look im seeing this
https://join.substack.com/p/will-us-democracy-fall
>“Central to everything Orbán does is the promotion of traditional family and Christian values.”
>“Orbán’s promotion of family values goes hand-in-hand with his attacks on migrants, and unlike some European leaders, he has not attempted to couch his racist views.”
>“‘We do not want our own color, traditions, and national culture to be mixed with those of others,’ he said in 2018.”
>“There is also an antisemitic streak to his immigration policy that is symbolized by Orbán’s demonization of Hungarian philanthropist billionaire George Soros.”
>“Back in 2015, Orbán made Soros the face of the immigration crisis in the country, a campaign that mirrors the antisemitic white nationalist ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory that Jewish people are working to replace white people through migration.”
i am asking this bc one person is saying this to me on this sub reddit:
>yes George Soros is often attacked and used as a bogeyman, but it’s not about antisemitism. They never talk about him being jew. If anything antisemitism has been on the decline in recent years, definitely isn’t on the rise.
11 comments
They never *explicitly* say that he’s bad because he’s Jewish, but it’s no coincidence that they’re evoking that sort of imagery.
No, not because he is a jew, he is attacked due to his money and influence. If I would only get my daily source of news from these ads, I would have never found out that he is jewish.
He is a boogeyman due to his status, money, influence and connection to Hungary and to other countries, this makes him a good target. Although I don’t remember the name of the JEWISH american who gave the idea to Orbán, to find someone powerful but hard to grasp for his crusade style campaign, he was mostly chosen due to these attributes. (I guess this american was the advisor of american president(s) as well)
The reason for the campaign is to have an enemy they can point a finger at. The fact that all the people they are pointing at are not white, christian, conservative, or most recently straight, is of course not a coindicence. For a long time I thought they are doing it not out of conviction, but because they know the people react to these groups.
The specific ad campaign in question is coded anti-semitic imo. It’s not overt, but if someone is just a tiny bit anti-semitic, then it’s easy to pick up on the subtext.
Christian Hungarians already hate Jews so he doesn’t have to brainwash them much in that regard.. The ads are a subtle reminder
BBC documentary 😀 that says it all my friend.
Orbán always needs an external threat, that he (and only he) can tackle. The threat is usually faceless, and super-duper evil. They spend money and effort to build up the enemy, they create narratives on how this enemy is trying to obliterate Hungary, and the Hungarian people.
This enemy has been (just from the top of my head) the IMF, the Government Debt, Bruxelles, the Migrants, George Soros, the NGOs, LGBTQ “propaganda” and so on…
The less the actual threat is real, the better for him: after all, it is easier to successfully defend against non-existing threats, then an existing one. Usually we are jumping from one campaign to another. Once the previous gets old, surprise-surprise, a new evil is up to destroy us.
George Soros is a nice candidate for this role, as he more-or-less stopped his direct operations in Hungary, and (as an extra) he is conveniently jew. Although most people in Hungary are not anti-semitic, there is certainly a not too thin demography on the far right, who resonates with this better. They are willing to accept that he is behind everything, if he is jew. This narrative nicely builds on the conspiracy theories about “shadow power” that Jews excerpt, which is anyway present in this demography.
Who cares
It falls into the category as anti Jewish racism, as the current government wears the anti Jewish racist suit happily. But the motivation of the ads is not primarily racist. It joins multiple convenient causes (for the government). First Orbán cannot suffer anyone doing any benevolent work for the society or give financial support for NGOs, because it considers that as a risk to his power, and wants to control every single dollar that is given to NGOs. Thus Soros and his networks, university, etc. must be driven out of the country. Second, Soros is the perfect enemy to “fight against” as he will guaranteed not fight back, makes him the perfect “public enemy” and target of a hate campaign.
P.s. They stopped this campaign a time ago, probably realizing that Soros is too old and they are looking for other targets now.
It’s not anti-semitic at all.
The person who said it is not about antisemistims is correct.
It is more about the fact that if you traced the money back to certain groups more often than not you ended up with that guy having a hand in the financing. Such as NGOs that arranged illegal border crossings even when a country – not only Hungary – had a legal crossing point and procedure.
That gave the bogeyman figure to the gorverning party that was very useful in generating the narrative of fidesz being the defender of the people against an outside attack.
Politically it would’ve been a really stupid move not-to use that narrative and something similar is going on right now, only the EU being the latest bogeyman. It has nothing to do with any antisemitism.
As for the subject of Orbán not wanting the hungarian population and culture mix with large influx of immigrants, is not against the immigrants but for the preservation of the hungarian way of life, given that Hungary is a small country, uncontrolled influx can mess with things pretty fast, especially when the migrating group is used to live by different rules and way of life.
If it would be against refugees, then Hungary would’ve refused to accept refugees from the Ukraine, but it didn’t.
If you want to put a label on it Orbán’s policies are more along the lines of enforcing a xenophobic stance rather than antisemitism. Not the best description of the situation, but still closer than simply accusing him of antisemitism.
(The holocaust has been very ingrained into the population’s consciousness. At least where I lived so far in Budapest, Hungary. Our school had yearly events in remembrance of holocaust, we had survivors talk about their terrible experience over the years, etc. But even outside hs I haven’t seen much hate towards Jewish people from Hungarians. There is a chance that I’ve been living in a bubble tho…)