Filmmaker fears for his kids

ANDY LEVY-AJZENKOPF CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS

Hungarian Jews are fearful of how openly antisemitic and xenophobic their politicians and non-Jewish countrymen are becoming. Some are even declaring their fear that the EU state is on the path toward an ultra-nationalistic regime bent on persecuting minorities.

The trepidation being felt by Jews, Roma and other minorities in Hungary prompted an independent Jewish-Hungarian documentary filmmaker, Adam Csillag, to start detailing the government’s activities and those of the far-right-wing Jobbik opposition party. He’s focused on efforts to limit freedom of the press and on antisemitic and anti-Roma activity.

A recent Canadian billboard campaign in Hungary targeting would-be Roma asylum seekers to Canada with the message that new immigration laws limit their ability to seek refuge from persecution here led Csillag to contact this reporter to alert Canada’s Jewish community to the situation in his country.

Hungary is on Canada’s designated “safe countries” list of democratic nations that it deems to have adequate legal and institutional protection for their citizens. In Csillag’s opinion, there are legitimate reasons for Roma, and perhaps soon Jews, to seek asylum elsewhere. “Hungary is lying to Canadian politicians when it says it is democratic,” he said. “Jobbik and its paramilitary [groups] are doing terrible things to Roma. I witnessed serial killings of Roma in 2008. The police are against the Roma.”

In a phone interview from his home in Budapest, with his daughter Anna translating, he said public discourse in Hungary has reached the point where “a disturbing” number of people are unabashed about insulting minorities, particularly Jews and Roma. He said he’s now advising his daughter and other Jewish youth in Hungary to leave for their own safety and a better future.

Anna, who is Jewish on her father’s side, confirmed that while attending university, her friends and classmates have never been shy about telling her how much they like her “despite” her heritage.

Beyond that, Csillag said, many politicians in both the ruling Fidesz party – led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban – and Jobbik share similar ideas regarding foreigners and minorities on Hungarian soil.

A Jan. 31 report in Spiegel Online seems to confirm Csillag’s assertions that the boundaries between Fidesz and Jobbik’s ideologies “are blurring.”

Csillag pointed out that while Orban was in opposition, he began setting up grassroots, nationalistic groups to promote a “pure Hungary.” According to Csillag, the reason Orban set up the civilian groups was to discredit the then ruling Hungarian Socialist Party and those on the left by labeling them anti-Hungarian. Many of the “main personalities” of those groups have since become influential members of Jobbik, Csillag added.

Orban’s friend and Fidesz co-founder, Hungarian social commentator Zsolt Bayer, wrote in the Magyar Hirlap newspaper in January that Roma are “unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals, and they behave like animals. These animals shouldn’t be allowed to exist. In no way. That needs to be solved. They should be stamped out – immediately and regardless of the method.” Neither Orban nor any other Fidesz member denounced the article. Bayer has also referred to Jews as “stinking excrement called something like Cohen,” according to World Jewish Congress.

Members of Fidesz have also publicly demonstrated support for Miklos Horthy, the Second World War-era Hungarian prime minister who helped the Nazis murder tens of thousands of the country’s Jews and Roma.

Last November, Jobbik member Marton Gyongyosi called for Jews to be registered on lists as threats to national security. Massive protests broke out in Budapest, prompting Gyongyosi to apologize and say his remarks were misinterpreted. Orban’s office eventually denounced Gyongyosi’s remarks 16 hours after the comments were uttered, however, the parliamentarian was never disciplined for his comments.

At the time, Hungarian Holocaust survivor and executive director of the Hungarian Jewish Congregations’ Association Gusztav Zoltai said the event and lack of action by Fidesz and Jobbik made Hungary “the shame of Europe.”

Csillag said Fidesz has slowly been curtailing freedom of the press and free speech, saying that most of the country’s TV and radio stations are increasingly falling under the control of the government.

“My activities aren’t big enough to be a threat to the government,” he said, noting that he’s usually out on the streets about three times a week to document “the decline in democracy” in Hungary.

“There’s only one radio station that you could still consider to be ‘free,’ and that’s only because of international media scrutiny,” he said. “The government is building a façade of democracy, behind that they are destroying basic rights. They are giving Hungarians the option to focus their economic fears through hate.

“I tell my daughter she needs to find a way to leave Hungary and find a more stable place to live. If I am being honest, I cannot tell my children that Hungary will be a good place to live in the coming years. I tell them to prepare to leave at any moment,” he added.

“The [official] Jewish community organizations must stop making compromises and speak much more loudly now. They believe they only have Jobbik to fear, but they should know better, that Fidesz is also the danger.”

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

^TOP