Hungary, what you've done to your Jews? You lured them into your high culture and made them believe and trust you, and once they were feeling the exemplary citizens of your empire, you gather them and send them to death...
For many post-Communist years, I noticed how Hungary changed from a promise of freedom and democracy into a brown nightmare. Me, among many others, I was naive enough to strongly believe that Hungary makes a difference among its neighbours and cannot be so vilan, rude and backwarded to end up how everything started, many decades ago: with creating 'guards', attacking physically and verbally its citizens of other religious and ethnic origin. My last visit in Budapest showed me how much things changed for worse, after many bad years before: few of my Jewish friends and aquaintances that are still in the country prefer to 'keep quiet' and assimilate, as they did for years. Those who are brave enough to do not deny their origins are often the target of various incidents, like threats scremed through their phone answering machines or interphone from the street, because their names sound Jewish.
The outburst of racism and use of inter-war political action models doesn't surprise those who are observing the Hungarian political and social development for decades. Certain historical models and Christian-focused nationalism were used as underground alternative politics during Communism, prepared for an eventual take over after the fall. The liberal intellectuals were hoping the same and at least for the first post-communist years they might have some chances, but they failed because the politicians that represented those ideas failed, for various reasons, corruption being one of them. There is so much to be said about all this, but I am definitely willing to write this time about something and someone else.
A Political Star was Born
In this crazy post-communist turmoil of confusion, a young far-right politician, without any connection with the old regime - as all political parties in Hungary were created by people that at a certain extent raised their voices agaist the establishment but themselves, they were born and breed during the Communism - brave to fanaticism and decided to turn the page of history (or he assumed doing so): Csanad Szegedi. In the forefront of the far-right Jobbik and the ideologue of the Magyar Garda, milice intervetion forced aimed to protect the Hungarians from 'outside' aggressions (Roma people were often the fatal victims of their actions, and often without the authorities doing nothing to arrest the suspects). He wrote a book about his 'healthy Hungarian' family tree, perpetrated the revanchist discourse and often made anti-Semitic jokes. Between 21 and 30, he was on the forefront and didn't miss any occasion - including in the European Parliament where he was one of the 3 MPs elected to represent Jobbik - of being true to himself and playing the extreme nationalism tunes. His brother was also part of the movement.
When he was on the top of his political career, it got struck by the news: he is Jewish. His maternal grandmother is Jewish and she was to Auschwitz. I watched the movie about his changes and soul-searching on Netflix las night, Keep Quiet, featuring among others historian Anne Applebaum who is knowledgeable in this case, and I may say it is pretty disturbing.
It may be that the grandmother refused to talk about her nephews about what happened to her. It is not unheard of in the former communist countries. It may be that his mother also hid the fact that she is Jewish to her two sons and accepted the nationalist education her non-Jewish husband have to her childrend. That they were also baptised and did not have any Jewish relatives and acquaintances to help them keep a awareness about their identity. I've heard and I am familiar with such cases.
What I did find really disturbing is how this guy, who only a couple of months before was mocking Jewish traditions turned into a speaker about Jewish identity. I knew that he was brought to Berlin to speak at a Jewish event for young people, many of them also from Hungary, a country they left because of the people from Jobbik and Magyar Garda. I didn't think it was worth my time to attend such a speech. Took under the wings of a group that usually put a lot of frame on 'teshuva' and returning of Jewish to tradition - that is doing good deeds in countries like Hungary or Russia - he is almost as strong in his mission of faith as he was before in his nationalist creed. There is a similar case of a Polish former extreme right young activist that was turned back to religion from the same group, but hopefully he is more quiet and decent in his acknowledgment of the changes he went through.
Maybe his awakening can be used as an example to other people that are going through the same situation to follow and return to belief. But isn't this identity jumping too fast and utterly unappropriate, indecent in its way of lecturing others. No humility no regrets. The guy who was preaching against the European Union and to the return to the deep roots of the purity of the Hungarian soul is now talking in the front of an audience that he abhorred shortly before with the same easiness about Yiddishkeit while wearing a kippah that when he has don it first only a couple of months before was burning on his head.
The question is not about believing Csanad Szegedi or considering him authentic, far from that, but about the display of this belief and taking his as a trophy to speak in the front of Jewish audiences, some of them people who openly suffered because they never hid their identity. Tshuva (repentance) is an extraordinary process of inner healing that may take years and years to accomplish and doing it under the public lights doesn't help or it is not tshuva at all.
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