Hungary has defended its opposition to Brussels' plans for compulsory migrant quotas, saying it did not wish to repeat the West's "failed experiments" in multiculturalism.
In a defiant rejection of diktats from Europe's high command, the country's right-wing government said it was not interested in "lectures" from the European Union about taking in Middle Eastern refugees.
The comments were a direct challenge to remarks last week by one of the EU's most senior figures, who criticised Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, for opposing the quotas plan and for fencing off its borders to migrants trying to reach Europe.
Frans Timmermans, the Dutch vice-president of the European Commission, said that "diversity was the future of the world," and that Eastern European nations would just have to "get used to that."
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Orban's spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, responded by saying that integration in much of Western Europe had been at best a limited success. Hungary, he said, felt neither the wish nor the obligation to follow suit.
"Contrary to Mr Timmerman's vision, we can't see into the future," Mr Kovács said. "But we are aware of the past, and multi-culturalism in Western Europe has not been a success in our view. We want to avoid making the same mistakes ourselves."
Read the rest here.
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Not that I don't sympathise with the Hungarian people, but the BudaPest government should have thought of this before they joined NATO and the EU, both of whom are hell-bent on wreaking havoc in the Middle East/North Africa (at Washington's behest) until every last inhabitant is forced out of the region.
If Orban and Fidesz want to play isolationist then that's totally valid, but not whilst remaining in alliances that are compulsive global destabilisers.
It is good to see that at least one country has not gone mad by elevating feeling in the form of compassion over thinking and common sense to the point of committing national suicide. Now if only all other Western countries would follow suit.
Hooray for Hungary!
If Orban and Fidesz want to play isolationist then that's totally valid, but not whilst remaining in alliances that are compulsive global destabilisers
Pretzel logic. You seem angrier at Hungary for doing what's right than at NATO/EU for doing what's wrong.
These are momentous times. The Battle of Ideas is over. We are at the unfolding of a much larger conflict: the State vs. the Nation.
Au contraire, the pretzel is yours.
Since it signed the treaty documents for each respective alliance, Hungary is equally responsible for the actions taken by said alliances. Nato and the EU are not somehow separate from their component nations, Hungary included.
As for my anger, you seem to be inferring alot. I do not see how you ranked my beefs for me based on the few sentences i wrote. In fact my point was simple: Fidezs cannot have its pretzel and eat it too.
Nations are sovereign, which means there's no higher authority to make them do something. They can enter treaties but unlike you and me, there's no higher governing authority to make them do what they said they'd do. When they break their treaties, then aggrieved parties can take action if they have the chops for it. If they don't, then tough toenails.
So far as I can tell, the Hungarian people and their government are not to blame for the unrest in the Middle East. I think due to your fundamental liberalism you're just mad that a country is daring to enforce its borders.
So AG has gone from pretzels to red herrings.
In plain English: national sovereignty is not at issue here. When a state takes one action with its left hand and then a contradictory action with its right hand, pointing out the contradiction is not an assault on its sovereignty. You're argument is a red herring.
Secondly, Nato and the EU effectively destroyed any semblance of civil structure in Libya, Iraq and Syria. Those nations no longer exist as per ante. How could you possibly expect millions of refugees not to be created from such destruction? Most have been absorbed by Lebanon, Turkey and Iran. But how can anyone not expect a large number of them to go to other nearby countries, such as the EU countries that midwifed the carnage. (And as a personal note, many have made it to our Orthodox Church here in Argentina; we now have a Syrian refugee family in the flat next door).
Lastly, this is a serious question: what was the evidence you used to decide about what my emotions are or about me being a "liberal"? Do you have actual quotes of mine to back this up, or do you just base these accusations on hunches? No offence, but I'm really curious to know how the thought pattern works.
And for a bonus, here's that ultra-"liberal" Vladimir Putin making the same point as above:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/06/19/putin_concerned_syria_will_end_up_like_libya_iraq.html
Again, Hungary has done nothing to destabilize Syria. Qatar and Saudi Arabia, by contrast, have done a great deal, and they don't let Syrians in.
Of course, many (by some estimates, a majority) of these economic migrants are not even Syrian. They are also mostly fighting-age men. The Syrian men should stay and fight for their country.
As I recalled the tone of your posts here, you seemed typically liberal. Pardon my presumption. But conservatives should be cheering Hungary's defense of her cultural and territorial integrity.
An excellent point regarding Saudi and Qatar, and this is exactly the problem.
The gulf states hold the hammer that is destroying the region (arming Isis, invading Bahrain and Yemen...) but this hammer was placed in their hands by the US (eg:http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704621204575488361149625050) and continues to be supported by Nato and EU diplomacy (eg: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/world/middleeast/western-nations-drop-push-for-un-inquiry-into-yemen-conflict.html?ref=middleeast&_r=2).
If the Hungarians were serious about halting the flow of refugees, they would have worked to block their allies' mideast meddling, or at least raised objections. But they did the opposite, authorising arms sales to Libya and then blocking the UN from trying to enforce the arms embargo (cf. the UN report: http://www.derechos.org/peace/libya/doc/lby1664.html). US intelligence (at least) was actively involved in funneling those same arms to Syria (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line); if Hungary did not know this it is at least a sin of omission, if not much graver.
There are two ways to look at this: either Hungary is being taken advantage of by the US/UK, and is just an unwitting pawn in Nato's wars that is now suffering the brunt of them (unlike the US or the gulf states), or Fidesz is willingly complicit.
Either way, Orban is an adept politician, and he is playing the same Kabuki theatre as the rest of Europe (albeit with the shrillest aria): protesting about immigrants to flatter his electoral base, whilst doing nothing to fix the problem at its source.
Lastly, as to your point about many of the refugees not being from Syria: this is why I have been discussing the EU/Nato destruction of Libya throughout this thread. Evil as he was, Qaddafi was a major force of stability in North Africa, and his overthrow not only threw Libya into chaos, but it flooded the region with weapons, fueling wars in Mali, Burkina Faso, and as far as Somalia. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-libya-arms-un-idUSBRE93814Y20130409)
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