It is by now patently obvious that the refugee “crisis” that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has artificially and systematically created had 3 goals:
(1) to divert attention from Orbán’s many mounting corruption scandals,
(2) to re-assert and reinforce Orbán’s populistic self-image as the nation’s protector against the invasion of the Turks and the exploitation by the EU and
(3) to provide a pretext for introducing police-state legislation for enhancing Orbán’s dictatorial powers.
The bonus of the new emergency right to break into the homes of people suspected of giving refuge to refugees (sic!) is that Orbán will now at last gain the legal right to break into the home of his arch-enemy, the former prime-minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, whom he had ousted through dirty tricks and character assassination and who is now giving refuge to the refugees: perhaps Orbán will even be able to do what he has so long tried, so far unsuccessfully, to do, which is to find a legal pretext for imprisoning Gyurcsány.
Source: Zsolt Szigetváry / MTI.
This is the standard M.O. of psychopathic dictators, if they are not stopped by concerted resistance from normal, decent people.
I don’t equate Hungary with the Hungarian government or the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church*:
Hungary is a population of 10 million people, normally distributed.
But if you subtract from that the Fidesz supporters, the Jobbik supporters and the Catholic Church, how many people do you have left?
Only if it is 2/3x (10 million) can Orbán be ousted and decency restored (unless Orbán has already gerrymandered the electoral districts and rigged the enfranchisement of foreign nationals so much that even 2/3 is no longer enough…)
Stevan Harnad
Stevan Harnad is Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Sciences at Université du Québec à Montréal; Professor of Electronics and Computer Science at University of Southampton, UK; External Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Hungarian Democratic Charter.
*Hungarian Catholic Cardinal Péter Erdő raised eyebrows when he callously warned Catholic parishes and individual Roman Catholics from assisting the refugees, so as not to run the risk of being found guilty of aiding human traffickers. In stark contrast, Pope Francis has called upon Catholic churches everywhere to open their doors to refugees.
