As is usual, the Hungarian Prime Minister once again confused the heads of his already confused opponents with races and other things, thus starting the liberal scream phrase.
It is well known that the tone of the Bálványosi Free University is much more informal than that of a domestic or international press conference, and it can be seen that the familiar atmosphere is to the liking of both the audience and Viktor Orbán. For this reason, what was said at the Tusnádfürdő is noted with a thicker pen than his other formal speeches. However, last Saturday's speech came into the focus of attention for two other reasons: on the one hand, due to the intense international situation, and on the other hand, due to the two-year absence due to the epidemic.
And on the day after the speech, the post-liberal (sorry!) indignations that could hardly be accused of sophistication arrived as scheduled.
Mária Vásárhelyi believed that
"perhaps it's not even the greatest villainy that Orbán says (of course it is), but the fact that he himself knows exactly how absurd it is to talk about "mixed race" ... he wants to address the most uneducated, most aggressive, blood nationalists, who like it when you are talking about a racial issue if you call Hungarians a race and encourage them to unite within the race".
"who is of European race and who is not, this should be clarified quickly"
"There's no way I'd mess with you and your 'kind'… Never…"
According to György Balavány, it is Nazi speech to say what Orbán said, indicating that:
»the saying of the internationalist left, according to which peoples of mixed races live in Europe and the continent is a world of mixed races, is a lie. We are not of mixed race, but peoples within Europe may be mixed. We are willing to mix with each other, but we don't want to become a mixed race.«
András Schiffer was a bit more permissive , he said:
"We can and must talk about the coexistence of cultures, the mixing of cultures, and the preservation of cultures freely, without political restrictions. The human race, on the other hand, is one and indivisible."
As the mouthpiece of István Ujhelyi, 444 complained that the English summary of the speech sent to the EP representatives omitted the part that "people of European race should not mix with people of other races, and the time may come when people of non-European origin will be must also be stopped at the Hungarian border, if they are EU citizens anyway".
According to this, neither Ujhelyi nor 444 can distinguish between the concepts of "summary" and "transcript".
But what exactly happened? Apart from that, of course, for the intellectual (?) cream (?) of the opposition, listening to a Prime Minister's speech is the highest degree of achievement, and the interpretation beyond that is already beyond their abilities.
However, Orbán did not sell sackcloth, during his speech he also recommended two volumes, the novel by the French Jean Raspail: Camp of the Saints the analysis by the Hungarian George Friedman: Storm before the silence
Now, maybe it's my fault, but I believe that if someone spends his days as a politician, political journalist, or political analyst, and considers one of these great activities his profession, so much so that he might even scratch it on his business card, then
the minimum requirement is that you read or at least glance at the literature necessary for your work.
Especially if you want to get a grip on a speech that makes clear recommendations.
If the "independent" press and "liberal intellectuals", in Hungarian, the mentally homeless, had done this, they would have recognized that the "race theory" part of Orbán's speech was an adaptation of Jean Raspail's thought - it is certain, what is certain, I write here that the the concept of adaptation should not be confused with that of plagiarism - this idea can be read in the author's foreword for the 2011 edition of the volume.
Of course, it can still be added to this that Raspail, who died two years ago, was a far-right fascist-racist rabble-rouser, except that the author himself is Éric Besson - who was born in Morocco to a Lebanese mother and a French father, and then grew up there until the age of 18, not to mention immigration , integration, minister of national (!) identity in the second Fillon government - he reflected on his 2010 speech. For Besson was able to declare that
"France is not a people, not a language, a territory or a religion, but a conglomeration of peoples who want to live together. There is no deep-rooted French, only the mixed races .”
Raspail answered this in his preface:
" Race mixing, mixture, mixed-race France... This innovative historical-semantic blindness has had its effect. It confuses things in a cheeky way , since it is a fact that from countries outside of Europe, in the best case - if I may say so - goes back only fifty years. It is true that France is made up of Franks, Burgundians, Vikings, Visigoths, Germans, then Alsatians, Basques, Catalans, and Jews from Alsace, Lorraine and Venaissin, Corsicans, Flemings, Bretons, Provençals, Scots, Savoys, Occitans, and finally Italians , the product of a great and blessed mixture of Spaniards, Poles and Portuguese, all fused in a Gallo-Roman sauce, but it was Europe that invited itself into its home. Nothing but Europe! Well, they are the deep-rooted French! Since this process has been going on, this means a lot of people, but there is no factor on the basis of which - under the pretext that they are multi-colored - as mixed race and thereby justify the true race mixing, the definition of which reads as follows: crossbreeding, different races mixing ."
But to further complicate the situation, we cannot ignore the fact that Raspail was a thoroughly French Pali, and consequently wrote his texts in French.
And in order to understand what he is saying, we need to know French - unlike us, the people of Mucsa, you, dear progressives, obviously do - and if we don't, we need to use the help of a translator. For the sake of simplicity and convenience , I quote one here to highlight the challenges of translations, in our case the difficulties caused by the race , which is used in both French and English. It will be a bit long, but the explanation is so complex that it has to be quoted in its entirety:
race in the text into Hungarian needs an explanation. , the English (or French) race cannot exactly correspond to its Hungarian versions: rassz és faj .
the equivalent of the English species race means the lower-order subspecies are defined. The human races were scientifically categorized and systematized by 19th century physical anthropology primarily in the so-called based on morphological features, external physical appearance and partly genetic studies. However, these racial categories have now become scientifically obsolete due to their arbitrariness, essentialization, the canonizing effect of aesthetic and religious ideas, their content expressing an implicit Eurocentric and power hierarchy, and they are difficult to reconcile with modern gene profiles.
, the English race spread along the genealogical-evolutionary trends of Darwinism, endowed with cultural, civilizational, geopolitical and geographical meanings; the concept of Hungarian race , on the other hand, race has always retained its narrower biological meaning. While he is an imperialist who plays a leading role in global colonialism
in the case of the British race was much more closely linked to the ideologies of racial hierarchies, while in the Hungarian discourse race or national race , in comparison with the presence of racial hierarchy, was more closely associated with the concepts of nation(ness) , national spirit and national culture and landscape
and was more associated with ethnic identities on a regional scale than the British meaning or expression on a more global scale.
In the international literature, race has undergone constant socio-critical meaning changes (especially as a result of Afro-Asian decolonization and post-colonial criticism), but in the Hungarian context with a different social history, such a critical reinterpretation did not really take place, so since 1945, race has been old-fashioned (anachronistic ) and it carries the curse of racial theories. That is why the contradiction arose that although
a race species with a richer meaning , yet it is neglected due to its negative connotations and only its narrow biological meaning is recognized, and race simply race (both are correct), although the much narrower biological meaning of the latter does not reflect the meanings of English expressions
– meanwhile, the race and race remained undisputed.
This, in turn, creates several contradictions: racism is a common term, while race theory or race hatred old meaning of race has survived in this form race theory ), even though in a purely biological view there is only one human race .
the terms race and racial origin or identity different human species .
In terms of source criticism, the translation of the term race faj is therefore based on historical contextual reasons, race is founded in a scientific sense; in the text I use both accordingly."
So, in summary:
It was given by a deep-rooted French guy named Jean Raspail, whose novel published in French in 1973 became a self-fulfilling prophecy over the decades. For the 2011, also French edition, Raspail wrote an author's foreword in which he quoted the non-rooted French minister of immigration, and then responded to the thoughts of the Moroccan-born, half-Lebanese Besson. The novel was recently translated into Hungarian, proofread, and then proofread and edited again. Viktor Orbán read it, interpreted what he read in the author's preface, drew his own conclusions from it, and then adapted it to a single short part of his speech at the Bálványosi Free University in 2022. The post-liberal Hungarian intellectuals were outraged by this and labeled the Hungarian Prime Minister a Nazi.
I don't know what's wrong with him, but all this reminds me of the one-time man known from the Hofi joke, who explained the concept of logic to his comrade like this: If you have an aquarium, you're a b@zi.
And they look down on us. Hmmm… if it wasn't so pathetic, it might even be fun.
Featured image: In the image published by the Prime Minister's Press Office, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gives a lecture at the 31st Bálványosi Summer Free University and Student Camp at Tusnádfürdő in Transylvania on July 23, 2022. MTI/Prime Minister's Press Office/Benko Vivien Cher
