Finds fascists in Hungary using modern public relations
Lebor, Adam
ONE SUNDAY morning in December 2007, some three hundred extreme nationalists dressed in black uniforms marched in military formation through a Hungarian village, protesting against what...
...MIEP is led by the elderly playwright Istvan Csurka, who is obsessed with the Jewish ancestry of some of Hungary's former communist leaders as well as with Israeli investors, who he believes are buying up Hungary on the cheap...
...Vona welcomes interviews with the foreign press...
...The symbolism seemed obvious: a homage to Mussolini, if not Hitler, and to the fusion between race, state, and national unity...
...The "Arpad" stripes are a part of Hungary's coat of arms, but are now associated with the far right, as the Nazi Arrow Cross regime, which ruled the country in the winter of 1944-1945, incorporated the stripes into its flag...
...Despite his communist pedigree, Gyurcsany is a modernizer, well regarded internationally, and currently imposing painful cuts to the bloated public sector to try to reduce Hungary's budget deficit...
...The difference is, of course, that folk dancers dance, and don't march through villages demanding apartheid for Roma...
...ONE SUNDAY morning in December 2007, some three hundred extreme nationalists dressed in black uniforms marched in military formation through a Hungarian village, protesting against what they called "Roma [Gypsy] delinquency...
...There have never been so many anti-Semitic remarks as now," he said...
...Prime Minister Gyurcsany is a deeply polarizing figure...
...For many, the clincher was the word "genetic...
...FAST EUROPEAN extremists usually fall into one of two categories: disheveled, I obsessed pseudo-intellectuals spouting obscure conspiracy theories (Radovan Karadzic, the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs now wanted for genocide, was a wildhaired "poet" and psychiatrist) or "skinheads" who like beating people up...
...Fidesz officials also wrote to leaders of Hungary's Jewish community, assuring them of the Party's support...
...Gyurcsany angrily accused Fidesz leader Viktor Orban of exploiting anti-Semitism and blurring the lines between conservatism and right-wing extremism...
...Hungarian politics remain a zero-sum game between right and left and consensus issues are rare...
...Hungary next goes to the polls in 2010...
...They paraded in Budapest's historic Castle District, in front of the home of Hungary's president, Laszlo Solyom, holding the Hungarian flag and the ancient "Arpad" banner of red and white stripes...
...There is an apocryphal story that years ago, Fidesz's leader, the charismatic Viktor Orban, was advised by Helmut Kohl, then German chancellor, never to let himself be outflanked on the right in terms of votegathering...
...At the same time, President Laszlo Solyom, who is respected as a neutral arbiter DISSENT / Spring 2008 n 37 POLITICS ABROAD and who initially was reluctant to condemn the Garda on civil liberties grounds, has now spoken out against the group, saying, "No wellintentioned person can tolerate affronts to human dignity or question our equal rights...
...The whole spectacle has so far been viewed on YouTube more than 33,000 times...
...The Garda's message is based not on negative but positive reinforcement...
...Many Hungarian Jews were furious at Gyurcsany's attempts, as they saw it, to use anti-Semitism for political purposes...
...Jobbik is a play on words in Hungarian, meaning both "better" and "more to the right...
...Norton, 2007...
...However as it became clear what a public relations disaster the Garda is for Hungary, Fidesz shifted position...
...MIEP's focus on anti-Semitism still resonates on the far right, but the political agenda here has shifted somewhat since the early 1990s, when forty years of suppressed anti-Semitism (albeit cultural and political rather than violent) erupted after the collapse of communism...
...kuruc.info—calls for the names and personal details of those who trigger its ire, which it then publishes...
...THE GARDA was launched in August 2007, when its first fifty-six members— a number chosen to commemorate the 1956 revolution—were inaugurated by Lajos Fur, a former minister of defense in Hungary's first post- communist government, run by the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF...
...His third wife, Klara Dobrev, is the glamorous granddaughter of Antal Apro, a notorious communist leader during the Stalinist 1950s...
...This is fertile ground for new political forces...
...Vona is especially proud of the Garda and Jobbik's Internet presence...
...They then gathered at a rally, where speakers demanded that Roma be segregated from mainstream society...
...Last December, Csintalan was hospitalized after being beaten up in his garage by several masked men...
...ADAM LEBOR is an author and journalist based in Budapest, Hungary...
...The speech caused an uproar in Budapest...
...Such is the conspiratorial nature of Hungarian politics—a leftover from the communist era, when everything was decided behind closed doors—that some Hungarians believe that the violence, and the attacks on the police, were organized by agent provocateurs working for the Hungarian secret service 36 n DISSENT / Spring 2008 to raise fears of right-wing extremists...
...One of the richest men in the country, he made his fortune during the early 1990s, in the time known as "wild capitalism...
...Wittner is a former '56er, as those who fought in the revolution are known...
...The Internet, he says, allows interested allies to sidestep the lies of the liberal media and find out for themselves what the Garda is and what it stands for...
...Jobbik and MIEP campaigned together in the 2006 elections, but neither has a single member of Parliament, and the two groups have grown apart...
...The Garda has a Web site, www.magyargarda.hu , as does Jobbik: www.jobbik.hu , in Hungarian, and www.jobbik.com in English and French...
...The Garda is absolutely not anti-Semitic, Vona says...
...It is not against anyone or anything but only for Hungary...
...The police, with little experience of handling public disorder in this generally peaceful country, reacted in the time-honored communistera fashion: by cracking heads and beating up demonstrators, dozens of whom were hospitalized...
...There is something horrible happening...
...Several dozen members of an even POLITICS ABROAD more extreme group, the Nemzeti Orsereg, also attended, wearing khaki paramilitary uniforms...
...This was not true...
...The churches later claimed the priests were acting in a personal capacity) Among those attending the inauguration was Maria Wittner, a member of Parliament for Fidesz...
...He writes for the Times of London, the Economist, and the New York Times...
...The Garda has proved most troublesome for Fidesz, as it wants the far-right's votes...
...A vocal minority were associated with the far right, but most were just ordinary people, still furious over the notorious "lies" speech...
...Gabor Vona, leader of both Jobbik and the Magyar Garda, is neither...
...Yet these numbers are deceptive: in Hungary's febrile political atmosphere, the Garda dominated the political and media agenda for several months last year continues to receive substantial press coverage, and has an effect on political life out of all proportion to its numbers...
...Fortunately, the politics of memory—and of anti-Semitism—have since moved on...
...Opinion polls usually give Jobbik 2 percent or 3 percent support, and the Garda boasts around 650 members...
...That same year, a plaque was unveiled at Budapest's Military History Museum commemorating the notorious Gendarmes, the Hungarian paramilitary police force, who impressed even the SS with their enthusiasm for rounding up and torturing Hungarian Jews before dispatching them to POLITICS ABROAD Auschwitz...
...38 n DISSENT / Spring 2008...
...Fidesz initially reacted slowly to the Garda, not realizing the political threat posed by the group...
...But other extremists have been...
...Yet paradoxically, the Garda may also have inadvertently provided a useful service for this post-communist country that in some ways is still in transition between two systems, by defining the limits of free—and hate—speech...
...Hungary has postcommunist Europe's only Holocaust museum, an excellent, modern institution, housed in a former synagogue in Budapest...
...The boots, black trousers, and waistcoat are merely the traditional outfit of a Hungarian peasant lad, and only the paranoid, hysterical, fear-mongering liberal left media can somehow see an echo of the SS or Mussolini in these clothes...
...Many suspect that as a former leader of the communist youth organization, KISZ, he used his personal connections to build up his business empire...
...Whatever Vona's protests, there seems little doubt that the overall intention, and effect, is to evoke the 1930s and the sublimation of confused and angry personalities into the greater, organic, national good...
...With its black uniforms and Arpad banners, the Garda is now a brand, instantly recognizable, one that will always have some share of the market...
...Although there were several anti-Semitic outbursts during the protests, unlike the early 1990s, anti-Semitism is not generally part of Hungarian political discourse...
...The Garda is a legally constituted organization, and it is not illegal to march around wearing black uniforms and waving medieval banners...
...Cynicism and apathy about the established political parties are widespread...
...Instead of presenting a united front against the far right, David's press conference quickly degenerated into a public exchange of abuse as Gyurcsany and Fidesz leaders accused each other of being anti-Semitic...
...Vona writes, or has someone write, frequent letters to the local English-language press denying that Jobbik and the Garda are racist, fascist, or Nazi sympathizers...
...HUNGARY, A MEMBER Of the European Union and NATO, is governed by a coalition of Socialists who were once the reform Communists and Free Democrats, a liberal centrist party...
...Orban still refused to join the chorus, merely stating that the Garda was the "wrong answer" for Hungary...
...They wore black boots, black trousers, black sleeveless vests and white shirts, and black caps emblazoned with the Arpad stripes...
...Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany proclaimed dramatically that "Fascists were gathering...
...There is a general reluctance to outlaw political groups, unless they specifically incite violence...
...So Fidesz leaders refused to condemn the Garda, and instead defended its members' right of assembly...
...On one level, Vona is correct, as can be witnessed at any folk-dance evening, where the males often do wear precisely these clothes...
...The recruits march into Heroes' Square in military formation, before walking forward one by one to be received into the Garda, while several thousand onlookers clap and cheer...
...Three priests, from Hungary's Catholic, Calvinist, and Evangelical churches, blessed the Garda's flag...
...Hungary is a young, sometimes not very confident democracy, its nascent institutions still taking root and its civil society underdeveloped...
...But his government and personal standing were severely damaged in the autumn of 2006...
...Vona rejects violence, and there is no evidence that Garda members have been involved in violence...
...For many politicians, Parliament is a path to self-enrichment rather than public service, and voters know this...
...Days of violent riots—some apparently organized by far-right extremists—erupted after a tape of Gyurcsany admitting that the government had lied "morning, noon, and night" about the state of the country was leaked to the media...
...The site has been especially critical of Sandor Csintalan, a Socialist Member of Parliament and television presenter who crossed over to Fidesz but has been vocal in his condemnation of the extreme right...
...Those who feel themselves to be truly "Magyar" can join, no matter what their faith...
...In mid-January 2008 jobbik.com was down for maintenance, but on previous viewings it offered, in fluent and grammatically correct English, FAQs, e-mail newsletters, news feeds, and lengthy articles about Jobbik and the Garda...
...The Magyar Garda is an offshoot of the farright Jobbik Magyarorszagert Mozgalam (Movement for a Better Hungary), generally shortened to Jobbik...
...Jobbik also runs wwvv.ciganybunozest .com, (www.gypsycrime.com) detailing alleged crimes committed by Roma...
...For these, most people read Jewish...
...Jobbik has no members of Parliament, but is represented on several local councils, where its representatives often cooperate with Fidesz, the main conservative opposition party...
...Orban seems to have followed that advice, keeping Fidesz in the mainstream European Christian Democrat camp while sending out coded messages to the far right that they will be "safe" with Fidesz...
...Representative Tom Lantos, himself a survivor of the Hungarian Holocaust, angrily warned that no Garda mem3 4 n DISSENT / Spring 2008 ber would ever be allowed to enter the United States...
...But many are skeptical...
...The far right may never return to Parliament, but it is gaining strength and confidence, especially after the violence in autumn 2006...
...He denies any wrongdoing...
...Solyom has also expressed his support for Hungary's minority ombudsman, Erno Kallai, who defends Roma rights...
...So did Tom Lantos's warning that any party that failed to condemn the Garda would not be taken seriously as a partner by the United States...
...Like Gabor Vona, they too, understand the power of symbolism...
...VONA MAY HAVE inadvertently performed a public service to his homeland, although not in the way he expected...
...The country is home to a hundred thousand Jews, the third-largest community in Europe...
...This followed a meeting between Albert Takacs, the minister of justice, and several ambassadors from European Union countries, in which he was strongly pressed to take action against the Garda...
...In the summer of 2005, as Fidesz moved toward economic populism, Orban gave a now notorious speech in Baile Tusnad, a town in the Transylvania region of Romania with a large ethnic Hungarian population...
...The Garda is not against Roma as such, only Roma criminals and "delinquents...
...Her death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment, although her cellmate was executed, and her traumatic experiences mean she is granted a certain indulgence...
...His most recent book is City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa (W.VV...
...Jewish life in Hungary is thriving...
...The protesters were members of the Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard), a new ultranationalist organization whose members pledge to defend Hungarian values and culture...
...Paraszt is usually translated as "peasant," and is often used by city dwellers as a term of abuse, meaning "hick...
...Yet numbers don't tell the whole story...
...The Garda's second major public event, the inauguration of six hundred new members in historic Heroes' Square in October 2007, timed DISSENT / Spring 2008 • 3 5 POLITICS ABROAD to coincide with the anniversary of the 1956 revolution, was also filmed...
...But incitement to racial hatred is illegal, and it seems the Garda went too far at the December 2007 rally in Tatarszentgyorgy, when speakers demanded segregation of Roma and non-Roma...
...Pressure from European Union ambassadors and mainstream European conservative parties, angry at Fidesz's equivocation, helped inspire Fidesz leaders to drastically shift position against the Garda...
...It's a truism of Hungarian politics that the two blocs that always turn out to vote are the hard-core liberals and the fascists, and the numbers remain steady...
...They say that different—maybe saying genetic is going too far—but at least different historical characteristics make the chances of a national left emerging very slim...
...Either way, Hungarian politicians are certainly not mature enough to handle the Garda in a sensible manner...
...But in Hungarian it has another nuance, of a genuine son of the soil, a true "Magyar," uncorrupted by the cosmopolitan city, with its slick ways and foreign influences...
...Jobbik and MIEP got 119,000 votes in the 2006 election...
...The German press in particular has had a field day with stories of rampant fascism on the march...
...The late U.S...
...Beyond Gyurcsany's vocal, almost hysterical condemnations of the Garda, the government, too, has appeared confused about how to react...
...A group calling itself the "Arrows of Hungarians National Liberation Army" later claimed responsibility...
...He said, "We need a national left wing...
...The Garda's black uniform is nothing to be worried about, he explains...
...The slickly edited result can also be seen on YouTube...
...Its activists are busy, not in voting rooms or the corridors of power, but on the streets and in cyberspace...
...Eight days later the Budapest prosecutor's office filed a request at the city court to disband the Garda, on grounds of racial discrimination, violating human dignity, and causing fear among Hungary's Roma, which is estimated to number around 800,000, almost 8 percent of the population...
...Masked "skinheads" disrupted last year's Gay Pride Parade in Budapest, hurling bottles and missiles at the floats...
...Certainly, Gyurcsany has repeatedly played the fascist danger card...
...A Web site much further to the right than even the Gardawww...
...He even called for all Hungarians to put away their Arpad flags, out of respect for the memory of Holocaust victims and survivors...
...The word "Arrows" was widely considered to be a reference to the Arrow Cross regime...
...Subtext: leftist ideologies have traditionally been imposed in Hungary by foreigners...
...In March 2007, I interviewed him for the Times of London, as protesters gathered outside Parliament...
...But in a part of Europe where heraldry and symbols still have a powerful resonance, the "peasant-lad" uniform is useful on two levels: it allows Vona to deny fascist symbolism and it links the Garda to traditional Hungarian culture, so positioning the Garda within the mainstream rather than the neo-Nazi fringes...
...Vona spotted a gap in the nationalist market after the decline of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIEP), which lost its fourteen parliamentary seats in 2002...
...A cynic, or Fidesz supporter, might argue that with the Socialists lagging far behind Fidesz in the polls, the Magyar Garda was a useful gift, to frighten the voters with the specter of resurgent fascism...
...If Fidesz had received these votes, it might have won the election...
...The Garda may also accelerate the passage of a new law governing hate speech, which Solyom has so far refused to sign on civil liberties grounds...
...This is in part a legacy of Hungary's four decades as a communist dictatorship, when all independent political organizations were banned...
...David, one of Hungary's most popular politicians, has been one of the most vocal critics of the Garda, describing it as a "shadow army" It's quite a shift of position from her times as minister of justice in a Fidesz government, when she declared in 1999 that "the experience of the post-Communist era revealed a great societal need for the representation of Christian-conservative values, based on national traditions...
...Jewish and Roma groups have demanded that the Garda be banned...
...The message is calm, steady, and endlessly repeated: the Garda is not against anyone, but only for Hungary...
...Five years ago, the Garda would never have been so strong, he says...
...Even Roma can join, he claims, if they fit the membership requirements, although it is more or less unimaginable that any would want to...
...The indications are that electoral support for the far right will not greatly increase from the steady 3 percent or 4 percent...
...The Garda has triggered anger and consternation across the spectrum, soured the parliamentary atmosphere, increased social tension between Roma and non-Roma, and disrupted relations with Hungary's neighbors...
...Far-right protesters follow Gyurcsany around the country, screaming abuse and throwing eggs...
...Nowhere was this more evident than at the five-party press conference, called by Ibolya David, leader of the MDF, to condemn the Garda after her former colleague Lajos Fur's embarrassing endorsement of the group...
...It was a Fidesz government that in 2001 initiated Holocaust Memorial Day, and Fidesz leaders attend the annual commemoration ceremonies...
...If the Socialists said the Garda was bad, such reasoning goes, then maybe it was not...
...An articulate and well-groomed twentynine year-old former history teacher, from Gyongyos, a small town east of Budapest, Vona describes himself as a "first-generation intellectual" from a paraszt background...
Vol. 55 • April 2008 • No. 2
