Politics makes strange bedfellows. And this may be the case in the unexpected alliance between former Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Yona Metzger, and Hungary’s Orbán Government. In November 2013 Rabbi Yona Metzger was arrested in Israel on suspicion of corruption and the Magistrate’s Court ordered him to be kept in custody. According to investigators, Rabbi Metzger accepted bribes of an […]
Máté Kocsis, the Fidesz party mayor of Budapest’s 8th district, is among the most avid Facebook users in Hungary, and in his case it’s not a press secretary posting updates on his behalf, but the mayor himself. Sometimes he gets himself into trouble, like when he engaged in a homophobic tirade earlier this year, after a liberal politician outed him […]
Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde, the author of Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2005), made a critically important point in an op-ed piece published Saturday in The Guardian. According to Professor Mudde, western journalists and activists who have been concerned primarily with, and focused almost exclusively on, the rise of the far-right Jobbik in Hungary have been wrong […]
Viktor Orbán warmed up his signature political dish today in the Transylvanian town of Tusnádfürdő (Băile Tușnad), where he gave his annual speech at a right-wing gathering of students, activists, politicians and policy-makers. Mr. Orbán returned to an old theme, and one which very successfully created a toxic environment for Hungarians both in Hungary and in the diaspora who were […]
In stark contrast to the Obama administration, as well as key Republican politicians, and governments in western Europe, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet has expressed absolutely no concern in public about the authoritarian, illiberal and xenophobic politics of Hungary’s Orbán regime. In fact, since 2010, the Embassy of Hungary in Ottawa has placed a special emphasis on cultivating a […]
Before turning to the description of RCA Viktor’s Canadian sound system, a system in which Hungary’s diplomats in Canada play a commanding but not exclusive role, I want to make some general observations about the standards diplomatic representatives are expected to uphold in those countries that belong to the Transatlantic community (TAC). This is necessary in order to gauge whether […]
![Poster advertising RCA Victor radios in 1937. John Vassos papers, 1920-[198-], Archives of American Art.](https://hungarianfreepress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rca-victor-records-poster-225x145.jpg)
We go abroad to wonder – at the towering beauty of the mountains, at the crashing power of the waves on the high seas, at the winding flow of a majestic river, at the vastness of the oceans, at the miracle of the stars above: but we often walk past ourselves, without wondering The Confessions of Saint Augustine Introduction How […]
If any further convincing is needed, in order to show that Fidesz has morphed into Jobbik, then the words of Hungary’s Minister of Justice, shared by Inforádió Friday morning, should suffice. László Trócsányi started off by attacking the European Union’s system of quotas when it comes to accepting and assigning refugee claimants among the member states. He then added that […]
An unusual war broke out among the Orbán-government supporters in Washington DC. Frank Koszorus, President of the American Hungarian Federation told Heti Válasz, a Hungarian weekly, that the upcoming congressional hearing about Hungary is a terrible idea. Whoever organized it does not understand the real issues and called for postponement. He himself is on the witness list, but he’ll boycott […]
I am still sometimes surprised by the true extent of the Orbán government’s small-mindedness, its pettiness and the remarkably arrogant, self-serving use of public funds. It has been 25 years since the formation of Hungary’s first democratically elected parliament in May 1990. The government-funded Veritas Research Institute, led by historian Sándor Szakály–who callously called the deportation of Jews during the […]
