Censorship In Hungary, by Karl Pfeifer

Source: The Propagandist (Censorship In Hungary, by Karl Pfeifer)

I am told not to be alarmed when I encounter aggressive anti-Semitism in Hungary. After all there exists a vibrant Jewish culture in Budapest and there was hope the “conservative” Fidesz government would curb the development of aggressive anti-Semitism - although it is tolerating the implicit and not so implicit anti-Semitism of some Fidesz journalists at present. But Fidesz is supposed to do this only to attract Jobbik voters. A dim hope indeed, when a random sample of Hungarian media proves the continuing anti-Semitic incitement after the overwhelming victory by Fidesz at local and national levels.

There are the Fidesz politicians who light Chanukah candles and Fidesz media like “ECHO TV” and the Budapest daily “Magyar Hirlap” (both owned by Fidesz millionaire Gábor Széles) who regularly distribute anti-Semitic incitement, often in its crudest form.

One of the arguments for a new media law in Hungary was the anti-Semitism present in Hungarian media. But traditional Nazi propaganda can be legally rehashed and is taken for true by many Hungarians. They consider the Jews who pull the strings behind the scene as the root of evil. The extreme diversity of Jewish existence is taken as proof for the reality of the mythical hate-figure of the extreme right. The intellectual assimilated Jew stands for the despised modernity; the religious Orthodox Jew fits into the traditional image of Christian anti-Semitism; the economically successful Jew stands for the “money-grubbing capital” and liberalism, and the Jewish socialist for abominable “Marxism”.

If you want to understand Hungary in the 21st century, visit Budapest and see the plaque in the military history museum which honors the memory of the Hungarian gendarmes, an organization whose record in the Holocaust is comparable to that of the SS.

The Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs has published a remarkable report on anti-Semitism in Hungary by László Molnár in November 2010. I am quoting from the chapter “Anti-Semitism in the Subculture”:

“After the 1990 transition, the quickly emerging extreme-right subculture also strengthened the traditional anti-Roma attitude. A good many neo-Nazi, Hungarist, “nationalist rock” bands came into being in including HunterSS, White Storm, Endlösung, Blood Libel, Power and Vendetta, Romantic Aggression, New Order, Mos-OI, Stoned Cherry, and others. All of these have used extreme racist language and symbols. A song by Mos-OI threatens to turn the country into a “Gypsy-free zone”. It contains the lyrics: “The flamethrower is the only weapon I need to win, all Gypsies, adults and children we will annihilate, but we can kill all of them at once in unison, after it is done we can say it is a Gypsy-free zone.” A song by White Storm proclaims: “Let's exterminate Gypsies!” In their racist outlook, “every Gypsy is a criminal, there is only one solution for them: Auschwitz.... There is a cloud of dust above Poland, where every Gypsy is traveling in the sky.”


These and many other bands perform at illegal concerts and at the infamous Magyar Sziget or Hungarian Island Festival. This year this summer camp for “nationalistic youth” was organized for the tenth time. The camp offers national-heritage competitions featuring archery, animal tracking, runic script, Hun cuisine, as well as family and children's programs and with anti-Semitic and racist lectures that deny the historical Jesus his Jewish identity and talk about “Jewish world conspiracy”.
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