This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer
It is a real pity that Hungarian is such a difficult language. [1] Watching the Budapest extreme right Echo TV in 2010 and listening to the monologue of Ferenc Sztaniszló, I thought Colonel Blimp was reborn in the Carpathian basin. The only difference, he doesn’t speak English but Hungarian and he has no moustache. But it is the same Jingoism. He adds nonsense dressed up as scientific fact plus coded antisemitism.
Ferenc Sztaniszló was sent during the Brezhnev time to study journalism in Moscow and became the correspondent of the government daily “Magyar Hirlap” in the Soviet Union. And like so many Hungarian journalists who were loyal scribblers during communism became later a turncoat and joined the rightwing choir.
In his monologue he informs his public that the Hungarians are gods chosen people.
“We Sumerians, Scythes, Etruscans, Celts, Huns, or Hungarians have suffered because of our being chosen. […] Those who are envious, our occupiers […] in reality are looking for the elixir, how they could become Hungarians, how they could participate in our secrets, in the advantages of our being chosen.”
In the context of his rant it is clear that he implies, that Jews have occupied Hungary or are about to occupy it. A legend many Hungarians seem to believe.
Sztaniszló then goes on to rave about the special conditions of the Carpathian basin and of Hungary, where all the enemies suffer defeat.
In reality Hungary was defeated during the First World War and repeated its mistake when it joined Hitler during the Second Word War. Hungary was for decades occupied by the Red Army. Sztaniszló tells an incredible story, that there is a special radiation against the enemies of the Hungarian people in the Carpathian basin and that the Soviet occupiers in Hungary got special payment for that.
To me it looks like part of the trial to brainwash the Hungarian people. Of course after the election in April 2010 the terrible awakening is to come. The right wing people believe that all they have to do is to blame the Jews to be the cause of all the trouble, by inciting people against an abstract object “The Jew” as such to hoodwink Hungarians. The mythical target of “the Jew” should conceal the otherwise obvious fact that a racist interpretation of Hungary’s problems bear little relation to reality.
It does not surprise how low the level of such right wing journalism in Hungary is, but Sztaniszló succeeds in proving that he is of the lowest intellectual and political calibre.
1. For those understanding Hungarian I recommend to watch Sztaniszló