Viktor Orbán: Without Hungary, Europe would have already fallen

Hungary’s largest free circulation print daily, Lokál, published an interview with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, three days before the government’s anti-migrant referendum. Lokál is published by the Modern Media Group, a firm co-owned by the prime minister’s personal adviser, Árpád Habony. Earlier this year, without issuing any tender, the Centre for Budapest Transport (BKK) signed an agreement with the Modern Media Group to have Lokál distributed at all metro stations.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Lokál’s journalists did not ask Mr. Orbán any real questions when they interviewed the prime minister. Attila Leitner’s approach to his interviewee is decidedly servile. His first question was to inquire if Mr. Orbán has ever changed his newborn granddaughter’s diapers. “Not yet. The number of women per capita in our family is very high,” responded the prime minister. “But I wouldn’t shy away from the responsibility,” he added.

After asking more questions about how it feels like to be a grandfather (Mr. Orbán’s oldest daughter, Ráhel, recently gave birth), the interview turned to political issues.

“Has the birth of Alíz changed your perspective on the migrant crisis?”–asked the interviewer.

“No,” responded Prime Minister Orbán, adding: “We have five children, that is enough responsibility on its own, and it determines one’s place and duty in the world. My family is the most important to me–their safety, peace, good health and happiness. Hungary is the only place where we can truly be at home. This is what I have to protect. This is where we have to make life safe, bright and friendly.”

Lokál’s journalists continued to build the entire interview around Mr. Orbán’s newborn granddaughter:

“How do you think Europe will look like, once your grandchild is a high school student?”

And Mr. Orbán responded: “Anyone who claims to know how the world will look like even in a couple of years is mistaken. We see that everything can change from one day to the next, taboos are challenged and even self-evident things are questioned. (…) We never thought that Hungarian families would be worried to let their children travel to western Europe. Terror has settled in Europe, the safety of the everyday has been destabilized. We can’t know what the future holds, but which direction we take depends on us. We Hungarians usually detect danger early on and we had the courage to initiate change.”

Lokál then added that Mr. Orbán faced “incredible foreign pressure” for having gone against the West’s politically correct immigration policies. “I knew this would happen, but I was not sure that I could withstand the huge pressure. But we succeeded, I withstood and the winds have changed,” responded Mr. Orbán, implicitly referring to his border fence between Hungary and Serbia, erected to keep refugees and migrants out. “We did what sober countries in the world have already been doing, from the United States to Israel. We defended Hungary, as well as the boundaries of the European Union,” he added.

“Where would Europe be today, if Hungary did not block off the open gates?”–asked Lokál, clearly appealing with its questions to the prime minister.

“Had we not taken our responsibility seriously, Europe would have already fallen. The self-sacrifice and the submissiveness would have become unstoppable. There is a chance that Hungarians will be on the right side of history….We want to protect the Europe that we all love, where we feel at home and for which we have sacrificed so much,” Mr. Orbán remarked.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a helicopter, inspecting the border between Hungary and Serbia from above. Photo: Facebook.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a helicopter, inspecting the border between Hungary and Serbia from above. Photo: Facebook.

The prime minister said that those who are considering boycotting the October 2nd referendum are risking the future of both Hungary and all of Europe, and he added that the problem in the West was that governments never asked their citizens about their immigration policies. “Many people now want to turn back the hands of time,” noted Mr. Orbán, adding “Let’s not make a mistake that can never be corrected. Let’s not risk the future of Hungary.”

Mr. Orbán was then asked about what specifc dangers migrants and refugees bring to Europe–the prime minister continued his main theme, on how he believes that it is impossible to truly integrate many of them.

“We Europeans respect women–we see them as equal partners. With them, things are different. In every European country, monogamy is law and polygamy is illegal. But for them, polygamy is natural. The European legal system is also irreconcilable with Islam. And sustaining the masses of migrants puts a burden on our economy. Their welfare and education will cost a great deal of money, while millions in Europe are unemployed,” responded Mr. Orbán.

But for many Hungarians, the most powerful imagery that Prime Minister Orbán used to illustrate the threat he believes that immigration and the migrant crisis poses is the Treaty of Trianon–the post World War I treaty, signed in 1920, which saw Hungary cede two thirds of its territory to neighbouring countries and more than half its population, including many ethnic Hungarians who found themselves in hostile successor states.

“We see in the case of Hungarian communities living in the Trianon successor states exactly what happens when a minority one day  turns into the majority. They can pull the rug out from under us,” remarked Prime Minister Orbán.

Hungarians are less than 48 hours away from voting in Sunday’s referendum.

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *