door Georgette Veerhuis Het is alweer bijna twee jaar geleden dat ik meeliep met een enorme protestmars in Boedapest, waar zo’n 80,000 man op af kwam, om te demonstreren tegen de verontrustende zet van de Hongaarse overheid, met de Fidesz partij en minister-president Viktor Orbán aan kop, jegens de Central European University (CEU). Hier schreef ik al eerder een blog over. Deze demonstratie kon zoveel momentum krijgen omdat het niet zozeer alleen om CEU gaat, maar vooral om hoe de verwijdering van CEU en andere beangstigende grillen van de huidige Hongaarse politiek.
Waar ik mij toen begaf in een hoopvolle menigte die graag nog wilde geloven in de redelijkheid van de Hongaarse overheid, zijn deze gemoederen over een periode van 20 maanden behoorlijk bedaard. Toch vindt er nu weer een opleving plaats. Een laatste protest #OccupyKossuth is georganiseerd van 24 november tot 1 december om de aandacht te vestigen op de laatste week van CEU. Daarna moet zij weg. Maar hoe heeft dit nou zo ver kunnen komen?
In a response to the Charlie Hebdo killings, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently did a television speech in which he made some rather far-reaching statements on immigration in Europe which caused consternation among some – even though he probably also earned the approval of others. Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology staff member Pál Nyiri is a member of Menedék, the ‘Hungarian Association for Migrants’, which released a press statement on Orbán’s speech. We publish the statement here in its entirety.
MENEDÉK – Hungarian Association for Migrants Press Statement
Budapest, 12 January 2015
Menedék – Hungarian Association for Migrants deems Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s views concerning immigration in the wake of the Paris massacre, expressed on Sunday, 11 January in the news broadcast of Hungarian public service television channel M1 and elsewhere, unfounded and unworthy of a responsible state leader.
We agree with the Hungarian Prime Minister that “immigration and the cultural concerns it raises need a much more open, honest and straightforward discussion than what we have seen so far.” It is precisely one of the basic goals of our Association. We have worked to create an open, fact- based and responsible dialogue on the topic in Hungary and in Europe for nearly two decades.
We firmly oppose, however, alongside with the European Commission and Europe’s political leaders, the PM’s view that “economic immigration is a bad thing in Europe, it shouldn’t be viewed as if it had any use, because it only brings trouble and peril to the European man, so immigration must be stopped, this is the Hungarian position.” Even David Cameron acknowledged the benefits of immigration in his recent West Midlands speech. It reflects a grave misjudgement and lack of political wisdom to reiterate anti-immigration stock phrases on the day of remembrance of the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, spreading the misconception that immigration is in any way to blame for the dread of terrorism, and curtailing, or even banning immigration is the way to get rid of the terrorism.
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