Orbán: “The real threat is from the heart of Africa”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has given another hard-hitting speech on the threat posed by multiculturalism and immigration to the future of European nations. Speaking at his Fidesz party’s summer student camp, the Hungarian leader argued that African immigration was an existential threat to European nationhood and civilization. He also denounced international complicity through silence and censorship in the crimes committed by immigrants, particularly citing the ongoing Swedish rape crisis. The speech, while given some coverage in mainstream media, merits closer examination.

Orbán clearly revels in slaughtering the sacred cows of political correctness, joking at the beginning of the speech that he had been looking for something which “representatives of today’s western ideological mainstream could find sufficiently offensive.” (Last year, that was his concept of “illiberal democracy.”)

Orbán notes a number of incredible events in recent years: Europe’s inability to stop a continuous wave of African and Muslim migrants, proposals to transform French churches into mosques, the United States’ systematic spying on European leaders, and these same leaders continuing to cozy up with Washington despite this.

In all this, Orbán recognizes contemporary immigration as an event of epochal significance:

At times there are phenomena which enable us to understand a given era, and which encapsulate its essence. In our lifetimes, modern mass migration is just such a phenomenon. Looking through this window, we can see the whole world. It is by this that the world is framed, and it is through this that we can understand where we are and what awaits us.

Orbán recognizes immigration as a fatal trend that is a political choice and not an inevitability:

Let us speak plainly: the intensification of modern-day mass migration is a consequence of political processes. The countries of North Africa once functioned as a defence zone protecting Europe, absorbing the masses of people coming from Africa’s interior. And the real threat is not from the war zones, Ladies and Gentlemen, but from the heart of Africa. . . . There are one point one billion people in Africa today, more than half of them under the age of twenty-five. . . . In other words, what is at stake today is Europe and the European way of life, the survival or extinction of European values and nations – or, to be more precise, their transformation beyond all recognition. The question now is not merely what kind of Europe we Hungarians would like to live in, but whether Europe as we now know it will survive at all. Our answer is clear: we would like Europe to remain the continent of Europeans. [. . .] We can say we want it, because it depends only on us: we want to preserve Hungary as a Hungarian country.

The prime minister could have further hammered home the point by citing United Nations statistics forecasting that the African population will rise to over 4 billion this century, almost half of humanity:

Orbán recognizes the destruction of nationhood as a long-term project of the internationalist left, without mentioning Jewish influence, to be achieved notably through displacement-level non-European immigration:

The European left, dear friends, do not see immigration as a source of danger, but as an opportunity. The left has always looked upon nations and national identity with suspicion. They believe (and take note of their choice of words) that the escalation of immigration may fatally weaken – indeed eliminate – national borders, and in historical terms this would also constitute the attainment of the left’s as yet unimaginable long-term goal.

For Orbán, as with many Central-Eastern Europeans, French multiculturalism is a byword for failure. He claims that the Hungarian left would have turned his country into “a refugee camp, a kind of Central European Marseille.”

Orbán argues that immigration has been enabled by “the West’s human rights fundamentalism” (a similar concept to pathological altruism). He condemns the European Union as an ineffective non-sovereign with “ideological obsession” of opposition to the the nation-state. He opposes a “United States of Europe,” claiming national diversity makes this impossible, saying: “We Hungarians are Europe’s Gaullists.”

Orbán wants to steer clear of the “experiment” of multiculturalism embarked upon the by the Westerners:

Over the past thirty years several European countries have decided to welcome masses of people coming from places with different civilisational roots. I do not believe we should pass judgment on this experiment; in fact I think we should not even allow ourselves to state our view on the outcome of this experiment. All we can say – but we have to say it firmly, having seen the results elsewhere – is that we do not want to repeat this experiment on our country; this is something that we have the right to say.

Orbán goes on to link illegal immigration to the spread of terrorism, unemployment, and crime. On the latter, Orbán is particularly powerful, denouncing Western and leftist complicity in the Swedish rape crisis, not unlike in the case of Rotherham:

And finally let us also mention a subject upon which political correctness in Europe has enforced a guilt-ridden silence. According to police statistics in western countries, those states with large numbers of illegal immigrants experience dramatic increases in crime, with a proportionate decrease in public safety. Let me cite a few examples as food for thought. According to UN statistics – not statistics from the Hungarian government, but from the United Nations – Sweden is second only to the southern African state of Lesotho in terms of figures for rape. According to a 2013 British parliamentary report, the number of Muslims in British prisons has tripled over the last fifteen years. In Italy, one quarter of crimes in 2012 were committed by immigrants. And the list goes on.

Orbán concludes:

In summary therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, we can say that illegal immigration is equally a threat to Hungary and to Europe. It is a threat to our common values and to our culture, and even to our diversity. It is a threat to the security of European people – a threat which undermines our ability to cement our economic achievements.

No doubt some Hungarian comrades will tell us that Orbán’s words are just for show and that he remains a corrupt and opportunistic politician. But actually acknowledging a problem, from the highest levels of the state, already makes an enormous difference in terms of public discourse. If a problem becomes widely-acknowledged by leading politicians and media, this paves the way through discussion and public awareness to the preparation of practical solutions. Indeed, many globalists have complained that Orbán has raised awareness surrounding immigration problems — notably through public consultation, e.g. a recently sent-out questionnaire asking citizens’ opinion on the matter!! Citizen input on immigration and multiculturalism is avoided at all costs by EU bureaucrats, and for good reason. Few would deny that this “populist” appeal against immigration has strongly resonated with public opinion.

Orbán has already taken some practical actions. The economy has been significantly re-nationalized, namely through the nationalization of strategic assets and a ban on retail loans in foreign currency, giving his government greater independence to pursue pro-Hungarian policies. On immigration, billboards have been put up warning migrants against taking Hungarian jobs or breaking Hungarian laws, the construction of four-meter high fence on the 175-kilometer border with Serbia is planned, and the government refused to accept any of the 33,000 migrants currently being redistributed by the European Commission. In all this, Orbán has faced significant censure and opposition from foreign media, the left, and the EU.

Finally, it is worth noting that Orbán’s Fidesz party had been a mainstream Christian-Democratic party and, despite its radicalization, continues to sit in the mainstream center-right caucus at EU level. This shows that a change of discourse and policy is possible in Europe, if the will is there.