality of men and women; fair competition and solidarity; pride and humility; justice and mercy.”

“Mass migration is a slow stream of water persistently eroding the shores. It is masquerading as a humanitarian cause, but its true nature is the occupation of territory.”

“Obsessed human rights defenders feel the overwhelming urge to reprimand us and to make allegations against us. Allegedly we are hostile xenophobes, but the truth is that the history of our nation is also one of inclusion, and the history of intertwining of cultures.”

“Those who have come here with the intention of changing our country, shaping our nation in their own image, those who have come with violence and against our will have always been met with resistance,” Orban said, according to Murray.

Doesn’t sound like fascism to me. And it appears, normal people in Hungary agree too.