That would be Viktor Orban, the leader of the Fidesz Party and the man most responsible for forcing the western Europeans to face the enormity of what Germany’s Angela Merkel has done. It was Orban who framed the “refugee” problem in world-historical terms, and it was he who actually built the damn fence along Hungary’s border with Serbia. And for this, of course. he’s denounced for, among other things, bringing back the Berlin Wall and starting a new Cold War:
Hungary’s use of razor wire, tear gas and arrests in response to migrants seeking refuge in Europe has shocked many people across the world. But the crackdown comes as little surprise to those who have been watching a political transformation underway since Prime Minister Viktor Orban won power in 2010 — building a state that puts national interests over civil liberties. Orban’s hard-line approach is testing Europe as the continent struggles to remain true to its values of solidarity and unity in the face of the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. It is also proving a tempting model to other leaders, particularly in ex-communist Central and Eastern Europe, where a dislike of Muslims and multiculturalism runs high.
It’s just possible that the Ottoman Turks’ conquest of much of eastern Europe, finally rolled back at the gates of Vienna, has something to do with that.
Orban’s critics accuse him of escalating the immigration crisis to pander to xenophobic elements among Hungarian voters who have been moving toward Jobbik, a far-right party that is openly anti-Semitic and anti-Roma. Orban’s government imposed a state of emergency last month that allows the military to deploy armed soldiers to the border and also allows for the temporary suspension of some civil rights.
“It’s a very good tool in his hands in order to make the government more powerful in the future,” said Mate Daniel Szabo, a constitutional lawyer with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.
Where would Hungary be without its own version of the ACLU?
Hungary’s new razor-wire fence and national direction mark a sharp reversal for a country that played a historic role in crumbling of the Berlin Wall — by opening a border fence with Austria in 1989 that triggered a sudden exodus of East Germans to the West.
Yes, but that fence was meant to keep prisoners in, and this fence is meant to keep illegal invaders out.
Western leaders and human rights groups have expressed alarm for years at the developments in Hungary, which have included the harassment of civil rights activists and independent media; an erosion of courts’ independence; and a celebration of World War II-era fascists and Holocaust revisionism that has created unease for Hungary’s Roma and Jews. Over the past five years, representatives of the ruling Fidesz party have cooperated with Jobbik to name public squares after people linked with Hungary’s fascist World War II-era government.
With Europe’s current refugee crisis, Orban’s right-wing politics have made their international debut.
Read the whole thing: it’s an extraordinarily biased piece by the AP that is at once misleading and historically ignorant. But this is what the media will do to you should you stand up for your country.
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