This week, a 71 year old double amputee called Mrs. Lajos Nagy, but much more commonly referred to as Emma néni (Aunt Emma), passed away, after surviving an endless cycle of evictions and homelessness. According to a community group called the Hungarian Social Forum (Magyar Szociális Fórum – MSZF), she was evicted from the homeless shelter where she was staying, […]
I have written about Zsolt Bayer before in the HFP. Our readers may recall that he is a co-founder of the ruling Fidesz party and a prominent pro-Orbán publicist who recently asserted that the Syrian refugee crisis was a manufactured racial war, launched by “invisible hands,” in order to exterminate white people. I did not think that Mr. Bayer could […]
Péter Tarr is the deputy director of the right-leaning HírTV cable television news network, which was established in 2003 as Hungary’s first 24/7 news channel. Back in February, the station’s owner, Lajos Simicska, had a very public and profanity-laced falling out with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and after that happened, HírTV journalists and staff, once the media darlings of the […]
Hungarian society is terribly splintered, polarized and immersed in a poisonous public discourse based on fear. But can today’s news of the death of Árpád Göncz, by far the most popular President of Hungary, who served under three different governments and for a full decade, bring Hungarians together and put a brief damper on the spiteful political polemics? All the […]
Central Europe, a region that experienced deep trauma and transformation in the twentieth century, is today often perceived as being especially callous and unmoved when faced with the plight of Syrian and other refugees. A large handful of public thinkers, artists and former political leaders have issued an appeal, calling for the region to show compassion, humanity and put aside […]
On Sunday, Germany suspended the rules of the Schengen Area. The very underpinnings of the European Union, namely hindrance free travel within the zone, were shaken, with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government reintroducing varying degrees of border controls along Germany’s frontier with nine EU countries. The most stringent controls are between Germany and Austria and traffic jams extending four kilometres along […]
Hungary’s Fidesz government has long been an admirer of the Israeli right, and of the Likud party in specific. This is an open secret in Hungarian right-wing circles. Despite the Fidesz party’s occasional antisemitism — aimed to placate the more extreme elements of the Hungarian right –Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his inner circle is quite fond of the language, […]
I imagine that most of our readers have not been to, and perhaps never even heard of the northeastern Hungarian town of Érpatak (population: 1,700). The small town is run by far-right mayor Mihály Zoltán Orosz, who made a national name for himself by causing a scene at last year’s Gay Pride parade in Budapest, where he showed up dressed […]
I increasingly believe that it is in Hungary’s enlightened self-interest to begin accepting many more of the Syrian and Afghan refugees, rather than stoking fear within Hungarian society and creating a siege mentality, which seems to be the tactic du jour. There is the humanitarian argument, where one might reasonably expect a greater degree of compassion and understanding from Hungarian […]
Refugees from Syria and Afghanistan transiting through Hungary have become an everyday sight for Budapest residents, especially those living close to the Keleti railway station and major squares in the 7th and 8th Districts. Police seem to be focused on removing them as quickly as possible from these areas (out of sight, out of mind), but a growing civilian ‘army’ […]
