George Lázár’s call for the removal of the Hungarian autocracy’s former US ambassador, Réka Szemerkényi from her post at the prestigious Washington based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) is an important initiative that should be embraced by all Americans, regardless of Party affiliation, because it is a step in the direction of the path that leads towards justice, the rule of law and sustainable economic development.
Lázár’s „call to arms” (a write in campaign asking for Szemerkényi’s recall) comes in the wake of American Republican Congressman Steven King’s repudiation by his colleagues in the House for publicly engaging in unacceptable, un-American white-supremacist trash-talk. King’s public repudiation is of more than passing interest to Hungarians in North America. The Congressman happens to be one of the loudest lobbyists for the pro-Russian, white-supremacist Hungarian autocracy that is rapidly gaining in popularity in Western Europe, and is warmly embraced in the US by Steve Bannon, the Ku Klux Klan, the racist bigots who organized the march on Charlottesville, and by their champion in the White House – the double-talking con-artist, Donald Trump.
This author welcomes the call to direct action against the forces that menace America’s democracy. As I have pointed out in my earlier 3 part series on the pages of this social medium the former Hungarian Ambassador to Washington, Réka Szemerkényi was a fervent advocate in America of Orbán’s white supremacist, neo-Fascist autocracy until she was summarily removed from her post under mysterious circumstances. When asked for an explanation for his action against Szemerkényi, the Hungarian Prime Minister brushed questioners aside by saying that he doesn’t deal with women’s issues. As if to accentuate his comment, a year after blind-siding his ambassador, he abolished gender studies in Hungary. (Szemerkényi’s colleague in what is after all a crime against commonly shared and respected North American values is Bálint Ódor in Canada. He is Orbán’s Canadian assistant in spreading the affinity fraud that is gaining ever more victims in Europe and North America.)
It is a well-documented fact that Szemerkényi actively participated in the Orbán regime’s pro-Russian efforts to elect Donald Trump to the White House. She worked hand-in-glove with J.D. Gordon, the de facto director of the Trump campaign’s Foreign Affairs and National Security team. (Gordon has threatened to sue this author, and supposedly reported me to the FBI for my criticism of his role in throwing the people of Hungary under Viktor Orbán’s bus. For his threats and for my response to his bluster please turn to The Washington Times here.
Szemerkényi was already close to Gordon, when the latter was easing the Republican Party’s position on sanctions against Russia at Trump’s request at the Party’s 2016 National Congress. She organized Carter Page’s visit to Budapest during the campaign and assisted in J.D. Gordon’s own trip to Hungary after Trump won the Presidency in November 2016. (How he escaped the attention of Congressional investigators remains a mystery to many.) The only reason Orbán removed Szemerkényi from her post as ambassador to Washington was that she bragged publicly about her role in this Russian-Hungarian mission on behalf of Trump. Such bravado became a liability with the establishment of the Mueller investigation. Szemerkényi was not called back home, but was given instead another highly paid job in Washington, where she would be less exposed to scrutiny by Robert Mueller’s investigators. Orbán arranged for her appointment to the vice-Presidency of the prestigious Washington based CEPA. The former Hungarian Ambassador, a great and good friend of Congressman Steven King is now a well-paid Trojan Horse of Orbán’s and Putin’s autocratic regimes within this Washington based body. According to Lázár, and those who lament the hijacking of Hungary’s democracy, she must go. This author warmly supports the write-in campaign for her removal and encourages as many people as possible to join in. If America is to get serious about border security, it should look at its heartland, and show the exit to those who work for the hijackers.
Lázár’s piece is yet another sign, that the times are a’changing for anti-Orbán dissidents in North America. The strategy of providing a selective English translation service/loudspeaker to North America for the disorganized dissident movement in Hungary is an important service by such well-known and respected social media as The Hungarian Spectrum, or this platform. Such instruments however, by themselves, can not produce more than an echo chamber effect among like-minded anti-Orbanists in the West while providing false expectations about American “help” to the hapless resistance in Hungary.
It is high time the anti-Orbán intellectuals in North America do more than talk and play with mirrors. They should support direct action by civil rights activists and stop denigrating as “hot-headed radicals”. the efforts of those who walk the talk (This is a friendly reminder to a couple of my own one time associates on the Board of The Canadian-Hungarian Democratic Charter, a Canadian Hungarian civil rights advocacy group actively supported by the publisher of the HFP.) The current pro-Russian Hungarian government is engaged in a massive disinformation drive in the United States and Canada. It is spending vast sums of money financing various front organizations to white-wash the rule of law violations of the Orbán government. In an earlier piece I drew attention to these groups by name (The American-Hungarian Lobby, The Hungarian American Coalition, The Magyar Foundation in North America, The Hungarian Initiatives Foundation, The American Hungarian Federation, The Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, The Friends of Hungary Foundation, etc). Every one of these American-Hungarian organizations are working on behalf of Putin’s Trojan Horse and many are paid directly by Orbán’s treasury. They are all jockeying for pole position to deceive the American and Canadian public about the affinity fraud being employed by Hungary’s crooked rulers. It is time to pull the curtains on this charade.
If change is to come, the pulling of the curtain should not be monopolized by a “politically correct” geriatric set, but by energetic, fearless and high spirited young people who are motivated by the desire to pursue the path of justice, the rule of law and sustainable economic development. It is time that the two major pro-Orbán academic bodies in America and Canada get off the fence. Instead of regularly flocking to Hungarian diplomatic functions, sipping Orbán’s wine, and opening the door for Orbán’s diplomats into the homes of American and Canadian opinion leaders, these organizations should begin to actively encourage their younger members, to take on and unmask the true nature of the neo-Fascist Hungarian governments’ reach into North America. Being a friend of Hungary should not require us to be a friend of Fascism.
András Göllner