On Sunday Hungarians go to the polls to vote in a general election. The choice is between the Christian Democrat coalition — which includes Fidesz, the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — and various leftist parties either funded by or in alliance with George Soros and his Open Society Foundations.
The following video is the second excerpt from a recent TV program hosted by Zsolt Bayer (part 1). It features a discussion between the host and the prime minister about the significance of the coming election, which is a make-or-break moment for Hungary.
Many thanks to CrossWare for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Video transcript (times from the original program):
26:00 | In every campaign, there is a sentence to be said | |
26:04 | with a magical phrase: that this a “fate-deciding election”. | |
26:08 | So this either means something or it doesn’t. | |
26:12 | This brings us back to your first question, because there is something in our campaign | |
26:16 | that you can see. Because we fought against such things — and the viewers and | |
26:20 | the voters can decide if we succeeded — to avoid stiffening, | |
26:24 | becoming ossified into the roles of the | |
26:28 | “great politicians taking care of grand tasks of the state”. So the humor, self-irony, | |
26:32 | our sense of the absurd, has stayed with us. | |
26:36 | So our campaigns, even the “adult” | |
26:40 | ones in our present age, could carry | |
26:44 | from that humor and irony. While campaigns have a lot of things that are off-putting, | |
26:48 | but all in all, for us the campaign is a wonderful thing, | |
26:52 | an opportunity, partly to keep our good mood, and | |
26:56 | partly to connect with the electorate, | |
27:00 | as we did since 1988. We kept in touch, and | |
27:04 | these live connections have prevented us | |
27:08 | from becoming these big-headed, gray-suited boss men. | |
27:12 | So let’s return to this phrase, that we | |
27:16 | face a “fate-deciding election”. This is a mandatory | |
27:20 | campaign sentence. But now — | |
27:24 | ten or so days before the April 8th election — | |
27:28 | now it really is… this really is about destiny. We have | |
27:32 | in front of us an historic election. And if we start to untangle | |
27:36 | why, then let’s start from this point: | |
27:40 | if we are the political formation that in the last thirty years | |
27:44 | was permanently the Hungarian and European — we can say that now — | |
27:48 | was able to stay in the leading edge of politics, | |
27:52 | then now, just before a crucial election | |
27:56 | we could state properly what and who we are facing off with in this election. | |
28:00 | The phrase “fate-deciding” is such a heavy expression; | |
28:04 | it almost presses one down into this table. | |
28:08 | But there is a truth in it, if we analyze the phrase a little bit: | |
28:12 | “fate-deciding” is when the decision about our fate arrives, | |
28:16 | about our future. The last time Hungary | |
28:20 | had it was in 1990, a fate-deciding election. | |
28:24 | After that came elections that even when they produced a clumsy government, | |
28:28 | the succeeding governments had some chance | |
28:32 | to fix the problems created by the previous governments. | |
28:36 | There was a Bokros package [Lajos Bokros, finance minister, famous for stifling the economy], | |
28:39 | between 1994 and1998. So in 1998 we won the election, and were able to fix most of | |
28:44 | the damage caused by the Bokros package, and heal its wounds. | |
28:48 | The Gurcsány government ruined the country, left it close to default | |
28:52 | by 2010, but in 2010 we started and we were | |
28:56 | able to put the country back on its feet. | |
29:00 | Now we look like a stand-up, honest, decent country. | |
29:04 | Up until now we have had elections where the Hungarian | |
29:08 | people could make any kind of decision; we could trust | |
29:12 | that we could fix it, at least in four years. But now | |
29:16 | there are such questions at the center of the election, that if we screw it up, we cannot | |
29:20 | correct it, there is no second examination, there is no way to fix it, because | |
29:24 | now the immigration is at the center of the election, and if | |
29:28 | Hungary takes just one step in that direction, | |
29:32 | similar to the Western nations, to convert | |
29:36 | itself into a migrant-accepting country, then there is no return | |
29:40 | from there. So if a mixed population is created, | |
29:44 | it’s not possible to separate them. | |
29:48 | As they flood in, as a result of colonization politics, | |
29:52 | they break the dam; we will not be able to remove them from Hungary. | |
29:56 | Many hoped for what we saw in 2015, | |
30:00 | when they came in — that was not good — but they went out on the other side of the country. | |
30:04 | But this is over, because the Austrians and | |
30:08 | the Germans have restored border controls. Whoever | |
30:12 | comes in will not be able to leave. So our future will be | |
30:16 | decided in this election: do we remain Hungarians, as a country | |
30:20 | that we know and love? Or will others come here? | |
30:24 | So that a mixed-population country is created, with different cultures | |
30:28 | and parallel societies, with all those consequences that we can | |
30:32 | see in Western Europe. It’s very rare, what we can say in this situation: | |
30:36 | we can learn from the mistakes of others. That the errors in judgment | |
30:40 | committed by Western nations — who are richer and more developed than we are — | |
30:44 | we could avoid. It’s a huge opportunity. To learn from the mistakes | |
30:48 | of others. —The opposition is constantly saying | |
30:52 | concerning that, that this is not an issue, | |
30:56 | this issue is a fake problem, this is only brought up | |
31:00 | to help the government cover up the real problems. | |
31:04 | To draw the attention away from those real issues, | |
31:08 | and they [the opposition] are the ones who are talking about the real issues. | |
31:12 | And the government is conducting a witch hunt against George Soros, and | |
31:16 | that has no meaning. —That is poppycock, because if we go back to the beginning | |
31:20 | of the migration crisis, when this issue | |
31:24 | became spectacularly visible all over Europe, they still | |
31:28 | said, there is no such danger, there is no migration issue, | |
31:32 | there are no migrants. Even when at the Keleti [Eastern] train-station | |
31:36 | we could see what it all meant, | |
31:40 | they still stated that this is only a temporary issue; | |
31:44 | then they said there is no correlation between | |
31:48 | terrorism and migration, no correlation between | |
31:52 | migration and the erosion of public safety; then | |
31:56 | they asserted that it is not the migrants causing danger to girls and women in Western nations. | |
32:00 | So for them, they do not make a connection between the | |
32:04 | change in the situation, the deprived conditions, and people flooding in with the migration. | |
32:08 | Right up until this day they actually state this. They are the part of a network that works towards | |
32:12 | censoring the information and news about the migration. | |
32:16 | I would have never thought — referring back to thirty years ago, | |
32:20 | when Fidesz got established — there would come a moment, | |
32:24 | and I have to say it from Budapest: People, there is | |
32:28 | censorship in Europe. The news and information about the migration | |
32:32 | is regularly suppressed, faked and manipulated. Even in the | |
32:36 | social media, at the official level, | |
32:40 | they frequently suppress such news, disable advertisements, | |
32:44 | Censor such information, and the Hungarian opposition parties | |
32:48 | are part of this Western European operation. George Soros is not | |
32:52 | Fiction; you personally contributed — if I heard it correctly — | |
32:56 | and wrote about, how this network unveiled itself. | |
33:00 | We listened as they told with their own voices [in audio recordings], | |
33:04 | how they work against the Hungarian government, how they want to overthrow it. They said | |
33:08 | at least 2,000 people paid by George Soros are working in Hungary to accomplish this goal. | |
33:12 | So I think they should not be so outraged, when they themselves revealed all this information | |
33:16 | and unveiled themselves… | |
33:20 | You described it, that three years ago, when | |
33:24 | you realized what it the migration pressure means and the opposition was still saying that | |
33:28 | this is a non-existent fake problem, | |
33:32 | I would expand the three years, because the favorite writer of both of ours, | |
33:36 | Douglas Murray’s book | |
33:40 | “The Strange Death of Europe” — I could offer it with a good heart to anybody | |
33:44 | to read — even as an intellectual dainty it is not a bad thing. | |
33:48 | Reading is good; reading a good book is even better! | |
33:52 | Even if we talk about the first chapters of the book, | |
33:56 | written in black and white, what | |
34:00 | astonished me the most was all these events since | |
34:04 | the ’50s in Western Europe. This did not start in 2015, | |
34:08 | but four, five decades ago. | |
34:12 | Moreover, even | |
34:16 | more stunning, that if any politician or anybody, | |
34:20 | — even in the sixties — raised his voice against this, | |
34:24 | the reaction was the same even then. They called him fascist, | |
34:28 | exclusionist, xenophobic, Nazi, etc… The stigmas | |
34:32 | have not changed a bit, for four or five decades a process | |
34:36 | has been going on in Western Europe, and the people of Western Europe | |
34:40 | are still tolerating it without any resistance? | |
34:44 | How could this happen? — Sometimes they tried; | |
34:48 | sometimes the people would raise their heads and give their opinions, | |
34:52 | but until the final larger rush, this process was so slow, | |
34:56 | so invisible. “Still waters run deep,” as the saying goes. | |
35:00 | And those politicians were not able to grasp it, who | |
35:04 | otherwise wanted to defend the French, German or Italian national culture, | |
35:08 | Christian Europe, the national identity. Or they found themselves standing | |
35:12 | against forces that could defeat them. It is worth thinking about, | |
35:16 | who are we standing against… —Of course without the frame of the show, | |
35:20 | we would be redirected into historical philosophy… — Yeah, let’s do it, no problem. | |
35:24 | The first thing is that we must say openly that the Left is | |
35:28 | “internationalist” in its character. So the Left is internationalist. | |
35:32 | So because of this, it continuously attacks all things | |
35:36 | that could strengthen national identity. For example, with steps against | |
35:40 | migration, we must ask that question: why do we not want | |
35:44 | migrants here? That’s because we have our own lives, | |
35:48 | what we Hungarians created in Hungary. | |
35:52 | In Germany the Germans… we have a culture, what we built, | |
35:56 | in this national identity, where in the “identity”, who we are | |
36:00 | plays a very important role. The Left does not see this as a positive, | |
36:04 | has always looked at it as something negative, and it believed in | |
36:08 | a progressive internationalism above all nations. | |
36:12 | We conservatives or Christian Democrats, we believe that there are nations | |
36:16 | that must cooperate in the interest of peace and safety. | |
36:20 | But the goal of the cooperation is not to eliminate national characteristics | |
36:24 | and our own national interests, and we believe in international cooperation. | |
36:28 | The Left is international, and everything that makes nations stronger is | |
36:32 | attacked by them, and they support what makes a nation weaker — either admittedly or | |
36:36 | as a hidden agenda. This is what is at the root of things. | |
36:40 | There is also a calculated expectation — I do not want to accuse anybody, | |
36:44 | but I know Western European parties that calculate the fact | |
36:48 | that the allowed, imported and transported migrants | |
36:52 | sooner or later will receive citizenship, and | |
36:56 | they will never vote for the Christian Democrats, because they are not from Christian cultures, | |
37:00 | and they will never vote for parties trying to defend a strong national identity, | |
37:04 | because they are not member of that national community, at least not yet, | |
37:08 | so they will become voters of the Left. | |
37:12 | Many Leftists, based on their short-term calculations, | |
37:16 | will sacrifice their own long-term national goals. We should never allow that | |
37:20 | to happen in Hungary! That is why I say that in the upcoming election, | |
37:24 | there are only two choices. There are our own candidates, who want Hungary | |
37:28 | to remain Hungary, to maintain our Christian culture, | |
37:32 | whatever that means — we can have meaningful discussions about that — | |
37:36 | but we want that for certain. And there are on the other side the candidates of George Soros, | |
37:40 | who want to overstep the Christian and national tradition; | |
37:44 | they want to leave it behind, take it off like a backpack; | |
37:48 | they want to dissolve Hungary in an immense internationalism, and for that | |
37:52 | migration is an excellent tool. And that is why I am sure, if they could, | |
37:56 | they would tear down the fence and would let in the migrants. Unfortunately, I would have to say | |
38:00 | that Jobbik [once a radical right-wing party] has also made its pact with Gyurcsány [Leftists], | |
38:04 | I think that that at the moment when Jobbik | |
38:08 | did not vote for the modification of the Basic Law | |
38:12 | [the Hungarian Constitution], which was necessary to stop and act against the migrants, | |
38:16 | it [Jobbik] got into that pen that is held together by George Soros. | |
38:20 | And he finances them. — For a moment, | |
38:24 | let’s jump into internal politics and into | |
38:28 | the swamp-like world of the | |
38:32 | election campaign. For the first look, | |
38:36 | the political community on this side can see, | |
38:40 | that there is a very fragmented Left, | |
38:44 | a Liberal opposition, complete with a | |
38:48 | a once national-radical, now — in my opinion — | |
38:52 | a party without any identity, Jobbik. | |
38:56 | For the first look, for months now | |
39:00 | everything is about their solving of mathematical problems, | |
39:04 | who needs to be allied with what to have any chance at all, | |
39:08 | against the single [fair] game-playing Fidesz-KDNP party alliance. | |
39:12 | Sometimes I start | |
39:16 | to worry that in reality this opposition is | |
39:20 | not as weak as it seems, and we must face something else too. —The situation is the following: | |
39:24 | if someone wants to judge | |
39:28 | by the first look, | |
39:32 | one can see many troubled minds. With the second look | |
39:36 | one can see these clumsy figures. | |
39:40 | And from their whole campaign we do not know anything else except that they hate me, | |
39:44 | They hate the concept of a Christian and national identity, | |
39:48 | [they hate] Hungary. With me they hate you, because | |
39:52 | you were a founding member of Fidesz. So they hate everything that | |
39:56 | ties into the Christian and national traditions. Beyond that, the only thing they can only talk | |
40:00 | about with each other is when and how | |
40:04 | they will ally themselves or not join forces, and from that | |
40:08 | one could gain an impression of their clumsiness. They look a bit shiftless. | |
40:12 | But the truth is, this should not bewilder us, because | |
40:16 | very strong powers, serious forces are standing behind them. | |
40:20 | We do not take them seriously necessarily by name, | |
40:24 | but the forces behind them we must take bloody seriously, those who are standing behind them | |
40:28 | and pushing them forward, if we let them, and will push them into Parliament | |
40:32 | and afterwards into governmental positions. This force behind them is what | |
40:36 | is really dangerous for us. It’s hard to make a decision whether to laugh or cry, | |
40:40 | and I say we should not laugh in any case, so we do not have to cry later. | |
40:44 | We should be mindful and be there for the election, | |
40:48 | to prevent these people, this power behind them, this background force [deep state] | |
40:52 | from pushing into positions of decision. — Prime Minister, | |
40:56 | at the end a very simple question: | |
41:00 | One week until the election, what more can we do, | |
41:04 | how can we help? — I think the situation really is | |
41:08 | SIMPLE, has become simple. | |
41:12 | If someone has followed the events of the campaign even a little bit, one can see clearly now, | |
41:16 | on one side our candidates; we speak clearly | |
41:20 | and openly: for us, “Hungary comes first.” | |
41:24 | On the other side, there are the candidates of George Soros in different party colors. | |
41:28 | I do not want to hurt any of them, but for them Hungary is not first, but | |
41:32 | something else for sure. And this is the selection we must choose from. | |
41:36 | We must choose. I can only say to everybody | |
41:40 | for whom Hungary is first: please do not stay home! | |
41:44 | If you remember during the first election in 1990, | |
41:48 | there was a poster, it was even ours, where | |
41:52 | the sign said: “The Communists are all voting. | |
41:56 | We should be there, too!” Now I could say: “The Sorosists are all voting. | |
42:00 | We should be there, too!” And to create a good mood for that, in Székesfehérvár, | |
42:04 | on Friday afternoon [April 6th] we will have our countrywide campaign-closing celebration, | |
42:08 | which is a Hungarian campaign closer, which is not closing but opening | |
42:12 | the last portion, as you know well that old wisdom: the American | |
42:16 | does not say goodbye, but leaves; the Hungarian says goodbye, but stays. | |
42:20 | To bring the attention of the people to continue to campaign, and bring | |
42:24 | everybody with them, all of their friends and acquaintances. | |
42:28 | Bring everyone for whom Hungary’s future is important. | |
42:32 | After that, all of us are in the hands of the Good Lord. —Thank you very much! |
Fortunately for Orban, he did not need a crystal ball to see how damaging it is/was to a country to let in millions of people who have zero affinity or regard for a country that welcomed them with open arms and open wallets. He has witnessed the catastrophic results of policies that have allowed, and even encouraged, an alien culture to thrive that was so detrimental to their own.