CNN
recently discovered a paradox. How was it possible, they asked, that in 1989,
Viktor Orban, at the time a Western-acclaimed liberal opposition leader, was
calling for Soviet troops to leave Hungary, and now that he is Prime Minister,
he is cozying up to Vladimir Putin?
For the
same reason, dummy.
Orban
wanted his country to be independent then, and he wants it to be independent
now.
In 1989,
Hungary was a satellite of the Soviet Union. Whatever Hungarians wanted, they
had to follow directives from Moscow and adhere to Soviet communist ideology.
Today,
Hungary is ordered to follow directives from Brussels and adhere to the EU
ideology, a k a “our common values”.
But what
exactly are those “common values”?
Not so
very, very long ago, “the West”, that is, both America and Europe, claimed
devotion to “Christian values”. Those values were evoked in Western
condemnation of the Soviet Union.
That is
out. These days, indeed, one of the reasons why Viktor Orban is considered a
threat to our European values is his reference to a Hungarian conception of
“the Christian character of Europe, the role of nations and cultures”. The
revival of Christianity in Hungary, as in Russia, is regarded in the West as
deeply suspect.
So it’s
understood, Christianity is no longer a “Western value”. What has taken its
place? That should be obvious: today “our common values” essentially mean
democracy and free elections.
Guess
again. Orban was recently re-elected by a landslide. Leading EU liberal Guy
Verhofstadt called this “an electoral mandate to roll back democracy in
Hungary.”
Since
elections can “roll back democracy”, they cannot be the essence of “our common
values”. People can vote wrong; that is called “populism” and is a bad thing.
The real,
functional common values of the European Union are spelled out in its treaties:
the four freedoms. No, not freedom of speech, since many Member States have
laws against “hate speech”, which can cover a lot of ground since its meaning
is open to wide interpretation. No, the obligatory four freedoms of the EU are
free movement of goods, services, persons and capital throughout the Union.
Open borders. That is the essence of the European Union, the dogma of the Free
Market.
The
problem with the Open Border doctrine is that it doesn’t know where to stop. Or
it doesn’t stop anywhere. When Angela Merkel announced that hundreds of
thousands of refugees were welcome in Germany, the announcement was interpreted
as an open invitation by immigrants of all sorts, who began to stream into
Europe. This unilateral German decision automatically applied to the whole of
the EU, with its lack of internal borders. Given German clout, Open Borders
became the essential “European common value”, and welcoming immigrants the
essence of human rights.
Very
contrasting ideological and practical considerations contribute to the
idealization of Open Borders. To name a few:
·
Economic liberals maintain that because Europe is aging, it
needs young immigrant workers to pay for the pensions of retired workers.
·
Many Jewish activists feel threatened by national majorities and
feel safer in a society made up of ethnic minorities.
·
More discreetly, certain entrepreneurs favor mass immigration
because growing competition in the labor market brings down wages.
·
Many artistically inclined people consider ethnic diversity to
be more creative and more fun.
·
Certain anarchist or Trotskyist sects believe that uprooted
immigrants are the “agent” of the revolution that the Western proletariat
failed to produce.
·
Many Europeans accept the idea that nation states are the cause
of war, concluding that every way of destroying them is welcome.
·
International financial investors naturally want to remove all
obstacles to their investments and thus promote Open Borders as The Future.
·
There are even a few powerful schemers who see “diversity” as
the basis of divide and rule, by breaking solidarity into ethnic pieces.
·
There are good people who want to help all humanity in distress.
This
combination of contrasting, even opposing motivations does not add up to a
majority in every country. Notably not in Hungary.
It should
be noted that Hungary is a small Central European country of less than ten
million inhabitants, which never had a colonial empire and thus has no historic
relationship with peoples in Africa and Asia as do Britain, France, the
Netherlands, and Belgium. As one of the losers in World War I, Hungary lost a
large amount of territory to its neighbors, notably to Romania. The rare and
difficult Hungarian language would be seriously challenged by mass immigration.
It is probably safe to say that the majority of people in Hungary tend to be
attached to their national identity and feel it would be threatened by massive
immigration from radically different cultures. It may not be nice of them, and
like everyone they can change. But for now, that is how they vote.
In
particular, they recently voted massively to re-elect Victor Orban, obviously
endorsing his refusal of uncontrolled immigration. This is what has spurred
scrutiny of Orban’s leadership for signs of incumbent dictatorship. The EU is
taking steps to strip Hungary of its political rights as a result. On September
14, Victor Orban made his position clear in a speech to the (largely rubber
stamp) European Parliament in Strasbourg:
“Let’s be
frank. They want to condemn Hungary and the Hungarians who have decided that
our country will not be an immigration country. With all due respect, but as
firmly as possible, I reject the threats of the pro-immigration forces, their
blackmail of Hungary and the Hungarians, all based on lies. I inform you
respectfully that however you decide, Hungary will stop illegal immigration,
and defend its borders, against you if necessary.”
This was
greeted with outrage.
Former
Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, currently president of the Alliance of
Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group in the European Parliament and an
ardent European federalist, responded furiously that “we cannot let far right
populist governments drag democratic European states into the orbit of Vladimir
Putin!”
In a
tweet to his EP colleagues, Verhofstadt warned: “We are in an existential
battle for the survival of the European project. … For Europe’s sake, we need
to stop him!”
CNN
approvingly ran an opinion piece from Verhofstadt describing Hungary as a
“threat to international order”.
“In the
coming weeks and months, the international community — and the United States in
particular — must heed our warning and act: Hungary’s government is a threat to
the rules-based international order,” he wrote.
“European
governments and the US have a moral obligation to intervene”, Verhofstadt
continued. “We cannot stand aside and let populist, far-right governments drag
democratic European states into Vladimir Putin’s orbit and undermine the
postwar international norms.”
Next come
sanctions: “Political and financial costs must be attached to governments
pursuing an authoritarian path and support provided to civil society
organizations…”
Verhofstadt
concluded: “This is not in the interests of the people of America or Europe. We
need to stop him — now.”
Verhofstadt’s
appeal to America to “stop” the Hungarian prime minister sounds like nothing so
much as appeals to Brezhnev by hard-line communists to send the tanks into
reformist Czechoslovakia in 1968.
However,
this appeal for intervention was not addressed to President Trump, who is in
the same doghouse as Orban among the Atlanticists, but rather to the deep state
forces which the Belgian fanatic assumes are still in power in Washington.
At the
start of his CNN article, Verhofstadt paid tribute to “the late, great, John
McCain, who once described Orban as ‘a fascist in bed with Putin’…” That is the
McCain who went around the world as head of the Republican branch of the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED) encouraging and financing dissident
groups to rebel against their respective governments, in preparation for U.S.
intervention. Oh Senator McCain, where are you now that we need you for a little
regime change in Budapest?
Orban’s
reputation in the West as dictator is unquestionably linked to his intense
conflict with Hungarian-born financier George Soros, whose Open Society
foundation finances all manner of initiatives to promote his dream of a borderless
society, notably in Eastern Europe. Soros operations could be considered
privatized U.S. foreign policy, along the same lines as McCain, and innocently
“non-governmental”. One Soros initiative is the private Budapest-based Central
European University whose rector is open society advocate Michael Ignatieff.
Hungary recently imposed a 25% tax on money spent by nongovernmental
organizations on programs that “directly or indirectly aim to promote
immigration,” which affects the CEU. This is part of a recently adopted package
of anti-immigration measures known as the “Stop Soros” bill.
Hungarian
measures against Soros’ interference are of course denounced in the West as a
grave violation of human rights, while in the United States, prosecutors search
frantically for the slightest indication of Russian interference or Russian
agents.
In
another blow against the international rules-based order, the Hungarian prime
minister’s office recently announced that the government will cease to fund university
courses in gender studies, on the grounds that they “cannot be
justified scientifically” and attract too few students to be worthwhile.
Although privately funded and thus able to continue its own gender studies
program, the CEU was “astonished” and called the measure “without any justification
or antecedent.”
Like the
Soviet Union, the European Union is not merely an undemocratic institutional
framework promoting a specific economic system; it is also the vehicle of an
ideology and a planetary project. Both are based on a dogma as to what is good
for the world: communism for the first, “openness” for the second. Both in
varying ways demand of people virtues they may not share: a forced equality, a
forced generosity. All this can sound good, but such ideals become methods of
manipulation. Forcing ideals on people eventually runs up against stubborn
resistance.
There are
differing reasons to be against immigration just as to be for it. The idea of
democracy was to sort out and choose between ideals and practical interests by
free discussion and in the end a show of hands: an informed vote. The liberal
Authoritarian Center represented by Verhofstadt seeks to impose its values,
aspirations, even its version of the facts on citizens who are denounced as
“populists” if they disagree. Under communism, dissidents were called “enemies
of the people”. For the liberal globalists, they are “populists” – that is, the
people. If people are told constantly that the choice is between a left that
advocates mass immigration and a right that rejects it, the swing to the right
is unstoppable.
