NATO wants to close Hungary behind an iron curtain, says this Declaration of the Hungarian Community for Peace (Magyar Békekör).
Budapest. (Pablo Gonzalez/Flickr)
DECLARATION OF THE HUNGARIAN COMMUNITY FOR PEACE
By Simó Endre
Magyar Békekör
NATO and the European Union have launched a coordinated political attack on Hungary to end our cooperation with China and Russia.
They want Hungary to terminate the agreement with Russia on the expansion of the Paks nuclear power plant, and with China on the construction of the Belgrade-Budapest railway line and the establishment of Fudan University in Hungary.
The Western system of alliance, of which our country is a member, requires us to cut the threads to the East and fully submit ourselves to the will of NATO. Their attack is hidden under the guise of defending democracy. They claim that they are worried about the fate of liberties and human rights in Hungary. No doubt there are problems with these back home! Not a little!
But there can hardly be any doubt that the cause of the problems is not to be found in the building with the East of relations and cooperation based on mutual benefits. The West fears that the Hungarian example may become catchy, and it turns out that opening up to the East will bring enormous benefits, including the protection of lives. See curbing the epidemic with oriental vaccines!
They complain that the power does not turn the people against the Russians and the Chinese, as do the Poles, Czechs, Romanians and Baltics. They complain that we are ready to restore diplomatic relations with Syria. Most importantly, they complain that we are vetoing Ukraine’s integration into NATO. While they fear democracy in Hungary, they pact with Nazis in Ukraine.
No criticism has been made of the law passed on July 1, which subdivides Ukraine into subordinate and superior ethnic groups and serves as a legal basis for the deprivation of the rights of peoples, nations and national minorities declared not to be indigenous. According to the law, the Hungarian, Ruthenian, Russian, Polish, Romanian and many other minorities that make up Ukraine are no longer considered native.
If NATO’s real goal was to protect freedoms and human rights, it would not support an Ukraine that crushes them! But since this is not the goal, but the use and exploitation of Ukraine against Russia, it turns its back on its own declared values, and it also unites with Ukrainian extremists in the spirit of the policy of goal sanctifies the tool.
Not only does it expose our Hungarians living in Ukraine to atrocities, but it also endangers the peace and security of Hungary with the rearmament of Ukraine, its joint military exercises, and its series of provocations around Crimea.
According to the creed of the Hungarian Peace Community, Hungary must live in peace and in good relations with both East and West. We consider a doubtful ally to be one who does not support but hinders us in this matter of destiny for the survival of our nation.
The Hungarian Peace Community proclaims the friendship and peaceful coexistence of peoples. We want equal, mutually respectful, mutually beneficial cooperation with the East, not a Western Iron Curtain with the East!
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
In a nutshell: the truth. Thank you.
Thank you for once again exposing NATO and the European Union for what they really are.The danger though is that these double standards if they are not stopped,endanger not only the unity of the European Union but regional and International security. Therefore it means Statesmen wherever they may be in Europe should come out and prevail over those short sighted leaders in Europe today.
Thanks to the author of this article and to Consortium News for sharing it. It is an articulate revelation of the total hypocrisy of U.S.foreign policy and it junior partners in the E.U. The U.S. claim to be a “defender and proponent of democracy” is one of the biggest lies ever told. The truth is that it is the world’s leading destroyer of democracy. I won’t bother with a readily recalled list of countries in which the U.S. has done destroyed duly elected democratic governments in order to install a corrupt regime which is willing to follow U.S. orders. I wish Hungary good luck and best wishes. I hope that the people are successful in building alliances with countries which, unlike the U.S., deals with her in good faith and that those alliances produce results which are in the best interests of the people of Hungary. We can also hope and dream that at some time in the future such a government may exist in the U.S. and that our resources will then be used to benefit the people rather than being stolen by the thieves who now run this Country.
BRUSSELS, 6. MAR 2017, 12:54
[UPDATED on Monday at 17.10] The European Commission on Monday (6 March) gave the final green light to Hungary’s controversial extension of the Paks nuclear plant, which is being financed and built by Russia.
In a probe that opened in 2015, the EU commission looked into whether the construction of two new nuclear reactors in Paks had received illegal state aid.
I did not find news on Paks nuclear plant other than Belarus negotiated to get financing of their own nuclear plants that would be as favorable as the financing that Hungary got. My impression is that it is very hard to stop the project if the national government has the nerve to resist “political pressure”, however coordinated. I would guess it is the same with the railroad.
Calling Hungary a “democracy” is a joke. According to an article by the prominent Hungarian economist János Kornai from 2016, “Hungary’s U-Turn: Retreating from Democracy”, by Janos Kornai, Journal of Democracy Volume 26, Number 3 July 2015, in Hungary the basic institutions of the rule of law have been abolished or weakened. Hungary’s new constitution, called the Fundamental Law, was drafted by a small group within Fidesz without any wide public discussion.
Fidesz leaders had put their own people in charge of all the state-run television channels and radio stations. The government has now set up a near-monopoly school textbook publishing house.
A return to an earlier ideological past—a revival of the official ideas of the Horthy period (1920-44)—seems to be under way.” Private owners of banks, energy companies, transportation, media, and advertising, were made to feel that their only option was to sell their property to the state, and at a price well below the market value. Schools and hospitals are no longer run by local authorities, but rather by the central government. … Increasingly, questions are decided at the highest level. There is methodical harassment of civil society.
However, Hungary differs from usual contemporary capitalism, where a capitalist oligarchy captures the state. “This is not a case of “state capture” carried out by oligarchs in order to establish regulations and pass measures in their own interest. Rather, it is the state that is in command. Orban and his inner circle decide who should become or remain an oligarch, and how far that oligarch’s sphere of authority should extend. Something similar takes place at lower levels. Market forces are overridden by political considerations.
The belief that Hungarians support what is happening is reinforced by the official propaganda. In the last election in 2014, only every fourth person entitled to vote cast his or her ballot for Fidesz. Fidesz’ supermajority enables it to change electoral laws.
The many modifications made to the electoral law were intended to favor a Fidesz victory, or rather to make it a near certainty. In the event that it fails to win a parliamentary majority, the 32 cardinal laws can be modified only by a two-thirds parliamentary majority. The terms of many key officials—notably, the chief prosecutor, the president of the republic, and the heads of the central bank, audit office, and judiciary—extend beyond the current parliamentary cycle; they can all sit tight, even if the opposition wins.
Viktor Orbán was corrupted by power and he converted his supermajority into a means to establish a personal dictatorship that resembles the fascist Horthy tyranny of the 1930s and 1940s, but also resembles communist overcentralization.
[Népszabadság, Hungary’s biggest newspaper, was suddenly closed by its owner Mediaworks on 8 October 2016, presumably as a result of intrigues of the Viktor Orbán régime. hXXps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%A9pszabads%C3%A1g]
Education, the health service and disaster protection will be wholly the responsibility of the central government. Most local services of state administration have been merged into the county-level government offices. County officials are appointed by the prime minister. The wife of one of the most influential men in Fidesz decides personally on the appointment and promotion of judges. She determines which cases shall be tried by which court.
website: www(dot)kornai-janos(dot)hu.
Bio of János Kornai: hXXps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1nos_Kornai
“Hungarian octopus: The post-communist mafia state” [Magyar polip—a posztkommunista maffiaallam], 2 vols. (Budapest: Noran Libro, 2013, 2014), contains essays by eminent Hungarian experts.”
This declaration was not about democracy in Hungary but rather NATO interference in its relations with Russia and China.
The author claimed that Hungary is a democracy. He thus implied that Orban’s pro-Russian and pro-Chinese policy is supported by the Hungarian people, and consequently that NATO is trying to supress democratically decided policies. I myself do not know how much support these policies have on the part of Hungarians. But it is certain that these policies were not democratically decided. Therefore, whatever one’s opinion of NATO pressures, it is false to claim that these pressures tend to oppose Hungarian democracy.
Problem solved then! If it’s not a democracy, it can’t be a member of NATO or the EU, right?
Hungary should declare itself neutral like Switzerland and get out of both Nato and the EU. The benefits that would accrue from this would be enormous. Hungary could encourage white collar type businesses like banking and the manufacture of fine high value products like Switzerland. Hungary has a tremendous engineering background and a highly educated population so the potential to become another Switzerland is high. Trading with everyone and forming no alliances should be the goal of the Hungarian government.
Such goes the Empire and Oligarchs. Tearing down walls that aggression erected was hailed as ‘freedom’ while in reality the rural towns suffered loss of their youth to the false promises of the cities (yeah, and some greater intensities that act as a narcotic to cover-up the growing despair and anxieties over the lack of real creative intensities). The life that had been made easier than the generations before WWII and the fascist occupations had been starved by the same imperial and oligarchic powers into minimal gain. The promises of ‘freedom’ were hollow. The elders of the villages could tell you that – mechanization, health care, social services replaced the remnants of feudal farming. The war torn cities and towns were rebuilt, churches were refreshed and remained important to community life, and the rural people had greater security than ever before. Now it has changed. The viciousness of the West shows its true colors.
NATO has long since passed its “pull date”. The Communist threat is long gone, so what is the excuse? There is absolutely no reason why it should exist except to feather the beds of western arms manufacturers.
Very well said. There’s no reason to make enemies and break off cooperation at the behest of the Evil Empire (or at anyone’s behest). It’s a good thing the Evil Empire (i.e., the US government and its minions) is getting more and more incompetent.
If only there were more people like this in the rest of the “European Union”, which kowtows to the USA and emphasises the idea and actions of treating Russia and China as enemies, not trying to cooperate. Russia is ready to cooperate but is “sanctioned” and shut out as a threat, while being hemmed in by NATO, even having ships floating around the Black Sea in “innocent discovery!” China manages to cooperate with so many other countries to their mutual benefit, but is slammed on ridiculous charges of genocide by the king of destruction, the USA, with its sidekicks giving up their sovereignty to follow its dangerous lead.
Peaceful co-existence is one thing, new nuclear power plants and facilitating China’s Belt and Road initiative to strangle the globe are another. NATO is certainly evil. Hungary should become self-sufficient, regenerative, and stop co-operating with totalitarian China.
To strangle the globe? It’s the IMF and the World Bank that try to strangle the developing world with onerous loans and austerity. The Chinese just want to trade. I suggest you take a good, long, critical look at your sources of your information.
Of course, you are right about who is doing the strangling right now. Were you aware that the Chinese have devastated the ecology of their own country? Where to go now is their question… “The Chinese just want to trade.” What was your information source for that blooper? Think Emperor Xi is your friend?
“New nuclear power plants” are OK to NATO and EU if they are build by Westinghouse or AREVA which needs twice more time and money. Rejecting nuclear power is rejecting the main avenue to the reduction of carbon emissions.
Similarly, China was OK providing millions of well disciplined workers to fill the orders from Western companies, but now they dare to offer products totally of their own? Nasty totalitarians! Why they cannot be nice cute totalitarians like Gulf despots?
Finally, “self-sufficient, regenerative” advise in this context is pure blather. Goods have to be moved, either by belching trucks or electrified railroads using non-carbon electricity. E.g. trains waiting for the wind to blow…
Well, they are about the nastiest totalitarians you could hope for, and Han Supremacists. Ask the Tibetans. Or, the residents of Hong Kong, the Taiwanese… Not that the West is better…we just do it differently.
As to the pure blather. Have you noticed the state of the world lately, that not on fire or flooding or in long term drought? But, there is no alternative to the devastation produced by capitalism? Sure, we can keep it up a bit longer, til there is no going back…
Do you think we waste any electric power on foolish undertakings? Were we to save, use only for what is really needed and worthwhile, nuclear power wouldn’t be needed. We won’t, of course, and the plants will be built. Then new need will arise, requiring new plants… And, the waste will have to be shipped off to the third world.