Xenophobia

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán and his ruling party Fidesz failed with their referendum to obstruct the EU’s effort to impose an obligatory quota scheme for the resettlement of refugees. However, they could benefit from this defeat in domestic policies. A commentary.

The government’s hate campaign against the refugees will soon achieve its goal: on October 2, Hungarians will cast their votes in an unnecessary, expensive and inhumane referendum.

Putinist trolls are having a good time in Hungary these days. Articles published by pro-Kremlin, anti-immigrant news sites are shared by thousands of readers, often mistaken for actual news stories. Objective journalism has thus been degraded to just one of many possible narratives for interpreting the world around us.

Xenophobia and efforts to turn public opinion against “social welfare migrants” are not a new invention. But the fact that every solution that comes from the EU is ignored – this is something new.

In June, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced that his government would build a fence along the Serbian-Hungarian border to keep illegal immigrants out of the country.

"We’d like to retain Hungary as Hungary", says Victor Orbán in January 2015. Xenophobia is significant in his country. How a multicultural and multi-ethnic society became a mono-ethnic and closed one.