Travelling through Parallel Universes

  • March 16, 2022
  • István
  • 20 Comments

Yesterday happened in Budapest 2 demonstrations. Same day, same place, but so extremely different that it is impossible to bring both into the same reality.

One was held by a party that calls itself conservative, while the chairmen of the party of European conservatives spoke on the demonstration of those called leftwing by those “conservatives”. Those who held a so-called “peace” march did not talk about the fact that in a neighbouring country an aggressor is bombing hospitals, residential quarters, and treks with refugees. They did not use the name of the invading country, the president who ordered this war, and they did not side with the victim either. They only accused those they call leftwing to want this war.

The others didn’t use the expression peace for their gathering, but government change. They remembered the victims of the war with a minute silence, talked a lot about peace and war, they condemned the aggressor and the invading country and they sided with the attacked neighbour. The media of self-called “conservatives,” those, who held the “peace” march, reported that hardly 300 gathered with these so-called leftists. Here 2 pictures showing 300 people. Measuring with google maps the aerial picture covers just below 500 meter measured from the stage. Only on the visible part 300 persons mean a single row with holding more than 1.5 meter distance.

While all these people came on own costs the “peace” marchers were transported on state expense, the people were ordered to go by employers, local state-party bigwigs, just as in the good old communist times all have to send the number of people the state-party wants. Only on the Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út 444 counted 196 busses, while at least 3 further parkings for busses were arranged. Not only professional bus services were used, but also busses of the local governments, EU financed by the “Magyar Falu Program.”

https://hang.hu/belfold/mar-gyulekeznek-a-bekemenet-resztvevoi-138237

https://hang.hu/belfold/mar-gyulekeznek-a-bekemenet-resztvevoi-138237

But demonstrators also came from abroad. Italy sent quite a number, while Poland did not deliver anybody this time. The Polish government has serious problems with their former friend Orbán concerning his still narrow friendship with Putin. Italian fascists have no problems with loving Putin. And it is very practically that their national colours are the same as ours, if flags are with horizontal or vertical stripes doesn’t matter, since one shouldn’t expect the most educated people to march for Orbán. The out-voted mayor of Budapest Újpest came with the flag of the district, which has 2 horizontal stripes red on top and yellow below. He admitted that a lot of people thought he came from Spain to march for Orbán, 444 reported. Also so-called ethnic Hungarians from Croatia arrived, a newspaper journalist reported that they spoke Croatian to each other. Yes, the GONGO (government owned non governmental organisation) CÖF called for “peace,” but it is generously funded by the state, very practical detail: The CÖF chairman is responsible for such funding in the relevant authority. Since we know that such an event takes place on order of a single man we also know that the CÖF is just a tool.

When Magyar Hang interviewed participants they got from them the answer that they came for Orbán. Not because of the war. But they knew that Zelensky should have given away what Putin wanted and the entire war just happens because of the Americans, it was their fault planning to put missiles onto the Russian border. Even the most stupid propaganda of UFO experts on M1 works! However, journalists understood from just listening what people were talking about that they were busy with practically everything – but not with politics, war or peace.

Individuals living in central Budapest showed that they are not pleased with this state-party show. A huge banner was put onto a building along the marching route saying “Oil may come from the east, but freedom comes from the west.” This was regarded to be very offensive to the hardcore FIDESZ fans in the crowd, obviously they weren’t aware that this is an Orbán quote out of the time when Putin invaded Georgia. Those days Orbán did not act as Putin’s puppet. Besides the opposition parties have put a lot of campaign posters onto the route. There was also a modern version of the perhaps most famous poster of the regime change era:

Orbán haza!

In his speech Orbán has repeated the claim that the opposition wants to get Hungary involved into the war and would send soldiers and weapons to Ukraine. That he himself just a few days ago voted in favour of the 2nd EU weapon purchase for Ukraine he didn’t mention of course. He refused to side with anybody, neither with Russia nor with Ukraine, neither with the USA nor Brussels. Whether Brussels means to him EU or NATO he didn’t explain. At this moment he is agreeing with everything within the EU, while hindering NATO. But we should understand that he won’t stop fighting the EU for long. Lately he wanted to be paid for allowing NATO troops pass through Hungary to Romania. One could believe that Hungary would not be member of EU and NATO, but would have an even higher level than the eternal neutrality of Switzerland. While the Swiss sided clearly with Ukraine, Hungary mustn’t side with its allies and morality mustn’t be considered at all. As Orbán put it nothing could be done regarding the war, he accepted it as he accepted the heavy snowfall when his minister of interior Pintér sent everybody in Hungary an SMS to stay in the car. This war is just another natural disaster impossible to prepare for. As everybody was sent into the long weekend of March 15th, 2013 who could have cleared the streets, while in Germany and Austria the heavy snow fell already, Orbán did not accept the information he got concerning Putin’s plans. We just need to remember that he was promoting his so successful peace mission in Moscow, which originally was thought to bring us into deeper dependence of Russian deliveries, until the missiles hit the resident areas of Kiev. Orbán is incapable to understand a world that doesn’t follow his orders, just as a 3-year-old child.

On the other side of the Danube at the same time several speakers appeared. Reciting Sándor Petőfi Unity for Hungary started. First speech held Gábor Iványi. He informed the demonstrators that the heads of government of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia would sit in a train on their way to a state visit of Ukraine. He said that Orbán was invited as well, but that he had to do something else. While one can have different opinions whether it makes sense to travel in a besieged capital, one can definitely say that Orbán, who wears bullet-proof vests even when visiting a kindergarten, wouldn’t have had gone if he had not the national holiday as excuse. Iványi rewrote biblical stories to meet the here and now, among them “Cain initiated a bilateral meeting with Abel as part of a family protection action plan.” He greeted both Ukrainians and Russians that might be in the crowd, and reminded to the fight of teachers. After years of forcing the anti-Ukraine propaganda for years Orbán would have masked as peace dove, just to continue his treason. Calling those who want to supply weapons to Ukraine freedom fighters to be warmongers is the shame of the nation. The foreign minister wearing the Russian medal of friendship is acting against the freedom of the entire world.

Many high ranked politicians spoke, they presented the democratic Hungary they want to build. Thereafter the Polish guest, the chairman of conservative EPP, Donald Tusk spoke. Although FIDESZ left EPP to avoid being expelled, their appendix KDNP, which in opposite to the other parties FIDESZ absorbed is formally still a party of its own, remained member of EPP, so Tusk spoke on the wrong place in this sense. Of course conservatives in the meaning of the word are part of Unity for Hungary and in this sense Tusk has proven all claims of Orbán about what he is staying for wrong.

“I am with you today because I am a Polish,” Tusk started. He reminded to general József Bem, who was from Polish origin and fought on the side of the 1848 revolution. Bem would be on the university quay today, not at that other place in Budapest. He said that freedom and solidarity are not empty slogans for Poles and Hungarians. In the war in the neighbourcountry, the Ukrainians are fighting not only for their own sovereignty, but for the freedom of Poland and Hungary as well. No honest person could doubt which side he is on in this fight. Viktor Orbán and his men worked to make the most pro-Putin opinion popular all across Europe. This is why Europe is hopefully looking forward to the April 3rd elections.

Péter Márki-Zay said that today, 33 years after the 3rd, the only bloodless and only victorious revolution, the regime change, we are not a people for the world any more. Today we are a single face only. The face of the man who expropriated us. When they say Hungarian in the world, this face appears in front of them. Blurring everything that generations have built up. Half the country hates me, he said, half the country expects hope and redemption from me. Dirty remarks from those who do not know me and whom I do not know come to me and my family every day. Those I have not hurt and I will never hurt, MZP continued. It is unacceptable that 33 years after the victorious change of regime, we have lost our own country again. It is also that this time it was not an external coercion but the selfishness and desire for power of our own leader that we chose the lagging East over the developing West, slavery over freedom, hatred over love because of our own voluntary destiny. We voluntarily went back to the bad side of history …. We believe that on April 3rd, Hungary will be the winner finally, be one people again, one nation again. That we again can say proudly wherever we go in the world that we are Hungarians!

Detailed reports have had 444 ►HU, Magyar Hang ►HU, and telex ►HU. The recording of Unity for Hungary demonstration can be found here ►HU.

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theestampe
theestampe
March 16, 2022 14:22

At least one Orbán supporter was **** enough to wear a Russian flag painted on her face… (I believe Flora Garamvolgyi is the author of the picture.)

Flora Garamvolgyi.jpg
Last edited 2 years ago by theestampe
Istvan (Chicago)
Istvan (Chicago)
March 16, 2022 15:42

Today’s post discussing the peace march completely organized by Fidesz totally contradicts what appeared in the UK Independent”s story on Central European and a claim of official Hungarian government support for Ukraine,(https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/politics-explained/zelensky-visegrad-kyiv-nato-poland-b2036978.html ). The article contains this passage: “The other weak link is Hungary, where Viktor Orban has spent most of his past decade in power cozying up to Moscow and offending Brussels. Since the Russian invasion, and ahead of elections on 3 April, all of that has gone into reverse and Hungary, Orban and his Fidesz party are backing Ukraine.”

This is so idiotic it is really beyond comprehension. All of us who read this blog are well aware of the formal support for Ukraine, while Fidesz controlled publications beat a constant drum beat of pro-Russian stories. One has to assume that the author of this article Sean O’Grady does not read Magyar Nemzet even in google translation, has never read this blog, or never read any of the information being presented by the united opposition in Hungary about Orban’s betrayal of NATO. 

So many western based reporters are now doing the “big story” about the Russian invasion of Ukraine it is mind blogging. It’s manic actually, and the ratings based on the number of viewers particularly here in the USA are high. We have what can only be called the war reporters who jump from hot spot to hot spot internationally in some cases really feed on what I would call “war voyeurism” in the West, in other cases these war reporters focus almost exclusively on the situation of civilians in war torn areas, almost all of them want to present a human interest angle to their reports. I have a copy of an old Betamax video of myself being interviewed by an Australian TV war reporter dressed in Battle gear during the last stages of the 1972 Battle of An Loc in Vietnam along with several other US advisers. Of course my discussion with this reporter about interviewing several South Vietnamese officers who really carried the fight against the North Vietnamese forces who spoke excellent English which were not part of the report broadcast. It was typical of reporting back then, at least the reporting now is focusing on the Ukrainians themselves.

Now so called combat reporters themselves who are killed or wounded in Ukraine become a major topic of reporting. In the case of Jane Ferguson, an Irish-British journalist reporter in Ukraine for the US Public Broadcasting Network (PBS), went so far as to include a clip of the covered dead body of Brent Renaud a US reporter who had been shot dead by Russian forces in the suburbs of Kyiv in a broadcast she produced. There is a level of media frenzy going on, but it largely pretty uninformed news. In the case of Ferguson she is certainly a war reporter, but her skills are in the Middle East and she is fluent in Arabic and really has not done much reporting in Central Europe. But her job is to present a story and try to explain the war to largely uninformed US audience, many of whom only two weeks ago could not find Ukraine on a blank map of Europe. 

I will give the US PBS credit for at least trying to explain to its smaller more college educated US audience some of the context for the Russian invasion last night when it aired “Putin’s Road to War” see https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/video-putin-war-ukraine-documentary/. Of course one problem with it was it did not even try to explain why Putin’s aggressive authoritarianism actually still has the support of the majority of Russians, and why many supporters of Orban in Hungary for example appear to be Putin fans too. But to do that would be even more complex and confusing even for the college educated in the USA.

Don Kichote
Don Kichote
March 16, 2022 16:19

It would be so easy to explain how FOX NEWS broadcasts completely made up alternative facts. Or Tucker asks completely absurd questions or why there are Trump supporters who would have only disadvantages under his rule like women white and black or shorter all who do not belong to the group of white men who adore Trump. The USA has the same problem as Hungary … Russia, Turkey, …

Istvan (Chicago)
Istvan (Chicago)
March 16, 2022 16:35
Reply to  Don Kichote

As an example of this pro-Russian stance of Fidesz we can read in Magyar Nemzet today this story “Putin: It was a real threat that Kyiv wanted to get a nuclear weapon” (https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2022/03/putyin-valodi-fenyegetes-volt-hogy-kijev-atomfegyverhez-akar-jutni ). Now the problem with this article is not MTI an official state news agency is reporting what Putin said, the problem is MTI never in the article states that there is no independent support for this claim by Putin and that it may in fact be part of the Russian disinformation campaign. The article provides this quote from Putin: “There was also a network of dozens of laboratories in Ukraine where experiments with military and biological programs, including samples of coronavirus, anthrax, cholera, African swine fever and other deadly diseases, were conducted under the direction and financial support of the Pentagon.” 

It would be nice of MTI to inform the Hungarian people there is not one major US newspaper or credible journalist that gives any support to this claim made by Putin. Now there have been numerous US based investigations of US Army programs at Fort Detrick Maryland under what was called the Research and Engineering Division of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps. President Nixon issued his “Statement on Chemical and Biological Defense Policies and Programs” on November 25, 1969 in a speech from Fort Detrick. The statement officially ended all U.S. offensive biological weapons programs. Since then US investigative journalists have been searching for evidence that this program has continued covertly, they have not found good evidence for that and certainly have not found the US Army effectively off shored this program to the Ukraine. There is a lot of evidence that the US Army had conducted experiments relating to dealing with a biological weapons attack against US forces, which is allowed under existing treaties which is not surprising.

Moreover the MTI report published by Magyar Nemzet does not even reproduce statements made by many US and NATO officials that this claim being made by Putin is in fact what they call a false flag attack on Ukraine to justify potentially even more extreme Russian actions against Ukraine. (see https://theconversation.com/russias-false-claims-about-biological-weapons-in-ukraine-demonstrate-the-dangers-of-disinformation-and-how-hard-it-is-to-counter-4-essential-reads-179159 ).

Don Kichote
Don Kichote
March 16, 2022 18:08

Limping logic or open questions is something you learn in Hungary’s schools, and it is a luck that not everyone has a logical limp. If Putin is so afraid of Ukraine, who will he be afraid of next? Or – why did he say that only today and what was in 2014 there were not such statements. The fear from others of Russian nuclear weapons does not bother. False flag only different

False flag – the poison gas attack in Syria in 2013 has “false flag” discussed in countless articles in the press some reports relied on only one journalist. The fact is that the use of poison gas requires ways and means such as production, storage and transport, and the question of who benefits from it must be answered. At that time it was Russia and Assad.

Don Kichote
Don Kichote
March 16, 2022 19:44
Reply to  Don Kichote

and Turkey

Robert
Robert
March 16, 2022 19:38

Hungary is a rouge state.

Michael Detreköy
Michael Detreköy
March 16, 2022 22:35

OT – This “conference” interview with General Wesley Clark showed up on youtube today. There’s some pep-talk to the Danes, but otherwise very good – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maryhbT28wI

Last edited 2 years ago by Michael Detreköy
2bits4free
2bits4free
March 17, 2022 07:07

Excellent article!

But so distressing that Western media hasnt a clue about Orbans two-faced modus operandi. He scuttles along to Brussels with his tail between his legs, saying he agrees with them on everything, then back home he makes it clear that he is still good buddies with Putin, and he continues to spew lies to his gullible followers.
Whey doesn`t someone correct the misguided foreign press, regarding this double act by our mafia PM?

2bits4free
2bits4free
March 18, 2022 06:31
Reply to  jan

Not speaking any German stops me from writing to German press. The Guardian is another matter, and I do in fact often write to them!
But thanks so much for the tip.

2bits4free
2bits4free
March 18, 2022 06:38
Reply to  jan

I read the Guardian article you pointed oyt above anditis clearly critical of Orbans maneuvers regarding the Ukraine crisis, so what exactly re you talking about.

jan
jan
March 18, 2022 07:58
Reply to  2bits4free

“But so distressing that Western media hasnt a clue about Orbans two-faced modus operandi.”
All articles show that the foreign press has a clue about the Viktors´ manoeuvres, contradicting your complaining.

Ferenc
Ferenc
March 17, 2022 07:53

“peace” marchers falsely accused others of wanting the war
1-Party private and “public” media falsely reporting about “other” demonstration, while again promoting false views of what is really going on in a neighboring country

remember the DDR – Deutsche “Demokratische” Republik in Hungarian NDK Német “Demokratikus” Köztársaság [German “Democratic” Republic]

herewith some name suggestions for the current situation in Hungary under it’s myghti lidur OV:

OdK – Orban “demokratikus” Köztársasága
OdA – Orban “demokratikus” Autokráciája
OdD – Orban “demokratikus” Diktatúrája

[Orban’s “democratic” Republic, Autocracy or Dictatorship – OdR/A/D]

jan
jan
March 17, 2022 08:31
Reply to  Ferenc
jan
jan
March 17, 2022 12:13
Reply to  István

This is surprising to me, two weeks ago, we were only one week in the war. Now it is three, and the terror of the Russians in Ukraine is now visible to everybody. There is nothing that can defend these crimes. The Viktor and his propaganda machine basically keep repeating that Ukraine can have peace when they give in to Putin, so they are the ones to blame that there is no peace.
On my way to the demonstration on Sunday, the tram was filled with elderly people who I expected to go off the tram at Széll Kálmán tér because I thought they were fideszniks going to listen to the Viktor. To my surprise they all went to the opposition demonstration. On the way back the tram filled up at Széll Kálmán tér with fideszniks with hats with OV on it, and fidesz reklám. Two ladies, middle aged, dressed up like Viktor clan fighters sat opposite to me. I was wearing a blue ribbon. I watched them for fifteen minutes, they avoided any eye contact with me or looking in my direction the whole trip. They really are fanatics, and even the biggest crimes against humanity will not change their opinion. For them, in the big SUVs, the price at the petrol station decides.

jan
jan
March 17, 2022 17:43
Reply to  István

I agree (: