“Don’t listen to what I say, but watch what I do!” — Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary An essay by András B. Göllner in honour of Elie Wiesel and Randolph L. Braham What is Affinity Fraud ? Affinity fraud is the oldest scam in the book. Eve used it to con Adam into tearing off the forbidden fruit from […]
This is a lighter, although I think still meaningful, story for a Sunday. The Canadian capital is getting ready to hold its second Embassy Chef Challenge on November 5th, 2015 at Victoria Hall, where each year a handful of chefs employed by foreign missions in Ottawa compete and showcase their culinary art. All proceeds from the event go to the […]
Democracy is not a right. Democratic values must be fought for and protected every day, sometimes in seemingly small ways, and even in Canada. This was the overarching message of this past Sunday’s commemoration of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution in Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery, organized by the Ottawa Hungarian Forum. The Forum is a fledgling grassroots community group in the Canadian […]
My grandfather fled Hungary in January 1957, never to return, but his young family stayed behind. Between 1954 and 1956, he was a prisoner sentenced to hard labour at the coal mine near the village of Csolnok, in northwestern Hungary, after having been found guilty of conspiring against the state. He fled to Canada in 1957 and from his new […]
Canada may be on the brink of a change in government on October 19th, after nearly 10 years of Conservative rule under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, seem to have the momentum in the last days of the campaign and are now leading with 36%, compared to 29% for the Conservatives and 25% for the […]
It’s not very nice to look a gift horse in the mouth; especially not on Thanksgiving weekend! But considering that some of HFP’s readers are from Transylvania, the northwestern half of Romania that is home to 1.4 million ethnic Hungarians, I wanted to share with you two videos from Elections Canada, produced in advance of our federal vote scheduled for […]
András Göllner published a piece on Hungary’s slow slide into despotism in the National Post, which elicited a response from Hungarian Ambassador Bálint Ódor. Mr. Ódor’s response then led to an op-ed from columnist George Jonas, who agreed with the ambassador and wrote fearfully of the dangers of Europe turning into “Eurabia.” Professor Göllner offered the following response to Mr. […]
Canada’s National Post daily newspaper published an op-ed entitled “A Word in Hungary’s Defence,” by Ambassador Bálint Ódor. The Orbán government’s representative in Canada was responding to an earlier piece in the National Post by Professor András Göllner, which highlighted the xenophobia that is a driving force behind the policies of the current regime in Budapest, especially as they relate […]
Hungary’s ambassador to Canada, Bálint Ódor, used an article in the Montreal Gazette to try to rally Hungarian Canadians to defend the actions of his government in Budapest. There is no doubt that the unprecedented number of Syrian refugees transiting through Hungary was a serious strain for Hungarian authorities and especially for the charities and activists in Budapest who struggled […]
My mother called. She calls every morning to tell me that she is still alive. I am grateful for those morning calls. She is ninety and still curious. This morning she called and asked me about what is happening in Hungary. You see, she was born in Hungary; she had her youth stolen in Hungary when she was shipped to […]
