Author: Karl Pfeifer | Date: October 2007

Hungary: Rightwing militia prepares to fight ‘Satan’ government

Jewish, Gypsy and gay organisations have condemned the formation of a militia by a rightwing extremist party. Jobbik says it set up the Magyar Garda (Hungarian Guard) because Hungary lacks any “physical, mental or spiritual self-defence”, but there is concern that it could presage a fascist coup.

An initiation ceremony was held for the first 56 members at Buda Castle in Budapest, seat of the Hungarian President, on 25 August. They were sworn in by Lajos Für, a former Defence Minister who left the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) in 1996.

Jobbik, which was founded by students in 1999, presented a common election candidates’ list last year with another extreme-right party, the Hungarian Justice and Life Party (MIÉP) led by István Csurka. They received only 2.2% of the vote, well below the 5% threshold to enter parliament.

The ruling Hungarian Socialist Party and its junior coalition partner, the Alliance of Free Democrats, condemned the militia’s formation, as did the MDF, which expressed shock at Für’s participation and declared that the militia’s sole aim is to threaten peace. Jobbik systematically incites hatred against Jews, Gypsies and gays as well as against Slovaks, Romanian and Serbs.

Mazsihisz (the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary), the World Jewish Congress and the European Jewish Congress have appealed to the Hungarian government to act against the MG. Mazsihisz hopes the government will find a constitutional way of banning it and similar groups to “guarantee a peaceful life for Hungarian Jewry and every Hungarian resident”. The Council of Hungarian Gypsies and the Organisation of Hungarian Homosexuals have also protested.

Not surprisingly the right-wing opposition party Fidesz and its Christian Democrat allies have not condemned the MG. During last year’s election, they formed a common slate with Jobbik in 81 localities. Such a coalition is now running the central Fifth District of Budapest.

Mária Wittner, a Fidesz MP, made a warm speech of welcome at the inauguration, praising the recruits as men “who are worried about their homeland” being sworn in against the “Satan that is the present government and 50 years of communism”.

Among the 4,000 people watching the ceremony were another nazi group wearing a uniform similar to the one worn by the wartime Arrow Cross, which supported Nazi Germany. Hundreds of police separated the crowd from a counter-demonstration by the Anti-Fascist League. When anti-fascists raised a banner depicting a swastika being thrown into a dustbin, the police intervened immediately. The swastika is illegal as are the Arrow Cross symbol and the communist five-pointed red star.

The recruits wore black uniforms and black caps and have chosen as their emblem a variation on the red and white Árpád stripes, a medieval flag adopted by the Arrow Cross, which governed Hungary from 15 October 1944 until liberation by the Red Army in spring 1945. Gábor Vona, leader of Jobbikk, claims the MG chose black simply because “that was the one we liked best”.

More than 450,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz by Admiral Horthy’s regime after the Germans occupied Hungary on 19 March 1944. Few survived. The Arrow Cross continued the butchery by lining up thousands of Jews on the banks of the Danube and shooting them. Jobbik members demonstrating against a gay event recently showed their twisted pride in this episode by shouting “Homosexuals into the Danube, the Jews straight afterwards”. Shouts of “Jews to the Danube” were also heard at the MG initiation.

Representatives of Hungary’s three major Christian denominations blessed the militia’s flag. The Catholic Church has taken no action over the presence of its priest, Ferenc Dévényi, nor has the Evangelical Church condemned Vilma Bálintné Varsányi’s participation. Only the Reformed Church and the Hungarian Defence Ministry are to take action against Tamás Csuka, who was in charge of all reform clergymen in the Hungarian Army.

It is shameful that Fidesz and the Christian Democrats associate with the likes of Jobbik and the MG. It is also a shameful that the Socialist-Liberal coalition, which has held office for five years, merely whinges about the law but does nothing to change it to stamp out nazi activities that are already expressly forbidden by the 1947 Paris peace treaty.

The far right is now cranking up the tension. Jobbik has maintained a frantic level of activity in the past year, leading mobs of criminal riff-raff in anti-government disturbances last autumn, especially on 23 October, and this year on 15 March, both national holidays, in which police officers were violently attacked and arson and robbery were committed. The nazi website Hunhir informed its readers that “a big demonstration” against the “genocidal” Socialist-Liberal government was planned for September. The violence is a particular concern in view of Jobbik’s belief that the coalition “should not be able to finish its term”, which ends in 2010.

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