Councilor resigns over Orbán’s racial rhetoric: ‘Purely Nazi rhetoric’

A close adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has resigned following a speech in which Orbán made racist remarks. According to Zsuzsa Hegedüs, we were talking about “pure Nazi discourse” that “even Joseph Goebbels” would have liked. Goebbels was Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda.

Hegedüs and Orbán have known each other since 2002. In her resignation letter, she writes that Orbán’s “illiberal turn” – his government’s increasingly authoritarian approach with ultra-conservatives homophobic and xenophobic thinking – have already made him doubt his position, but that Orbán’s statements last Saturday are the last straw: “This goes against all my values”.

Orbán spoke Saturday at a meeting in Băile Tuşnad, Romania, a municipality whose inhabitants are predominantly Hungarian. At this location, where he speaks every year, he has given several great, ideologically charged speeches over the years.

This time he went on a diatribe against the mixing of European and non-European “races”. Orban does not consider Europeans who have mutual relations and who have children as a problem. “The peoples of Europe are mixing. In central Europe, for example, we are a mixture of peoples living in their own European homeland. That’s what we fought for: we are ready to mix, but we don’t don’t want peoples to become a mixed race.” The countries in which this is accepted are “no longer nations”, Orbán said.

Orbán’s statements fit a model of rhetoric directed against immigrants. Earlier, he also spoke of “ethnic homogeneity” as a prerequisite for economic prosperity. He also accused Hungarian-American-Jewish businessman George Soros of funding illegal migration to Europe. Soros is the target of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Statements like Orbán’s are commonplace among radical and far-right allies in the West. FVD leader Thierry Baudet made similar statements a few years ago, warning against a “homeopathic dilution” of the Dutch population “with all the nations of the world, so that there would never again be of Dutch”. He also advocates a “dominant white Europe”.

In far-right circles, there is a conspiracy theory that a globalist elite wants to replace the white population of Europe with a non-white population. In his speech, Orbán also referred to it, saying that it is an “ideological trick of the international left to say that the European population is already a mixed race” and does not see this as a problem.

Commenting on Hegedüs’ resignation letter, Orbán denies having used racist ideas: “You can’t really accuse me of racism after 20 years of collaboration. You know better than anyone that my government in Hungary has a zero-tolerance policy. with regard to anti-Semitism and racism.”

The Hungarian Jewish community is nevertheless outraged by Orbán’s statements, which have “raised serious concerns within the community”. The chief rabbi of Hungary replied on Facebook: “I think there is only one human race on this planet: Homo sapiens sapiens.”