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Arrow Cross Redux: RIP Hungarian Democracy

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ April 4, 2013Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
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COMMENT: For some time, we’ve report­ed on the dis­in­te­gra­tion of Hun­gar­i­an demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions, as the coun­try slouch­es toward its Arrow Cross fas­cist past. (The Arrow Cross was the Hun­gar­i­an fas­cist par­ty that was allied with the Third Reich dur­ing World War II.)

Now it appears that the obit­u­ary for Hun­gar­i­an democ­ra­cy is ready for pub­li­ca­tion. 

Not­ing the dis­par­i­ty between the troika’s high­ly activist inter­ven­tion in Greece’s eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal sov­er­eign­ty, the arti­cle express­es puz­zle­ment at the EU’s deser­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ple.

Appar­ent­ly, they have not ade­quate­ly con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty that this was part of the plan for Europe all along.

For back­ground on the return of fas­cism to Hun­gary, includ­ing the piv­otal pres­ence of Arrow Cross vet­er­ans in the GOP’s eth­nic out­reach appa­ra­tus, access FTR #‘s 709, #465, as well as the posts below:

“Hun­gary Is no Longer a Democ­ra­cy” by Ben­jamin Abtan; The New States­man; 4/2/2013.

EXCERPT: It is now a fact: Hun­gary is no longer a democ­ra­cy.

Pres­i­dent János Áder has just signed the imple­men­ta­tion decrees for new con­sti­tu­tional reforms that wipe out what was left of oppo­si­tion forces against the gov­ern­ment.

More par­tic­u­larly, the Con­sti­tu­tional Court is no longer allowed to give its opin­ion about the con­tent of laws and to refer to its own case-law – which results in the loss of almost all mon­i­tor­ing pow­er on the leg­is­la­ture and the exec­u­tive.

This metic­u­lous destruc­tion of democ­racy and its val­ues – whose start­ing point was the land­slide elec­tion of Fidesz in 2010 – has tak­en place over months and months, under everybody’s eyes.

The attack was clear and con­tin­u­ous: crip­pling restric­tion of the free­dom of the press, polit­i­cal direc­tion of the Cen­tral Bank, inclu­sion in the Con­sti­tu­tion of Chris­t­ian reli­gious ref­er­ences and of the “social util­ity” of indi­vid­u­als as a nec­es­sary con­di­tion for the enforce­ment of social rights, dele­tion of the word “Repub­lic” in the same Con­sti­tu­tion to define the country’s polit­i­cal sys­tem, con­dem­na­tion of homo­sex­u­al­ity, crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of the home­less, attacks against women’s rights, impuni­ty afford­ed to per­pe­tra­tors of racist mur­ders, the strength­en­ing of a vir­u­lent anti-Semi­tism . . . .

. . . . Only a few days ago, prime min­is­ter Vik­tor Orban offi­cially dec­o­rated three extreme right-wing lead­ing fig­ures: jour­nal­ist Fer­enc Szanis­zlo, known for his dia­tribes against the Jews and the Roma peo­ple, who he com­pares to “mon­keys”; anti-Semit­ic archae­ol­o­gist Kor­nel Bakav, who blames the Jews for hav­ing orga­nized the slave trade in the Mid­dle-Age; final­ly, “artist” Petras Janos, who proud­ly claims his prox­im­ity to the Job­bik and its para­mil­i­tary mili­tia, respon­si­ble for sev­eral racist mur­ders of Romani peo­ple and heiress of the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Par­ty, that organ­iZed the exter­mi­na­tion of Jews and Gyp­sies dur­ing the Sec­ond World War.

This polit­i­cal degra­da­tion gives us a grue­some his­tor­i­cal and polit­i­cal les­son. Through­out the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy suf­fered the attacks of the two major total­i­tar­ian sys­tems of the cen­tury – Nazism and Com­mu­nism. Nowa­days, in the twen­ty-first cen­tury, it is under the blows of an anti-Euro­pean, nation­al­ist, racist and anti-Semit­ic pop­ulism that democ­racy has fall­en, at the heart of Europe, amidst the indif­fer­ence of the Euro­pean Union and of too many of its cit­i­zens and lead­ers.

Obsessed by eco­nomic and finan­cial issues, too indif­fer­ent to its fun­da­men­tal val­ues ​​of free­dom, equal­ity, peace and jus­tice, the EU has aban­doned the fight to pro­mote or even main­tain democ­racy as the polit­i­cal sys­tem of its mem­ber states.

Unlike Putin’s Rus­sia, for exam­ple, Hun­gary is not a world pow­er, and realpoli­tik can­not be invoked as a rea­son for this deser­tion. Since Hun­gary is strong­ly depen­dent on Euro­pean sub­si­dies and assis­tance, and since the EU has omi­nously shown in Greece how its finan­cial sup­port can be politi­cised to the extreme, its sup­posed lack of room for manoeu­vre can­not be invoked either.

The fun­da­men­tal rea­son is unfor­tu­nately as sim­ple as it is wor­ry­ing: it is a lack of com­mit­ment of the cit­i­zens and Euro­pean lead­ers towards rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy as a polit­i­cal sys­tem.

This is why, since his re-elec­tion in 2010, Orban has received the unfail­ing sup­port of many Euro­pean lead­ers, notably from his own polit­i­cal fam­ily; this is also why the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion does not use any of the instru­ments avail­able – though it does have many – to enforce the EU’s fun­da­men­tal val­ues. . . .

Discussion

3 comments for “Arrow Cross Redux: RIP Hungarian Democracy”

  1. Dave, the sit­u­a­tion in Hun­gary is very dis­turb­ing. There are Arrow Cross ele­ments who are eth­ni­cal­ly Greek, accord­ing to some reports I’ve seen; and this pos­si­ble per­son­al con­nec­tion with Gold­en Dawn is dou­bly dis­turb­ing.

    I was lis­ten­ing to your WACL (World Anti-Com­mu­nist League) series and want­ed to run down more bio on Fer­enc Nagy, of CAL and Per­min­dex fame and pos­si­bly some­one con­nect­ed to the JFK assas­si­na­tion (a big step up for Nazism). I haven’t checked out the links in this present arti­cle, but I did go to the arti­cle in The New States­man. I found the NS arti­cle rather unin­for­ma­tive, but what is worse is that it appeared in what has seemed to me and still seems to be a pro-Islam­o­fas­cist rag. With no excep­tion that I can find, The New State­man colum­nists seem to take the side of the “poor Syr­i­an oppo­si­tion­ists” (my impres­sion: not a quote from them), and con­tin­u­al­ly char­ac­ter­ize the gov­ern­ment and army as butch­ers. I’ve paid close atten­tion to what has been going on in Syr­ia; and my con­clu­sion is that it’s a mat­ter of the Nazi un-Mus­lim Broth­er­hood play­ing their hand (on cue from the re-emer­gent Nazi Inter­na­tion­al) after hav­ing served as a NATO/Nazi fifth col­umn in Syr­ia for over 30 years. This move on their part has noth­ing to do with the author­i­tar­i­an nature of the Assad Gov­ern­ment nor any pur­port­ed per­se­cu­tion of the Sun­ni major­i­ty, most of whom sup­port the gov­ern­ment because they real­ize that the Masjid-bomb­ing, Imam-killing, and child-mas­sacring “Free Syr­i­an Army” are an imme­di­ate mor­tal threat to any­one not espous­ing the Nazi ter­ror­ists’ par­tic­u­lar sect (for which rea­son they are known as “tak­firis”) and even those of their sect who are not suf­fi­cient­ly sup­port­ive, for which sin they are bru­tal­ly mur­dered and, if they are female, raped and then bru­tal­ly mur­dered. I stress this point because I am very unhap­py about your choice of The New States­man.

    Posted by Atlanta Bill | October 16, 2013, 1:57 am

  2. http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/02/05/hungarian-jewish-group-considering-physically-preventing-jobbik-from-protesting-at-former-synagogue/

    Hun­gar­i­an Jew­ish Group Con­sid­er­ing Phys­i­cal­ly Pre­vent­ing Job­bik From Protest­ing at For­mer Syn­a­gogue
    Feb­ru­ary 5, 2014 9:41 pm 3 com­ments
    Author: JNS.org

    Right-wing Job­bik Par­ty mem­bers in Hun­gary are plan­ning to hold a ral­ly in a build­ing that for­mer­ly func­tioned as a syn­a­gogue. Pho­to: Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

    JNS.org — The Fed­er­a­tion of Hun­gar­i­an Jew­ish Com­mu­ni­ties (Mazsi­hisz) is con­sid­er­ing send­ing peo­ple to phys­i­cal­ly pre­vent Hungary’s ultra-nation­al­ist Job­bik par­ty from hold­ing a ral­ly at a for­mer syn­a­gogue on Feb. 14.

    Job­bik, which holds 43 of 386 seats in the country’s par­lia­ment, is plan­ning the ral­ly in a build­ing in the city of Eszter­gom which had once been a syn­a­gogue. The Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in the city was killed dur­ing the Holo­caust. The Job­bik par­ty leader, Mar­ton Gyongyosi, had demand­ed that the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment make a list of cit­i­zens with Jew­ish ances­try who might post a secu­ri­ty risk to the coun­try.

    “In case this [gath­er­ing] will not be pro­hib­it­ed the Mazsi­hisz and Jew­ish civ­il orga­ni­za­tions will protest and phys­i­cal­ly hin­der the Job­bik ral­ly on the spot,” Mazsi­hisz Pres­i­dent Andras Heisler told the Jerusalem Post. Hold­ing the ral­ly at the for­mer syn­a­gogue would be an “unwor­thy, ugly, and cyn­i­cal des­e­cra­tion of the mem­o­ry of the vic­tims of the Holo­caust and the sen­ti­ments of the sur­vivors,” Esztergom’s Social­ist Par­ty chair­man Tamás Gál wrote in a let­ter to the town’s may­or.

    Mean­while, the Rab­bini­cal Coun­cil of Europe (RCE) has announced its plans to hold a con­fer­ence in March that will coop­er­ate with the Hun­gar­i­an gov­ern­ment. “In the past few years, the voic­es of anti-Semit­ic ide­ol­o­gy have become loud­er in the coun­try. The con­fer­ence is aimed at show­ing sup­port to the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty, and to the major­i­ty of Hun­gar­i­ans who expe­ri­ence with fear the neg­a­tive devel­op­ments,” RCE Direc­tor-Gen­er­al Rab­bi Men­achem Mar­golin said in a state­ment.

    Posted by Vanfield | February 6, 2014, 10:01 am

  3. Rea­son num­ber *insert large num­ber here* why mind­less finan­cial aus­ter­i­ty is a los­ing propo­si­tion: These guys win:

    Hun­gary prime min­is­ter wins 3rd term

    Pub­lished: April 7, 2014 | Updat­ed: April 7, 2014 at 12:43 AM

    BUDAPEST, Hun­gary (AP) — Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orban’s Fidesz par­ty won par­lia­men­tary elec­tions Sun­day and nar­row­ly secured a new two-thirds major­i­ty, but gains by a far-right par­ty were a cause for con­cern.

    With over 98 per­cent of the votes count­ed, the Nation­al Elec­tion Office said Fidesz had won 133 seats in the 199-seat leg­is­la­ture. Fidesz, a right-wing pop­ulist par­ty, and its small ally, the Chris­t­ian Democ­rats, received 44.5 per­cent of the list votes, good for 37 seats, and also won 96 of the 106 indi­vid­ual con­stituen­cies.

    “Every doubt and uncer­tain­ty has dis­si­pat­ed. We have won,” Orban told cheer­ing sup­port­ers gath­ered near the Danube Riv­er after secur­ing a third term. “Hun­gary again is a place where it is worth liv­ing, work­ing and start­ing a fam­i­ly. We have declared that we are not turn­ing back.”

    A coali­tion of left-wing groups led by the Social­ist Par­ty was pro­ject­ed to have 38 seats on the back of 26 per­cent of the list votes, plus the 10 remain­ing indi­vid­ual con­stituen­cies.

    The far-right Job­bik par­ty gath­ered 20.6 per­cent of the list votes, near­ly four per­cent­age points more than in 2010, and will like­ly have 23 seats.

    ...

    “The gains made by Job­bik, an unashamed­ly neo-Nazi polit­i­cal par­ty, should serve as a wake-up call for the whole of Europe,” Euro­pean Jew­ish Con­gress Pres­i­dent Moshe Kan­tor said in a state­ment. “This is tru­ly a dark day for Hun­gary.”

    Kan­tor said Job­bik’s suc­cess gave oth­er far-right par­ties across the con­ti­nent “a strong tail wind going into next mon­th’s Euro­pean Par­lia­ment elec­tions.”

    Orban, who has fre­quent­ly butted heads with the Euro­pean Union over numer­ous pol­i­cy issues and his gov­ern­men­t’s weak­en­ing of demo­c­ra­t­ic checks and bal­ances, said the elec­tion results proved that Hun­gary belonged in the bloc — albeit with one impor­tant con­di­tion.

    “Hun­gar­i­ans have con­firmed that Hun­gary’s place is in the Euro­pean Union, but only if it has a strong nation­al gov­ern­ment,” Orban said.

    In the eyes of sup­port­ers, the renewed two-thirds major­i­ty val­i­dates Orban’s unortho­dox eco­nom­ic poli­cies which have great­ly expand­ed the role of the state to the detri­ment of pri­vate enter­prise and increased uncer­tain­ty among investors. At the same time, the gov­ern­ment has been able to rein in the bud­get deficit and state debt while low­er­ing infla­tion and unem­ploy­ment lev­els.

    Many of those achieve­ments, how­ev­er, are the result of one-off mea­sures or unsus­tain­able poli­cies, such as the nation­al­iza­tion of $14 bil­lion in assets admin­is­tered by pri­vate pen­sion funds; impos­ing high­er tax­es on banks, numer­ous indus­tries and ser­vices; enforc­ing low­er util­i­ty prices for all house­holds, and includ­ing Hun­gar­i­ans work­ing abroad in domes­tic job sta­tis­tics.

    “I think it will be impor­tant for (Orban) to move away from short-term emer­gency pol­i­cy mea­sures, and move to more assur­ance and sta­bil­i­ty,” said Tim­o­thy Ash of Stan­dard Bank.

    Fidesz and the Chris­t­ian Democ­rats also won a two-thirds major­i­ty in the 2010 elec­tion, allow­ing them to write a new con­sti­tu­tion and pass leg­is­la­tion unchal­lenged. Orban had sought anoth­er super-major­i­ty so his gov­ern­ment could con­tin­ue to imple­ment its poli­cies unhin­dered.

    For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Gor­don Baj­nai, a mem­ber of the five-par­ty left-wing coali­tion, said ear­li­er that the elec­tions would deter­mine whether Hun­gary returns to the path of mov­ing toward West­ern val­ues or drifts fur­ther toward the East.

    His remarks reflect­ed con­cern over a major nuclear pow­er deal with Rus­sia. Orban’s gov­ern­ment has signed a con­tract to have a Russ­ian com­pa­ny build an exten­sion to Hun­gary’s sole, Sovi­et-built nuclear pow­er plant. Rus­sia is giv­ing Hun­gary a 10 bil­lion euro ($13.7 bil­lion) loan for the project.

    Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Aus­ter­i­ty, mind­less prof­it-max­i­miz­ing glob­al­iza­tion and a crazy EU helps.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 6, 2014, 9:31 pm

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