Hungarian leader’s hardline approach to migrants tests Europe
Hungary’s use of razor wire, tear gas and arrests in response to migrants seeking refuge in Europe has shocked many across the world. But the crackdown comes as little surprise to those who have been watching the country’s political transformation since Prime Minister Viktor Orban won power in 2010 and began building a state that puts national interests over civil liberties.
Orban’s hard- line approach is testing Europe as the continent struggles to remain true to its values of solidarity and unity in the face of the worst refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. It is also proving a tempting model to other leaders, particularly in former communist Central and Eastern Europe, where a dislike of Muslims and multiculturalism runs high.
Orban’s critics accuse him of escalating the immigration crisis to pander to xenophobic elements among Hungarian voters who have been moving toward Jobbik, a far- right party that is openly antiSemitic and anti- Roma. Orban’s government imposed a state of emergency last month that allows the military to deploy armed soldiers to the border and also allows for the temporary suspension of some civil rights.
“It’s a very good tool in his hands in order to make the government more powerful in the future,” said Mate Daniel Szabo, a constitutional lawyer with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union.
Hungary’s new razor- wire fence and national direction mark a sharp reversal for a country that played a historic role in the crumbling of the Berlin Wall — by opening a border fence with Austria in 1989 that triggered a sudden exodus of East Germans to the West.
Orban, 52, made his political debut in those days of upheaval with a fiery speech in which he called for free elections and the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Even as Germany marked the 25th anniversary of its reunification earlier this month, some Europeans leaders were appealing to Orban to stop creating a new Iron Curtain in Europe.
Western leaders and human rights groups have expressed alarm for years at the developments in Hungary, which have included the harassment of civil rights activists and independent media; an erosion of courts’ independence; and a celebration of Second World War- era fascists and Holocaust revisionism that has created unease for Hungary’s Roma and Jews. Over the past five years, representatives of the ruling Fidesz party have co- operated with Jobbik to name public squares after people linked with Hungary’s fascist Second World War- era government.
Last year Orban declared that he was building an “illiberal state.” With Europe’s current refugee crisis, Orban’s right- wing politics have made their international debut.
Along with tough legal measures, Orban depicts the Muslim arrivals as invaders who threaten Europe’s Christian traditions and vows to defend Christian Europe in the same way that Hungary held back the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century. He denounces Europe’s “liberal blah blah” and speaks of the futility of ever integrating Muslims.