Nationalist Responses to the Crises in Europe by Cathrine Thorleifsson

Author:Cathrine Thorleifsson [Thorleifsson, Cathrine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367585068
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2020-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Imagining enemies

In October 2015, when I conducted fieldwork, the inflow of migrants to Hungary had ceased, yet at the same time the anti-immigration campaigns were in force. After interviewing numerous Jobbik members of the Hungarian parliament, I attended a Jobbik event where I managed to get deeper access to the party.

It is a rainy and windy October evening. Jobbik is arranging a forum on migration in Haller Street. I’m running to catch the event on time, having spent the preceding hour in the Holocaust museum located a few blocks up, to catch the meeting that starts at six. The door is covered in frosted glass, with the map of Greater Hungary imprinted. A soft light filters through the logo. The white-painted room of around 40 square metres is heavily decorated with nationalist symbols. A flag in red-white-green tricolour and a hole in the middle, commemorating the 1956 uprising against communism, is placed next to the entrance door. Jobbik’s flags are attached ahead on the opposing wall. The Jobbik logo is an adaptation of the Hungarian flag that has been warped from the centre to form a circle onto which a white Christian cross taken from the Hungarian coat of arms has been superimposed. Earlier adopters of the Arpad stripes were Hungary’s Arrow Cross, Hitler’s most reliable partner. Like other radical nationalist parties and movements in Europe, Jobbik appropriates symbols, myths and terminology of a fascist past in the iconic representation of self and others. In addition to old symbols used by the interwar fascists, Jobbik uses pagan symbols like the Turul bird, a symbolic creature that figures in ancient Hungarian mythology, intended to invoke a pre-Christian, ethnically pure Hungarian past. The ultra-nationalist politicians have looked backwards and restored the past in their creative fusing of symbols. Such symbols expose a particular vision of the nation and invent historical continuity between the past and the present.

Indoors, around 20 Jobbik members and supporters have gathered. I count nine women and 11 men. While it is evident that Jobbik has managed to target the Hungarian youth, the supporters present are predominantly middle aged. A few people have gathered at the back of the room, serving themselves from a fruit platter while paging through Barikád, the party magazine that has a monthly circulation of over 10,000. The front page depicts a military vehicle wrapped in international newspaper, from the German papers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine, to The New York Times and the Daily Mirror, firing at a map of Hungary attached to a shooting target. The headline reads ‘The Line of Fire’, followed by the lines ‘an internationally coordinated campaign going on against Hungary’, reflecting the perception that Hungary is under attack by the international community.

For a political party that depicts liberalism and multiculturalism as key enemies and emphasizes links to the East, it is keenly aware of the Western response to the illiberal turn in Hungary. There has been widespread international condemnation of Hungary’s harsh response to the refugee crisis, rejecting the quota proposal as well as erecting fences along the country’s border with Serbia and Slovenia.

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