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Rhetoric of
far-right group finds reception in Hungary
“For the first time in his 33 years, Peter says, a
homegrown Hungarian movement is articulating a vision for how Hungarians can
preserve their culture and traditions.
Hungarian Guard parade in black combat boots and
uniforms emblazoned with a red-and-white symbol reminiscent of the local Nazi
party, which killed thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Or that the Guard’s
rallying cry to protect Hungarians against the “criminality” of Roma -- Gypsies
-- stirs fear of interethnic clashes.
“I don’t want to talk about the Jews or Gypsies,
because that’s what the media says the target is, and the media’s a joke,” says
Peter, who withheld his last name. Dressed in black with slicked-back hair, Peter endured frigid
weather to visit a Guard recruitment event on Sunday. “The real target is a
better Hungary,” he says.
That is no comfort to the thousands of Holocaust
survivors who still live in Budapest or to Hungary’s 100,000 or so Jews, the
largest Jewish community in Central Europe.
It’s not so much the possibility of violence from the
Hungarian Guard that troubles Jews here -- the Guard, which has 1,000 or so
members, is unarmed -- but the apparent receptiveness of a growing number of
Hungarians to far-right ideas.
Jewish, Roma and human rights groups already are
pressing the government to ban the Guard, and some Roma are talking about
forming self-defense militias.
The Hungarian Guard was created in August 2007 by a
relatively new far-right political party, Jobbik, seeking votes and credibility
on the right wing, experts say.
Showing increasingly sophistication over the last
decade, the right wing has successfully infused mainstream public discourse
with distinctions between “Hungarians” and “non-Hungarians” -- with Jews and
Roma on the outside....”
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