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When Hungary’s prime minister gives commemorative speeches, it has recently started to sound more threatening. Viktor Orbán talks about the ancient Hungarian struggle and the Hungarian self-sacrifice. About a “millennia-long violation of the Central European borders by the West” that one will never forget. Or of “new national greatness” and “truth that only something is worth by force”.
Orbán’s vocabulary is increasingly religious and militaristic. Do you expect a war in the region? Is it possible that he even swears by his compatriots?
These questions arise when looking at a new campaign organized by Orbán-close’s “Center for Fundamental Rights”. Its title: “Get Ready!” On a website of the same name, a video was recently shown in which a grandfather tells his children and grandchildren about the ancient history of Hungary, and you can see images full of blood and war. Later, the father asked his sons to continue writing the glorious history of Hungary. The video ends with the slogan: “Truth, Strength, Ascent. Together we can make the Carpathian Basin great!” Below the three-and-a-half minute clip is a text that reproduces excerpts from a speech by Viktor Orbán on June 6 of this year, which he delivered at the inauguration of a “Monument to the Path of Sorrows in Hungary.
An ad from the “Center for Fundamental Rights” is even more explicit. It is displayed under the heading “Get Ready!” Soldiers of the Second World War storming with rifles in hand. The ad first appeared on September 4 in the newspaper “Nemzeti Sport” (National Sport), Orbán’s favorite newspaper.
Intellectuals and academics criticize the “climate of fear”
The “Center for Fundamental Rights” sees itself as “the polar opposite of rampant human rights fundamentalism and political correctness” and as a research institute that advocates the “preservation of national identity.” Its director, Miklós Szánthó, is also chairman of the board of trustees of the state foundation “Kesma”, which groups together almost all the Hungarian private media related to the government.
After the “Get Ready!” It provoked numerous controversies in Hungary in recent days, Szánthó spoke of “artificial hysteria”. At the request of SPIEGEL, he denies the charge of incitement to war. According to Szánthó, the campaign video emphasized that the Hungarians must join forces with the other peoples of the Carpathian Basin. The charge of militarism, instead, is based on a “left-liberal narrative that hypocritically denies the will to fight and the fighting spirit as political virtues.”
Critics of the campaign in Hungary see it differently. Last week, hundreds of Hungarian intellectuals and academics, including many conservatives, signed an appeal entitled: “Responsible governance instead of war rhetoric.” They criticize the fact that the militaristic rhetoric in Hungary covers up corruption and mismanagement, they also protest against censorship, attacks on academic and cultural institutions and a “general climate of fear” in Hungary.
An anti-war petition on the “Szabad.ahang” website (voting is free) also calls for protests against “war preparations”. However, so far only about 6,000 people have signed.
Unprecedented weaponry program of the army.
The “Get ready!” it goes hand in hand with a growing militarization of public life and an increasingly aggressive nationalism of the Orbán-related media. This can be seen, for example, in a historians dispute that has been going on for months. In it, prominent historians such as Ignác Romsics or Krisztián Ungváry, who critically investigate the Hungarian history of the 20th century, are declared “traitors”, “enemies of Hungary” and “Freemasons”.
At the same time, the Orbán government launched a weapons program unprecedented in the last three decades. The latest armaments deal is only days old: the German group Rheinmetall and the Hungarian state are jointly building a factory in which Lynx armored personnel carriers are manufactured under license.
Most observers do not believe, however, that Orbán is seriously considering war. Left-wing philosopher Gáspár Miklós Tamás says that Orbán only wants to reinforce Hungarian chauvinism and the associated public awareness of the danger, while at the same time emphasizing continuity with the Hungarian state before 1945. “But it is about mere ideological identification with Greater Hungary, not from actual border checks. ”
András Rácz, a security policy expert at the German Foreign Policy Society (DGAP), sees it in a similar way. “Hungary is not building a military offensive force, it is modernizing an army that was in poor condition,” says Rácz. However, campaigns such as that of the Center for Fundamental Rights increased the division and loss of trust in Hungarian society. “That in turn,” Rácz said, “will eventually become a national security problem.”
Note: In the caption above it was initially indicated that the photo shows Orbán at the inauguration ceremony of the “Monument to the Path of Sorrows of Hungary”. In fact, you can see the “Monument to National Unity”.
