THE GUARDIAN Column: “Most Gypsies are not suitable for cohabitation. They are not suitable for being among people. Most are animals, and behave like animals. They shouldn’t be tolerated or understood, but stamped out. Animals should not exist. In no way.” Zsolt Bayer, Magyar Hirlap, 5 January 2013
Zsolt Bayer, one of the founders of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party and personal friend of prime minister Viktor Orbán, has been saying this kind of thing in public for many years. How has it become acceptable to openly express such sentiments in a European country? Especially a country which played so prominent a role in the 1944-45 Holocaust?
Bayer effectively represents a “closed circle” – a central committee of inner Fidesz confidantes. Their takeover of the withered Hungarian state apparatus has been accompanied by widespread gerrymandering of public contracts and an insular, insider culture which aims to concentrate resources in the hands of a select few. By forming alliances with the most powerful players in domestic capital the Fidesz elites engage in a direct power-play, developing personal fortunes through land ownership to create an aristocratic, feudalistic bourgeoisie, with a fairly small middle-class clustered in the service sector… (more)
EDITOR: The Fidesz Pary won a two-thirds majority in a national election due to public revulsion with the corruption of its predecessor. The super majority eneabled them to revise the nation’s constitution and by doing so Fidesz entrenched itself and the autocracy it represents in virtual perpetual power. The country is undergoing a stunning decline and the European Union is besides itself as to what it can do.
