On the one hand, we see the pro-migration forces continue their relentless drive to push for more immigration and denigrate anyone who dares to oppose them. On the other hand, we see the battle lines being drawn in the conflict between globalists and nationalists and, in particular, a clear picture of who stands where.
Speaking on Kossuth Rádió’s program Good Morning Hungary last Friday morning, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the reason Brussels continues to produce “at full steam” more immigration plans is that “after the EP elections, there might be an anti-migration majority on the continent.”
“It’s like a collection of horror stories for the Hungarian people,” PM Orbán said about the liberal EU elite’s latest list of proposals. The list features - among other things – a permanent pro-migration program, opening up new avenues for legal immigration, experimental migration deals with African countries and a so-called “humanitarian visa”.
These plans, according to the prime minister, don’t mention border protection, instead they talk about border management. “The phrase border protection means that there is a border that we should protect, while the word border management means that there is a border, and we have to find a way through it,” the prime minister explained.
This confrontation between globalists and nationalists, while it may not always be visible in Hungary because of the wounded state of the Hungarian opposition, is a global phenomenon. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó, in his extensive travels over the last several days, saw plenty of the back and forth.
Just last week, in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Minister Szijjártó defended Hungary’s well-established policy to preserve the country’s Christian heritage. “We have been a Christian country for a millennium,” Szijjártó said responding to Amanpour trying to get to the bottom of why Hungary wants to remain Christian, “and I don’t really understand why it is bad news that we don’t want to change that.”
“We never judged other countries that have different kinds of policies. We never judged countries who said that multiculturalism is more valuable than a homogeneous society, for example,” he said, slamming the reporter’s claim that anyone “other than white Christians” would be denied entry. The CNN reporter was at pains to understand how a sovereign, independent country would dare to stand fast to preserve its national identity.
A few days ago, French Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau voiced her criticism of PM Orbán’s government in an interview with French magazine L’Obs. She said that a fight must be taken up against the Hungarian government because Hungary is on the wrong path and Europe’s radicals must be stopped. Minister Szijjártó responded:
“The government will not retreat and it will make every effort to protect Hungary’s security,” the foreign minister said in a statement adding that the French government seems to think that concepts like security, border protection and Christian culture are outdated while Hungarians, on the other hand, insist on them and do not wish to “rush into an abyss where the so-called progressives are headed."
It’s not easy holding firm on these positions. The liberals who lead the pro-migration agenda and their globalist allies enjoy, as the prime minister said, massive financial and media backing. Hungary’s insistence that the voice of Europe’s citizens must be heard and our determination to affirm the Christian heritage of our culture and national identity runs hard against the grain.
But as Prime Minister Orbán is fond of reminding us: dare to dream big. We must dare to take on the biggest challenges.
Last week, during my visit to Washington, we could see signs of a growing understanding of Hungary’s policies. What I heard, increasingly, is that they do not contest Hungary’s right, based on our sovereignty and our treaty obligations, to defend the border of Europe.
And we also see a growing insistence that, as the US president has said, some kind of world government is out of the question, that nobody is asking for this globalist approach. Instead, we see growing support to maintain and urge states to make decisions based on their own sovereignty, for example, when it comes to illegal immigration or issues affecting the functioning of states.
We fully expect to meet more resistance, especially as the European Parliament elections approach, but it’s also clear that today we do not stand alone.