I recently met a neighbor whose parents are in their 70's and going to Hungary to travel. The neighbor expressed to me that Orban's government really is fascist and that Orban and Putin are buddies and that the people of Hungary are increasingly "brainwashed" that what's happening in the Ukraine in the war that Russia started is "all the Ukrainian's fault." Further the neighbor stated that the people they know in Hungary who were all 'liberal media' have lost their jobs.
The neighbor and her parents have been warned to keep their mouths shut and get along while they travel for a month in the country. I'm sure they are mostly seeing relatives. The parents come from a family that went through World War II in that country and stories of horror are embedded in the family consciousness.
I don't see how this jives with the fact that so many Ukrainian refugees have fled the country to Poland and to Hungary (and to Canada, and the U.S.) and more per capita have been taken in by Hungarians. There is a border shared and there have long been routes into the country from Ukraine and Poland, as we know from military history. But back then the weaponry wasn't as it is today, with satellites, drones, various air vehicles, and the enormous and devastating bombs. The threat that Russia will keep on going, even if it ends up being a country in which there are few men to marry, is real.
I worry that the attitude that the brutalization of civilians blamed on "All Ukrainian's fault" is just like telling a woman whose husband beats her, that it is all her fault. If this is true, then there is also a tolerance to the violation of other's people's property, bodies, families - all of it CAN be "deserved." Bullies and Power-Over win.
I thought we ALL knew better.
As a Hungarian-American I'm most certainly living here, and have an American attitude, but one of the reasons I blog at MAGYAR AMERICAN is that I want to uphold the pride of people of Hungarian heritage and culture. I cannot be a "Hungarian Nationalist" but I can see that value. Hungary is landlocked and two thirds smaller than it was at one time and I have reasoned that Orban has been faced with the challenges that come from the country being destroyed in the past by Moslem Turks/Ottomon Empire, and other, various invasions, including the Nazi's. He has to redefine what it means to be Hungarian, and surely that is not a lackey of Russian or the Soviet Union.
The other aspect of a Hungarian thinking "It's not so bad." or "It will all work out," optimistically or hopefully or prayerfully, is that maybe they do know it is bad, that it's a treading water experience. I do believe that Putin's goal is to revive The Soviet Union" perhaps as his last great feat before he himself passes into the next world. But at what cost to the Russian people, even the Russian army, with so much loss?
Do not be deceived. It is hell on earth over there in Ukraine. One may get on with their lives numb from or unable to tolerate more bad, real news, but think again because thousands have had their lives destroyed when not even a year ago they were like you and me, just going about their business, perhaps not at all interested in politics, and also believing the world was moving to be a better place.
C Magyar American BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
