Viktor Orban is a cold and incomparable provocateur. With deliberate repugnant remarks, he managed to divide public opinion both at home and abroad. For example, when talking about the death penalty or against migrants, Rome or the European Union. The resulting controversy is welcome and serves a specific purpose, such as diverting attention from other pressing issues.

However, at times, Orban’s statements were so embarrassing and threatening that they developed certain dynamics that even Orban himself could not predict. Likewise with the statement made by the prime minister during a speech in the Romanian spa town of Bad Tusnad, Saturday (23/7/2022). Every year during the so-called Summer University, Orban used to deliver highly polarizing speeches there, often in an aggressively polemical tone.

This time the prime minister spoke about, among other things, the “mixed race country”, the “flood of Europe” by immigrants from outside Europe and the alleged “swap of people” in Europe. This is, without exception, a far-right topic.

The Hungarian leader said it literally: “There is a world where European countries mingle with countries outside Europe. This is a mixed race world.” – On the other hand, only indigenous people live in the Carpathian basin (southeast of Central Europe) – Orban emphasizes.

– We are ready to mix with each other, but we do not want to be mixed race – added the Prime Minister of Hungary.

Discourse of racial hatred

With some delay, the announcement triggered a political earthquake in Hungary, the effects of which may be felt for a long time. In protest against Orban’s speech about “mixed races”, sociologist Zsuzsa Hegedüs, longtime adviser and holder of special powers for social integration and modernization and personal friend of the prime minister, resigned. According to him, Orban’s words were “purely Nazi speech” and a clear expression of “racial hate discourse”, which is not only discriminatory but also “absolutely unacceptable.” Zsuzsa Hegedüs is a Jewish woman whose parents survived the Holocaust in Hungary.

Just before Hegedüs’ dismissal, representatives of the Hungarian Jewish community protested Orban’s words. Rabbi Robert Froelich said that “there is only one species on earth that moves on two legs, works, talks, and sometimes thinks – homo sapiens. This is one and inseparable race.”

According to the International Auschwitz Committee (IOC), Orban’s remarks were “absurd and dangerous.” They remind Holocaust survivors of difficult times of persecution.

Hungarian anti-Semitic government campaign against US Hungarian-Jewish stock billionaire George Soros and the European Union

“Too Much Silence”

Orban’s adviser Zsuzs Hegedüs wrote Tuesday (26/7/2022) in a private letter to the prime minister that he had no choice but to “break up with him in public after such shameful statements,” which “go against all my core values.” In an interview with RTL, the Club later said that “even Goebbels could write such a prophecy” and compared Orban’s words to those of Hitler. It was because of such statements that the Second World War took place.

In a letter to a former lawyer, Orban replied: “After twenty years of working together, you cannot seriously accuse me of racism. You know my belief, according to which God created man in His image and likeness. Therefore, for people like me, racism was ruled out from the start.”

Meanwhile, Zsuzsa Hegedüs, in another very personal letter to Orban, described her parents’ survival from the Holocaust and wrote that she could no longer remain silent because “too much silence” allowed Nazi atrocities.

Occasional criticism, episodic resignation

Zsuzsa Hegedüs’ resignation was unprecedented. For the first time in Victor Orban’s five terms, an employee from his closest circle resigned over the prime minister’s political remarks and in a sign of public protest. Although the sociologist was not an influential person in Orban’s circle and power apparatus, over the years he was one of the few personal friends of the Hungarian head of government, whom he trusted and sometimes had an opinion on.

During Orban’s reign and the period of opposition, it was rare for friends or friends from Fidesz’s party to speak critically or resign. Among them is Hungary’s current Euro Commissioner and Minister of European Affairs, Tibor Navracsics, who has at times carefully distanced himself from Orban’s polarizing statements and is considered one of the few moderate politicians of the Fidesz party, still descendants of the old guard of the years. 1990s. .

In 2012/13, the furore was caused by the resignation of Foreign Minister Jozsef Angyan at the then Ministry of Rural Development. He accused Orban of promoting land speculators and mafia methods on Hungarian agriculture.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 01/02/2022.

In 2015, a dispute with the oligarch Lajos Simicska, a childhood friend of Orban, made headlines. Sicicska has long been a standout at Fidesz and an important sponsor of the party.

Meanwhile, the resignation of Zsuzsa Hegedüs differs from other similar cases in the fact that it comes at a time when the Hungarian prime minister is increasingly being criticized for his apparent inclination towards extreme right-wing racist ideology. A growing number of former partners and allies in Central and Eastern Europe are distancing themselves from Orban because of the generally anti-democratic developments in Hungary. And recently too – because of Putin’s friendly attitude from the Hungarian government.

Also, many deeply conservative Hungarian intellectuals and academics, who nevertheless felt they were adherents of democratic values ​​and adherents of the rule of law, were increasingly dissatisfied with Orban and his party. However, it is not known whether new conservative political forces will emerge from this circle.

Either way, Zsuzsa Hegedüs announced that she would not stop at resignation. In an interview with RTL Club, he criticized the disastrous social and economic situation in Hungary. He described the EU’s intention to cut funding from Hungary as “very correct” until the rule of law in the country improves. He is also considering taking initiatives against racism and racial hatred. “I had to do something to stop it,” he said.

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