It’s impossible to detach public history and collective memory from contemporary politics. How a society portrays the past is determined by current realities, contemporary values or interests, as well as the dominant, “preferred” narratives of history. But the government and public institutions don’t have a monopoly over the past ; where civic engagement is strong, grassroots organizations and local activists […]
I put the word “strategy” in quotation marks for a reason. When Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Péter Szijjártó, gathered together his increasingly rag-tag group of lackeys and personal football friends-turned-ambassadors and diplomats earlier this month to announce, alongside Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the ministry’s decision to replace its policy of “opening to the east” with a new “opening to […]
The Magyar Nemzet daily, owned by Fidesz-oligarch Lajos Simicska, who had a very public falling out with his long-time friend and former roommate Viktor Orbán, published a lengthy interview with Gábor Vona, leader of the far-right Jobbik party this weekend. It’s most certainly a long-shot to think of Mr. Vona as a prime minister-in-waiting, but it has also now become […]
An international panel of experts at Concordia University drew public attention to one of the greatest credibility challenges faced by the European Union since its inception: the government of an EU member state – Hungary – has been openly defying the “Rule of Law”, and the core values the Union is formally committed to uphold. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán`s […]
When I was riding back from Montreal late Tuesday evening, after a roundtable discussion hosted by Concordia University on the state of the rule of law in Hungary, I didn’t think that a short video I produced starring the Embassy of Hungary in Ottawa and their completely surreal act would find its way onto nearly all of Hungary’s major internet […]
The occasional peak into Jobbik’s King Attila Academy (Attila Király Akadémia) may cause the uninitiated to chuckle or raise an eyebrow at some of their bizarre, esoteric and decidedly cult-like practices. But the Jobbik academy, which serves as a training and indoctrination program for young Hungarian men who wish to find employment in the party, or in towns where the […]
The Hungarian left is showing signs of breaking up into two quite distinct camps: on the one hand, we have two mainstream, establishment parties: namely, the Hungarian Socialist Party, which over the past 25 years has tried to be all things to all people, as well as former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Democratic Coalition, which is a bizarre, hybrid concoction […]
Dear Chancellor Merkel: I am impelled to write to you on the occasion of your impending visit to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary in February. I have no doubt that your able staff is more than adequately preparing your visit; however, I wish to add to that a point of view representing the Hungarian perspective. Surely, you are aware […]
While the radical left-wing Syriza was in the process of winning one seat shy of a majority in Greece’s national elections on Sunday, and as another fledgling, anti-establishment leftist party in Spain, called Podemos, is planning to do the same later this year, elderly conservative, liberal and a sprinkling of centre-left intellectuals sat down in Budapest for an academic and […]
On October 28 six diplomats based in San Francisco gathered at Congregation Emanu-El to discuss the growing anti-Semitism in Europe. “The New Anti-Semitism in Europe” panel attracted close to 200 people at the synagogue, a surprisingly high number, considering that Game 6 of the World Series was playing on a television in a nearby room. European and especially Hungarian anti-Semitism […]
