Hungary to be actively monitored by the Council of Europe
22 Dec 2013, 5:02 am
Mukherjee80 wrote:
Tequila wrote:
Quote:
Council Of Europe Turns Up The Heat On Hungary
What's going on in Hungary is extremely worrying - i.e. the government's stripping away of democratic powers, the powerful nature of the neo-fascist Jobbik and the increasingly serious and potentially explosive nature of antisemitism in the country. It seems like a very scary situation all round.
What's going on in Hungary is extremely worrying - i.e. the government's stripping away of democratic powers, the powerful nature of the neo-fascist Jobbik and the increasingly serious and potentially explosive nature of antisemitism in the country. It seems like a very scary situation all round.
As a visible minority myself, I don't see anything particularly scary in the first article you linked to, and I'm afraid I can't take your complaints about antisemitism all that seriously. I'm sure if you were to hear a news story about how the Council of Europe was monitoring some European country on account of the antipathy towards Islam being encouraged by some of its politicians, you would start complaining about how these unelected transnational bodies should keep their noses out of the business of sovereign states.
I've personally observed mild tribalism from all sorts of people, white, black and brown, but I get kind of tired of hearing the word antisemitism, to be honest. The implication behind it is that racism against Jews is so much worse than racism against any other group.
Tequila wrote:
Here's another recent article on antisemitism in Hungary:
Quote:
[url=http://hurryupharry.org/2013/04/28/hungary-and-the-“jewish-question”/]Hungary and the “Jewish question"[/url]
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is doing everything in his power to obtain legitimacy for his antidemocratic politics from the upcoming World Jewish Congress meeting in Budapest (May 5th-7th 2013).
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán is doing everything in his power to obtain legitimacy for his antidemocratic politics from the upcoming World Jewish Congress meeting in Budapest (May 5th-7th 2013).
I imagine Tequila, who is anti-EU and anti-UN, is just fine with the idea of sovereign states having to obtain legitimacy from international bodies when those international bodies have names like 'World Jewish Congress'.
Two more paragraphs from the Harry's Place article:
Quote:
... Yet how did the ambassador arrive at the figure of 100,000 Jews in Hungary? According to the Nuremberg or the Hungarian racial laws of the early 1940s? Or is anybody seriously claiming that there are 100,000 Hungarian Jews entitled to enter Israel and receive Israeli citizenship according to the Israeli law of return?
In the end it’s a question of democracy. Can the state and its rulers decide the identity of its inhabitants? Should they have the right to define who is a Jew and to draw the bounds of a Jewish minority where there was none so far? Or is the determination of one’s personal identity a basic right of the individual citizen?
In the end it’s a question of democracy. Can the state and its rulers decide the identity of its inhabitants? Should they have the right to define who is a Jew and to draw the bounds of a Jewish minority where there was none so far? Or is the determination of one’s personal identity a basic right of the individual citizen?
I just have to laugh at this. You know, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee estimates that there are 120,000 Jews in Hungary. But when a non-Jewish politician in Hungary simply repeats that number, the author wants us to view this as a shocking reflection of that country's lack of democracy.
By the way, and as the author virtually admits, the state of Israel assumes the right to decide who is a Jew and who is not (to a far greater extent than Hungary does), but the author clearly has no problem with that. (Of course, the author does not go into detail regarding Israel's methods, eg, DNA testing of new immigrants for racial purity - if he did, even the most gullible of readers might start to ask questions.)
Tequila wrote:
Hungary's problems stem considerably wider than a prevalent hatred of Jews and other minorities. What Orbán's government is doing should worry any freedom-loving democrat.
Can I just add that 'freedom-loving democrat' sounds like the sort of thing George W Bush might have called himself while planning one of his military adventures.
Just so you know, what you wrote is ridiculous. Go read on what is going on in Hungary.
