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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHungary's unedifying political wordplays
The opposition, Eszter Kováts writes, should not succumb to Orbáns friend versus foe politics in the European elections.
https://www.socialeurope.eu/hungarys-unedifying-political-wordplays
The February protest against the government in Heroes Square, Budapest (torcsabi/shutterstock.com)
A clemency scandal recently stirred the stagnant waters of Hungarian politics. In the biggest crisis for the Fidesz party in its 14 years of continuous rule, the Hungarian president, Katalin Novák, and the former justice minister, Judit Vargawho was to head the Fidesz list in the European Parliament elections in Junehad to resign last month, amid growing pressure from not only the opposition but also the partys own supporters. Their sin? Novák had signed and Varga counter-signed a pardon for a man jailed for forcing children to retract sexual-abuse claims, since upheld, against a director of a state-run childrens home. By this pardondiscovered by a lawyer and reported by one of Hungarys remaining independent mediathe partys two most prominent female politicians became complicit in covering up paedophilia. The act of clemency was signed as one among 25 before Pope Francis visit to Hungary in April last year. As also subsequently uncovered by journalists, it followed the advice of Zoltán Balog, a former minister and Nováks mentorwho had to resign too from his role as leader of the Hungarian Reformed Church.
The interest in politics stimulated by the affair and its public resonance were evidenced by viewing data for the (leftist) video channel Partizán. It secured more than 300,000 views for each commentary or interview produced in the days following the resignationsan interview with Vargas whistle-blowing ex-husband drew over 2.4 million. And a demonstration in mid-February, organised by nine influencers, attracted more than 150,000 protesters to Heroes Square in Budapest. As a leading Hungarian journalist observed, it was not that Hungarians had turned away from politicsjust that, for years, nothing interesting had happened. Lets imagine how interesting it would be if we had a coalition government, full of debates and intrigues, or we had government changes, he wrote. Mourning about general apathy would disappear overnight.
(English subtitles)
Strategy of polarisation
The scandal was embarrassing for Fidesz precisely because it has made traditional values and child protection a Leitmotif of its politics. A pro-family policy has not only been positively promoted but also linked to a strategy of polarisation. Families and children need to be protected, according to the party, from all sorts of dark dangers: LGBT+ individuals, same-sex parenting, gender insanityall linked and connected with paedophilia. All sorts of projections, causes and constituencies are brought together too by the claim that these horrors are foisted upon Hungarians by the west and Brussels, aided and abetted by the opposition parties. Only Fideszwith its charismatic leader and prime minister, Viktor Orbánhas stood resolute to stop them. These accusations have been repeated ad nauseam for years, encapsulated in a so-called child protection law passed in 2021. The governing parties added to the initialand consensualdraft some points, mingling homosexuality with paedophilia, thereby reviving the hoary old stereotype that gays would be more of a danger to children than heterosexual adults. It having been made impossible for the opposition parties to vote for the bill, the latter have since been accused by the governing propaganda machine of not only not protecting children but standing up for paedophilia.
Orbán reiterated these claims in his speech on March 15th, the national holiday commemorating the 1848 revolution and the fight for freedom. He complained that in the west everyone can choose his or her sex, contending that they want to indoctrinate our children and we will not allow thatwhile condemning the opposition, which supposedly would sell our children for 30 pieces of silver to crazy gender activists. Previously state secretary, then family minister and from 2022 Hungarys first female president, Novák was not only the face of Fidesz most popular policy pitch (according to successive polls) but also its fight against everything it connects with gender ideology: gender studies, the Istanbul Convention on domestic violence, the claims of members of sexual and gender minorities, and reproductive rights. Internationally too she embodied these stances, expanding Fidesz room for manoeuvre in foreign policy and presenting Orbáns Hungary as a role model for radical-right, traditionalist parties and movements Europe-wide. Take, for instance, this comment by the German Christian social movement Demo für alle in 2020. In a text entitled Lets dare more Hungary, it said: Hungary is proof that giving in to pressure from gender ideologues and the LGBT lobby is not without alternatives. A constructive family policy is possible.
Discourse debilitated...........
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Hungary's unedifying political wordplays (Original Post)
Celerity
Mar 25
OP
marble falls
(58,582 posts)1. Most information on Hungary I've seen at one time in years. Thanks.