Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Taking a different path： Hungary's stand for national identity

00:00:00.000 Oh, hi, it's Ezra Levante. I am over in Budapest, Hungary, doing a series of videos called The Truth About Hungary.com.

00:00:08.120 I'd encourage you to check out that website for all of them.

00:00:10.960 Today's podcast is an interview I did with the executive director of the Danube Institute.

00:00:16.260 By the way, if you want to see the video version of this podcast, go to rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:21.140 Click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. You get the daily video version of my show.

00:00:25.840 And, of course, we need that money to survive. Unlike the CBC, we don't get money from Trudeau. Never will.

00:00:31.960 So we rely on your eight bucks a month. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:40.560 You're listening to our podcast.

00:00:42.820 Tonight, I'm in Budapest to ask, what's the truth about Hungary?

00:00:56.440 It's July 20th, and this is The Ezra Levante Show.

00:00:59.880 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:02.800 Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.83

00:01:05.940 I've heard a lot of things about Hungary, but never firsthand.

00:01:18.140 It's partly because the Hungarian language is so unusual.

00:01:21.120 It has really no connection to English, whereas French, Spanish, Italian are all cousins of English, even German.

00:01:27.920 And if you know English, you can pick up those other languages rather quickly.

00:01:31.620 I find Hungarian to be impenetrable. It's just not related. 1.00

00:01:35.880 And it's a small country, only 10 million people, so it's not a dominant force in the world.

00:01:40.840 So what we hear about Hungary, we often hear through the filter of the media, which, of course, has its own agenda.

00:01:48.040 I find that the media, and I think you'll probably agree with me, is globalist, is environmentalist,

00:01:53.180 is critical Marxist on cultural issues like sexuality and gender identity.

00:01:58.960 So a lot of the things that Hungary is doing as domestic and even foreign policy

00:02:04.820 are at odds with the groupthink of the United Nations, the European Union, and the world press.

00:02:10.960 For example, their approach to immigration and refugee status is very different

00:02:15.060 from the open borders approach of other European countries like France and Germany.

00:02:20.880 Also, Hungary believes in its Hungarian ethnic identity.

00:02:25.840 In fact, rather than tearing down statues, they're rebuilding them,

00:02:29.780 including ones that were destroyed in the Second World War and never rebuilt since.

00:02:34.160 So there's a lot of interesting things about Hungary that we can't find out by reading

00:02:39.820 the New York Times or the Globe and Mail or CNN.

00:02:43.500 And I'm here for about a week.

00:02:45.760 I'm in Hungary, and then I'm going down to Transylvania, a region in Romania that used to be part of Hungary,

00:02:51.720 where there's a gathering of ethnic Hungarians.

00:02:54.020 I'm going to try and learn a little bit more.

00:02:56.300 And if possible, I'll see if I can get a one-on-one with Viktor Orban,

00:03:00.400 the prime minister himself, who's been re-elected four times, if I'm not mistaken.

00:03:05.420 He's unpopular everywhere except in Hungary, and there's a reason for that. 1.00

00:03:10.320 We'll try and find out.

00:03:12.200 If you want to see all of our reports from Hungary,

00:03:14.960 they're at a special website we put together called thetruthabouthungary.com.

00:03:19.240 We crowdfunded our journey here, of course, as we always do.

00:03:22.480 I'm here, and Lincoln Jay, our videographer.

00:03:25.700 And if you want to chip in, feel free to do so at thetruthabouthungary.com.

00:03:30.120 We're going to put all our stories from Hungary on that website.

00:03:33.580 And here is a one-hour interview I did.

00:03:37.160 So that's a lot of TV viewing.

00:03:38.720 It's with the executive director of the Danube Institute,

00:03:43.580 which is an English-language-focused think tank

00:03:46.780 that is designed to promote Hungary's interests

00:03:49.620 and, frankly, the views of the government of the day,

00:03:55.060 conservative, national identity, things like that.

00:03:58.280 So he's coming from a point of view, and so am I.

00:04:01.400 I thought it was an interesting discussion.

00:04:03.120 Take a look and let me know what you think.

00:04:05.240 Ezra Levant here from Rebel News.

00:04:18.660 I'm in Budapest, Hungary, for a few days.

00:04:21.320 We're working on a special project called thetruthabouthungary.com.

00:04:26.360 Why is Hungary important?

00:04:28.660 Why would anyone in Canada or the United States care about it?

00:04:31.840 I mean, mathematically, it's a fairly small country, just 10 million people.

00:04:37.200 It's hard to understand because the Hungarian language is very different

00:04:41.280 from the bundle of languages that we're used to in the West.

00:04:45.120 English, Spanish, French, Italian, all very similar.

00:04:47.700 It's impenetrable to follow things in Hungary.

00:04:50.800 There's not a large Hungarian expat community in the West.

00:04:55.080 In Canada and the United States, there's a lot of Italian-Americans,

00:04:58.140 Irish-Americans, who still have an affection for the home country.

00:05:02.960 There are some Hungarians in the West, but there's very few.

00:05:06.400 So why is Hungary important?

00:05:08.580 And why should people in the West study it and maybe learn from it?

00:05:12.140 And why are there forces in the West that seem to hate Hungary almost irrationally?

00:05:18.440 Well, that's one of the things we're going to look into during our visit here to Hungary.

00:05:22.280 And one of the stops that we made, and I'm so glad we did, is the Danube Institute,

00:05:27.620 which is a think tank designed to promote Hungary in the debate I've just discussed.

00:05:33.360 And I'm delighted to spend some time right now with Isvan Kis,

00:05:37.160 the executive director of the Danube Institute.

00:05:39.200 Thanks very much for your hospitality.

00:05:40.920 Well, thank you for having us.

00:05:42.420 Well, it's a pleasure.

00:05:43.100 And first of all, your office is incredible.

00:05:45.220 You're in the Palace District, which has been completely rebuilt and renovated.

00:05:49.900 Tell us a little bit about where we are in Budapest and what's going on,

00:05:54.320 because I've really never seen anything like it.

00:05:56.500 The scale of the renovation and the refurbishment of the national monuments,

00:06:00.740 I think we're tearing down monuments in the West.

00:06:02.860 You're rebuilding them here in Hungary.

00:06:04.800 Yes, well, I think it's a difference in attitudes towards our history.

00:06:08.920 And I'm actually quite saddened about some of the things going on in the West

00:06:13.420 that you're, I think, trying to destroy or at least ignore,

00:06:16.780 sometimes even revive your history.

00:06:18.240 Well, this is luckily much less the case here.

00:06:22.060 So we're in the Castle District, which historically has been the seat of kings and the executive.

00:06:29.960 And sadly, as most of Budapest, the Castle District was very heavily hit during the Second World War.

00:06:36.820 So a lot of the original palaces, offices have been basically completely destroyed.

00:06:41.900 And these never have been restored during the communist times, partly because of two reasons.

00:06:50.320 One was they never really had enough resources.

00:06:53.320 But the second one was actually ideological, because the communist leaders of the country

00:06:58.400 wanted to show the Horthy regime and even the Austro-Hungarian empire as this very reactionary, backwards power.

00:07:05.400 So they actually kind of tried to show the Castle District as a medieval palace.

00:07:11.860 So they never completely rebuilt the palace, which was the seat of the Habsburgs when they were in Hungary.

00:07:19.380 And also Governor Admiral Horthy during the two world, between the two world wars period, was also based in the palace.

00:07:29.640 It was much more grandiose.

00:07:31.060 And they never wanted to rebuild some of these grand palaces and offices, because they wanted to show an image to the average populace

00:07:40.820 that the castle was actually a medieval place, kind of hinting that these regimes were medieval and backwards.

00:07:47.500 So they actually even dug up kind of a mock ruins at some of the former palaces.

00:07:54.760 They added some mock medieval bastions as well.

00:07:58.080 So there's this very strong ideological concept showing how backward that system was.

00:08:04.300 Well, the current government is actually trying to restore some of the grandeur of the city coming from the, you know,

00:08:12.080 Habsburg empire, but also from kind of this golden period of Hungary, which was the Austro-Hungarian empire.

00:08:20.260 So they're actually rebuilding a lot of these former offices, palaces, and the building we're here now.

00:08:28.080 It was actually a very nice home for one of the barons of Hungary, who was also a prime minister of Hungary for a time.

00:08:35.720 And this building also got a direct bomb hit during the Second World War.

00:08:39.880 So it was completely destroyed.

00:08:41.800 Actually, 10 years ago, there was a ruin here, nothing here.

00:08:45.640 And actually, the Central Bank of Hungary rebuilt this building.

00:08:50.460 They wanted to use it.

00:08:51.360 But in the end, they gave it to the government.

00:08:54.280 And then the government actually gave it to a foundation, which we are part of the Botany Lajos Foundation,

00:09:00.320 which is named after the first prime minister of Hungary.

00:09:03.220 I think that when you only have 10 million Hungarians in the country, and a few million overseas,

00:09:10.220 but it's a small group.

00:09:11.720 And one of the things I hear from Hungary is that they want to keep the ethnic nature of the country

00:09:18.720 because there's no other place that's Hungarian.

00:09:21.700 And I think there's other small countries like that, that if they don't fight to keep their flavor,

00:09:28.040 they'll be lost in the world.

00:09:29.520 I mean, I think that's what happens to small countries.

00:09:31.920 I mean, in my country, Canada, the province of Ontario is larger than Hungary,

00:09:37.080 both in terms of population and geography.

00:09:39.900 How has the Viktor Orban administration addressed the issues that would come with dissipating?

00:09:48.240 Like, I think reviving the history and reminding people the history is one way.

00:09:53.100 But how about the future?

00:09:56.340 Demographically, what is happening in Hungary?

00:09:58.680 And how is the government trying to get more Hungarians?

00:10:02.240 Yes.

00:10:03.000 Well, if you want to understand the Hungarian psyche, what you were saying is very important.

00:10:08.300 So Hungary was always, well, during its history, sometimes was much bigger than it is today.

00:10:12.840 But it always was relatively small compared to the Slavic countries in the neighborhood

00:10:17.940 or the German countries in the neighborhood.

00:10:19.420 So if you look at some of the earliest examples of Hungarian literature,

00:10:23.520 you were already very afraid of getting, you know, destroyed or basically assimilated by the Slavic or the German people of the region.

00:10:32.840 So there's this constant fear of Hungarians that are unique language in the middle of Europe

00:10:37.560 without any real language relatives in the region will just slowly disappear.

00:10:41.400 And I think the government understood this Hungarian mentality.

00:10:45.900 And that's one of the reasons why they are successful in the elections as well.

00:10:49.920 And what they have been trying to do is kind of an interesting alternative to some of the ideologically driven ideas of the progressive left in Western Europe

00:11:01.380 because they said no to immigration.

00:11:04.780 I think in Western Europe, there's this concept that it's two things, basically.

00:11:09.340 One is that you cannot really do anything about a demographic situation.

00:11:12.760 So because of several reasons, but people will not have more kids.

00:11:18.700 And partly because of this, but also because it's good for your economy and all the other usual theories.

00:11:26.480 Immigration is a better way to basically increase your population and maintain your society's welfare system. 0.97

00:11:34.600 And I think our government choose a completely different path.

00:11:38.200 They said no to this and they said that you can actually help your own people to have more kids.

00:11:46.180 Because if you look at the literature, then actually a lot of even in Western Europe, even in very progressive countries like Sweden,

00:11:53.000 most of them actually want to have more kids.

00:11:55.420 They just, because of economic reasons, mostly, they just think that they cannot have more kids.

00:12:02.080 And Fidesz, because of this, introduced several...

00:12:04.520 Fidesz is the governing party.

00:12:05.440 Fidesz is the government party, yes, in Hungary.

00:12:07.240 So we introduced several policies which would try to help people who are working to have more kids

00:12:14.440 and kind of give economic benefits or at least cut back some of the disincentives to not to have kids.

00:12:24.760 So give me an example.

00:12:25.780 How are they encouraging Hungarians to have more babies? 0.99

00:12:29.380 There are several policies.

00:12:31.300 There's tax breaks.

00:12:32.500 So one interesting policy is that actually if you have four kids as a woman, you will never have to pay personal income tax. 0.89

00:12:40.660 But even as a man or even if you have one kid, two kids, three kids, there are several tax breaks.

00:12:46.520 So, for example, I have two kids.

00:12:48.680 I pay less taxes as a person who has no kids.

00:12:51.540 But I think what is really unique is what I mentioned, that actually women don't have to pay personal income tax if they have four kids or more.

00:12:59.340 That's incredible.

00:13:00.880 Is it working?

00:13:02.280 It seems to be working.

00:13:03.600 I mean, Hungary had a very disperative birth rate.

00:13:08.520 So we had 1.3, which was on the lowest.

00:13:10.500 1.3 for Chile rates.

00:13:12.620 So the average family would have maybe one kid.

00:13:16.500 The odd one would have two.

00:13:17.920 So 10 years ago, that was a starting point.

00:13:20.880 And now, even with COVID, it's 1.6, 1.7.

00:13:24.860 So there is an increase, which is still not good.

00:13:29.080 But compared to 1.3, it's a significant growth.

00:13:32.660 And it happened, as I said, in the past five, six, seven years.

00:13:36.540 So we're hoping that in the long run, it's going to be much more successful.

00:13:39.940 And as I said, some of these policies have been gradually introduced.

00:13:43.480 So, for example, the personal income tax has only been introduced a couple of years ago.

00:13:48.320 So we're hoping that this will improve even more.

00:13:51.840 And also, it's not just the birth rate.

00:13:54.220 So actually, marriage is doubled, which I think is very important.

00:13:57.440 Because if you look at a lot of the statistics, a lot of the research,

00:14:01.840 babies born in normal families, marriages, have a much better life, are much happier.

00:14:09.320 And also have really better expectations in life.

00:14:14.140 So I think...

00:14:15.280 So has the government done anything to encourage marriages?

00:14:18.700 Yes.

00:14:19.200 What have they done?

00:14:19.880 Actually, if you're married, you also get a tax break for two years.

00:14:25.200 It's called First Marriage Allowance or something like that literally in English.

00:14:29.680 And also, it's easier to get some of the family support programs if you're married.

00:14:35.500 If you already have kids, then you can get it even if you're in a civil union.

00:14:39.860 But for example, if you just promise to have two, three quid to get some of these benefits,

00:14:44.500 because you can do that and you have 10 years to deliver on that promise,

00:14:48.500 you have to be married, for example.

00:14:50.100 So there are effective policies in trying to encourage people to be married instead of being in civil unions.

00:14:58.360 Isn't that interesting?

00:14:59.620 A pro-babies approach. 0.81

00:15:01.820 I'm just thinking the exact opposite was China's one-child policy for the longest time,

00:15:07.320 which was devastating in so many ways.

00:15:09.540 You make a good point about the economics of it,

00:15:11.780 because I think that a lot of women go into the workplace because they feel they need that extra dough. 1.00

00:15:17.200 And by the time they do the math of child care, it just doesn't work.

00:15:20.940 So the idea of being tax-free for life is incredible.

00:15:24.560 So I think money is part of it.

00:15:26.060 But I think having an idea...

00:15:27.540 But also, if you don't mind me chipping in here,

00:15:29.680 it's also allowing women to stay at home with the kids for a longer period. 0.98

00:15:34.060 For example, well, it depends on the salary you make,

00:15:37.100 but for average people, for the first half year after the baby was born,

00:15:41.800 you can stay at home on your gross, so not net, on your gross salary.

00:15:46.060 And even afterwards, after about one and a half year of the kid,

00:15:50.760 you still get a pretty good salary for staying at home.

00:15:53.900 Does that come from the company or from the government?

00:15:56.280 Both.

00:15:57.320 So it's actually a nice policy, and it allows a lot of women to stay at home. 1.00

00:16:01.960 And also they try to introduce policies which would help women to work part-time,

00:16:07.120 so four hours a day, 20 hours a week, policies like that.

00:16:11.960 So companies now are actually encouraged to do that,

00:16:14.120 and they can get tax benefits if they employ women part-time who have babies.

00:16:20.140 So I think it's also coming into the economic side of the whole thing,

00:16:24.020 it's allowing women to work a bit, have a bit more money, 1.00

00:16:30.220 with having more children as well.

00:16:32.420 Moving from 1.3 to 1.6 kids per family in five or ten years,

00:16:38.760 that is actually an enormous change.

00:16:40.960 It's not yet 2.1 or whatever for replacing people, but that's a huge change.

00:16:46.660 And I imagine it takes years for these things to kick in.

00:16:49.620 But I don't think it's just economics.

00:16:51.560 I think there has to be a feeling of meaning and purpose.

00:16:55.040 And that's why I was, when we were coming in here to see the refurbishment,

00:17:00.600 and it's not just of the buildings, it's the meaning and the history of the buildings

00:17:05.800 and the identity, and if Hungarians can feel that they're part of a national project.

00:17:13.420 And I sense this in some other countries too.

00:17:16.320 For example, Israel, which has a high birth rate.

00:17:20.220 I think that country, even though it's under tremendous stress,

00:17:23.340 it has a mission and an identity and a team spirit.

00:17:27.340 Everyone's in it together.

00:17:28.760 They join the army together.

00:17:30.560 And I feel like the policies that you talked about,

00:17:35.140 you know, strengthening the family, reviving the history,

00:17:38.020 controlling immigration, being wary of outside powers,

00:17:41.380 I feel like that might give people an identity that gives them a confidence.

00:17:46.880 I think a culture that's lost its confidence has lost its will to go on.

00:17:51.960 I see that in the West.

00:17:53.360 A huge identity crisis.

00:17:55.060 Even on a personal level, kids not even knowing who they are,

00:17:58.620 so they choose to be transgender for any flavor, for some meaning.

00:18:04.500 There's a narcissism there, but they don't have other things to believe in.

00:18:09.360 Is that part of it?

00:18:10.760 Do Hungarians feel part of a larger project?

00:18:14.380 Are they hopeful and confident?

00:18:17.820 Well, Hungarians are usually a kind of pessimistic people because of our history. 1.00

00:18:22.580 So if you would ask an average Hungarian, they like to complain. 1.00

00:18:27.940 But I do think that they have a sense of purpose, yes.

00:18:31.720 And I also believe that things are going a bit better than they did 10, 20 years ago.

00:18:37.500 So, I mean, I myself, I remember Hungary 15 years ago under a socialist government.

00:18:43.240 It was pretty bleak.

00:18:44.120 So if you would have looked at Budapest during that time, looked at the buildings, at public transport,

00:18:49.300 it was far worse than it is now.

00:18:51.300 So this kind of feeling that a lot of our history is being restored, that there's a lot of development coming into the country,

00:19:00.760 I think that gives us a new sense of pride.

00:19:03.120 But also what you said, I think it's interesting and very important to have a focus on education.

00:19:09.340 So here we have kind of national curriculums, which the government also has a say in, and let's focus on history to understand.

00:19:19.160 It's not propaganda, so we do understand the importance of a critical thinking towards your history.

00:19:24.800 But it's also not what is happening in some places in America where basically you're saying that all your history was terrible.

00:19:31.060 So we still have this sense that Hungary was always a freedom-loving country.

00:19:35.960 We're very famous about our revolutions and freedom fights against the Russians, against the Habsburgs, fighting against the Turks.

00:19:44.460 And I think most Hungarians feel this.

00:19:47.560 And actually some of the, how should I say, hostility we feel towards the European Union nowadays is a bit about this.

00:19:55.200 So we don't like foreign powers to tell us how to do things. 1.00

00:19:59.800 So that resonates very badly with the Hungarians.

00:20:02.420 And again, I think that's partly a reason for the success of Warband because he understands that.

00:20:07.420 He understands that Hungarians don't like the EU telling us how to run things.

00:20:12.720 Because, I mean, we had the Soviets, we had the Habsburgs, we kind of fed up with that. 1.00

00:20:18.080 And we're very happy that we're independent now and we would like to, you know, chart our own independent course.

00:20:25.060 Just quickly on the transgender thing, and I know that might sound like a very strange question to ask,

00:20:30.440 but I was in London recently and I didn't see very many British flags, the Union Jacket.

00:20:35.980 I saw a few of them, but I saw hundreds of pride flags and the new transgender flag.

00:20:44.180 And I've never seen so many flags in my life.

00:20:47.540 I mean, other than during the coronation when they had the Union Jack.

00:20:51.640 But it's like a coronation every day.

00:20:53.560 But in the days I've been in Budapest, I haven't seen any of that.

00:20:59.900 And in flags and even in people, I haven't seen that sort of they-them gender activism in the West. 0.88

00:21:10.380 I just haven't seen any of it.

00:21:12.060 And I understand Budapest would be the most liberal city in the country.

00:21:17.840 Has that just not come here yet?

00:21:20.340 Are your intellectual elites not part of that project?

00:21:24.700 Has there been some official pushback in some way?

00:21:28.080 I just, you know, I mean, I live in Toronto, which is a very transgender-oriented city too.

00:21:33.820 And to come here and to see men who are masculine and women who are feminine,

00:21:39.480 it's sort of a shocking change from where I'm from.

00:21:44.080 I don't know if this is even a thing people talk about here.

00:21:47.420 Is it?

00:21:48.920 Sadly, it is.

00:21:49.840 So it's affecting us as well.

00:21:51.560 It's much less profound than it is in the West.

00:21:54.780 I've been to London three weeks ago and I had the same experience you had.

00:21:58.560 I was really surprised.

00:21:59.740 Although it was Pride Month, so I guess that perhaps in an average month you wouldn't have that.

00:22:04.420 But who knows?

00:22:05.760 And I was in New York, which was pretty much the same last week, actually.

00:22:10.360 So we do have it.

00:22:12.580 I mean, we have Netflix, we have HBO and all these are spreading it.

00:22:16.680 But there has been pushback from the government.

00:22:19.940 One very important policy which we introduced and has been fighting against the European Union because they don't like it,

00:22:25.440 and it made us fairly infamous, is the child protection law, which basically bans sexual propaganda in kindergartens and most of primary school.

00:22:36.120 And while they've said this is anti-trans, anti-homosexual, I mean, it does ban activism in, you know, homosexual, transgender, exorcism, but it would ban, you know, heterosexual activism if you would have that as well.

00:22:52.240 So we think that sexuality is not for kindergarten kids or, you know, small primary children.

00:22:57.980 So over, let's say, 13 years old, of course, you have to have sexual education classes, that's fine.

00:23:03.640 But, you know, if you're a six-year-old or eight-year-old, I don't think you need that.

00:23:07.820 So there has been pushback and actually because of this, some of the children books which show transgenderism, homosexuality, they now have to put those books at the adult section.

00:23:23.120 And there has been some uproar about that.

00:23:24.820 But there has been kind of a pushback and also we've been trying to kind of, well, ban is perhaps a strong word, but now legally it's very difficult to change your gender in Hungary.

00:23:36.960 Even if you would do it, my knowledge is, I'm not sure now how it's going on with the European Union because they tried to find us about that, but I think it's still in effect.

00:23:46.680 So even if you would change your gender, we have, you know, identity cards and it will still show your original gender assigned in birth. 0.56

00:23:53.780 So you cannot really be a proper transsexual in this sense in Hungary currently because your ID card will still show your assigned gender from birth. 0.93

00:24:04.440 So there has been actually significant pushback from the government, especially on the trans issue, less on the homosexual issue.

00:24:13.220 But there has been, and actually, I mean, I like what you said, but if you would arrive a bit earlier, Saturday we had the gay pride.

00:24:21.300 Well, protests or I'm not sure how to call it, but the kind of the festival in Budapest.

00:24:29.980 So on Saturday we have seen a lot of homosexuals and transsexuals because each year you have that and it's not banned by the government.

00:24:38.800 We see it as, you know, a normal protest.

00:24:41.460 Although I think there's sometimes a bit excessive sexual content on these parades, but I mean, what can you do?

00:24:51.480 And I'm not necessarily criticizing a particular orientation.

00:24:57.420 I'm just saying that the ideological, total institutional capture by a political movement aimed at transitioning kids, 0.52

00:25:06.680 I think that's very different from a regular pride parade.

00:25:09.620 That's how it, I think, I think in the West, you're starting to see people pulling back from the LGBT because of this new focus on kids

00:25:19.800 and focus on changing your gender, including through medication and through surgery.

00:25:25.020 I just think that there's a, there's a qualitative difference between adults, gay pride parade.

00:25:32.340 And yeah, I just think that's a huge difference.

00:25:33.700 I think that's why the government introduced this child protection law because we kind of tried to draw a line.

00:25:39.120 And I think that's, and I'm hoping that that is going to be the downfall of these movements

00:25:43.060 because I think if you look at, for example, how homosexuality has become accepted in the past 60 years,

00:25:49.280 it was a quite different process than what, how the trans movement is acting now.

00:25:54.080 So they never went after the kids. 0.97

00:25:57.440 They never said that if you don't want to have sex with a homosexual, you're homophobic. 0.95

00:26:01.060 So they kind of left out, I think, the private. 0.88

00:26:05.780 We have this very proud tradition, I think, in the West that you separate the public and the private.

00:26:10.420 And, you know, in your private sphere, as long as it's between two consenting adults, we don't care what you do really.

00:26:15.840 But I think the trans movement is now actually going to the bedroom. 0.99

00:26:19.360 So they're actually looking at your own sexual preferences.

00:26:22.240 They're looking at your kids, which, I mean, the communists tried to do that and the Nazis tried to do that. 0.50

00:26:27.540 But luckily, they tried to break the kids away from the family.

00:26:30.900 In Hungary during the Soviet times, did they have a version of the young pioneers?

00:26:37.900 Of course.

00:26:38.960 Where they turned kids against the families?

00:26:40.920 They were trying to do that.

00:26:41.900 And it was more before the 56th revolution.

00:26:44.860 I mean, they had a very hard dictatorship.

00:26:47.360 And afterwards, of course, there was a blowback after the revolution itself.

00:26:51.580 But the regime became a bit softer.

00:26:54.660 So I think one of the deals actually the leader made during that time was we will leave out the communist things from your private life.

00:27:01.980 So even the communists, after I realized that they cannot go after your private life because people will just rebel.

00:27:08.720 But they did try to do that.

00:27:10.260 And it was very, very hardcore.

00:27:11.520 So especially in the Soviet Union, if you look at it, you had kind of movements about trying to turn the kids against parents.

00:27:19.280 You know, if your parents had something reactionary or, you know, religious, then you should report it.

00:27:24.740 So you had that.

00:27:25.420 But even, I think, in the communist societies, after a while, they realized that, I mean, people will not.

00:27:30.780 I mean, it's just I think in our Western mind, it's just so deeply in the separation of private and public.

00:27:40.440 And I'm hoping that this will be the downfall of this, because I think it's very dangerous when you go into the private and try to tell people what to do privately.

00:27:49.960 I was a libertarian for a time, especially because of that.

00:27:53.140 But even as a conservative, and I think that's very dangerous.

00:27:57.380 So please leave my private life and my kids out of this.

00:28:01.100 The 1956 uprising was remarkable.

00:28:04.920 I mean, it was just barely a decade after the end of the Second World War.

00:28:09.580 It was really the first major rebellion against Soviet domination.

00:28:13.800 In the end, it didn't succeed.

00:28:15.720 A great number of Hungarians came to the West, including to Canada.

00:28:21.000 And what you're saying is that that at least caused the communists to temper themselves somewhat,

00:28:26.680 as opposed to maybe Romania, where I think they were very harsh.

00:28:31.360 It's been 70 years since that.

00:28:33.600 Is that still an important part of the Hungarian political psychology, is standing up and long on?

00:28:40.500 That was sort of the Tiananmen Square moment of Hungary.

00:28:44.200 Is that part of the discourse today?

00:28:46.940 Are there communist parties running in elections today?

00:28:52.600 Or have they been denormalized?

00:28:55.480 Is it socially acceptable to be a communist in Hungary in 2023?

00:29:01.120 It's much less acceptable than I think in the West.

00:29:04.140 So I think most people will not say that they're a communist.

00:29:06.700 There is a communist party and they run on the election, but they usually get 1% or even less.

00:29:11.980 And even the former communist party members, they actually evolved into the today.

00:29:20.040 I mean, today we have a socialist party and that is kind of the successor of the communist party.

00:29:25.520 But also the socialist party kind of break down after the 2010 election.

00:29:31.220 So there's now several parties which were actually part of the socialist party.

00:29:34.500 And some of them have still former communists in their leadership.

00:29:40.380 But they will never say they're communists.

00:29:42.060 Actually, most of the communists are now very pro-European, which is funny and strange.

00:29:47.360 And also very neoliberal in their economics.

00:29:49.740 Again, very strange.

00:29:51.780 But they still have that dream of a global government.

00:29:54.480 Yes, but it's now not the Soviet Union and not the communist international.

00:29:58.040 Now it's the European Union and kind of the progressive international,

00:30:00.560 which is, I think, quite strange and perhaps telling.

00:30:03.040 But we never say they're communists.

00:30:05.760 Well, when I was, for example, studying in Edinburgh,

00:30:08.140 I would say 20, 30% of the students were very proudly communists,

00:30:11.340 which is a Hungarian never understood because hearing will be very negative.

00:30:15.620 So 56 is still very important.

00:30:17.740 Most people remember it.

00:30:19.300 And especially because, you know, under communism, that was taboo.

00:30:22.320 So before you mentioned that we talked before about the prime minister's,

00:30:28.160 Viktor Orban's speech during the fall of communism.

00:30:31.620 He was one of the first speeches where he referenced 56 and also said, you know,

00:30:37.320 Russians go home. 1.00

00:30:38.640 But before that, for, you know, more than 30 years, you couldn't talk about the revolution.

00:30:43.280 It was, or if you talked about it, it was this reactionary, you know,

00:30:47.680 not a proper revolution, but something which was a fascist coup.

00:30:51.580 If you talked about it in other terms, you could get into jail or get fined.

00:30:55.500 So I think because it was a taboo for so long, it's now still actually much more powerful

00:31:01.140 than it would be if it wouldn't have been a taboo for 30 years under communism.

00:31:05.060 So you made reference to that.

00:31:06.320 Let's show a clip of that, because if I understand it correctly, this was the moment,

00:31:10.960 the speech that made Viktor Orban a political figure.

00:31:14.540 If I understand it, he was a young, almost student leader.

00:31:18.180 Yes.

00:31:18.560 And this was when the Berlin Wall was falling, when the Soviet Empire was crumbling,

00:31:25.120 but they were still running things here in Hungary.

00:31:28.060 And there were still Russian troops in Hungary.

00:31:30.280 So set up this clip a little bit, and we'll play a little bit just to show our viewers

00:31:35.000 when Viktor Orban became a political figure.

00:31:38.700 Give us a one-minute intro to the clip.

00:31:40.440 Well, I think it basically shocked people that somebody would say these words,

00:31:45.160 especially Russians go home, because as I said, it was still a big Russian force in Hungary.

00:31:49.620 What was the year of this?

00:31:50.620 This was 1989.

00:31:51.820 Yeah, so...

00:31:52.940 But the first half of that, 1989.

00:31:55.040 So the Berlin Wall was still intact.

00:31:56.920 It was still there?

00:31:57.640 Wow.

00:31:57.980 So this was before the end was...

00:31:59.720 Yes.

00:31:59.980 So it was still not clear what will happen.

00:32:02.860 And if you look at actually how the kind of the deals between the opposition and the government

00:32:07.940 party, nobody knew the real power structure.

00:32:10.800 So most of the opposition leaders thought that it will still take years, perhaps a decade,

00:32:16.220 before there's going to be a full transition.

00:32:18.180 And then you have this young guy saying Russians go home.

00:32:21.360 And that really shocked people, and it really made him a...

00:32:24.300 He could have been disappeared for that.

00:32:26.460 Yes.

00:32:26.760 He could have been...

00:32:27.340 Under the law, he could have been arrested as a counter-revolutionary.

00:32:31.000 Yeah.

00:32:31.260 He could have been beaten by the police, detained, perhaps even thrown into jail.

00:32:36.080 What was the reaction of others?

00:32:37.260 So this was at an event they were...

00:32:39.760 The regime was trying to increase its Hungarian bona fides by reburying a Hungarian hero.

00:32:48.140 They were trying to say, no, we're actually with you, the people.

00:32:51.720 Is that what it was?

00:32:52.420 Yes.

00:32:52.720 They were trying to kind of show 56 in a different light and kind of acknowledge some

00:32:59.980 of the past, some of the sins of the past.

00:33:02.200 But I mean, there was a huge support towards Orbán and towards...

00:33:07.580 I mean, I think most of the communist leaders realized that there's a sentiment in the Hungarian

00:33:11.420 population that we have to chart our own way and the Russians really have to go home. 1.00

00:33:16.360 And that's why there was no real backlash in the end, because they realized that the people

00:33:20.780 might not be with them.

00:33:21.920 Here, let's watch a little bit of that clip.

00:33:23.300 A

00:33:31.540 for our

00:33:45.280 a voice, politics and peace.

00:33:51.760 I haven't 정부iced in advance.

00:33:56.380 This is not enough to talk about the country걸.

00:34:00.280 The Blackinated government, those who play a Rogán and estar�� clean rag on plan first on this country democracy, 1.00

00:34:08.620 Alex found two names, at the national MSC and www.TARSAI-KOPORSÓhehe.

00:34:12.740 Mi azokat az államférfiakat tiszteljük bennük, akik azonosultak a magyar társadalom akaratával, akik, hogy ezt megtehessék, képesek voltak leszámolni szent, kommunista tabuikkal, azaz az orosz birodalom feltétlen szolgálatával és a párt diktatúrájával.

00:34:33.460 Ők azok az államférfiak számunkra, akik az akasztófa árnyékában sem vállalták, hogy a társadalmat megtizedelő gyilkosokkal egysorba álljanak, akik életük árán sem tagadták meg azt a nemzetet, amely elfogadta őket és bizalmát beléjük helyezte.

00:34:53.360 Mi az ő sorsukból tanultuk meg, hogy a demokrácia és a kommunizmus összeegyeztethetetlen.

00:34:59.780 Jól tudjuk, a forradalom és a megtorlások áldozatainak többsége korunkbeli magunkfajta fiatal volt.

00:35:10.540 De nem pusztán ezért érezzük magunkénak a hatodik koporsó.

00:35:14.840 Mind a mai napig 1956 volt nemzetünk utolsó esélye, hogy a nyugati fejlődés útjára lépve gazdasági jólétet teremtsen.

00:35:24.840 A ma válunkra nehezedő csőttömeg egyenes következménye annak, hogy vérbe folytották forradalmunkat és visszakényszerítettek bennünket abba az ázsiai zsátutcába, amelyből most újra megpróbálunk kiutat találni.

00:35:40.180 Valójában akkor 1956-ban vette el tőlünk mai fiataloktól jövőnket a Magyar Szocialista Munkáspár.

00:35:49.560 Ezért a hatodik koporsóban nem csupán egy legyűkolt fiatal, hanem a mi elkövetkezendő húsz vagy ki tudja hány évünk is ott fekszik.

00:36:12.780 Barátaim, mi fiatalok sok mindent nem értünk, ami talán természetes az idősebb generációk számára.

00:36:23.240 Mi értetlenül állunk azelőtt, hogy a forradalmat és annak miniszterelnökét nemrég még kórusban gyalázók, ma váratlanul ráébrednek, hogy ők Nagy Imre reformpolitikájának folytatói.

00:36:34.780 Azt sem értük, hogy azok a párt és állami vezetők, akik elrendelték, hogy bennünket a forradalmat meghamisító tankönyvekből oktassanak, ma szinte tülekednek, hogy mint egy szerencsehozó talizmánként megérinthessék ezeket a koporsokat.

00:37:04.780 Mi úgy véjük, nem tartozunk hálával azért, hogy 31 év után eltemethetjük halottainkat.

00:37:12.400 Nem jár senkinek köszönet azért, mert ma már működhetnek politikai fervezeteink.

00:37:18.740 A magyar politikai vezetésnek nem érdeme, hogy a demokráciát és szabad választásokat követelőkkel szemben,

00:37:24.900 bár fegyvere is újján átogva ezt megtehetné, nem lép fel Lípengéhez, Polpotéhoz, Jaruzelszkéhoz, vagy éppen Rákoséhoz hasonló módszerekkel.

00:37:36.920 Polgártársak! 0.95

00:37:42.920 Ma, 33 évvel a magyar forradalom, és 31 évvel az utolsó felelős magyar miniszterelnök kivégzése után

00:37:53.320 esélyünk van arra, hogy békés úton érjük el mindazt, amit az 56-os forradalmárok véres harcokban,

00:38:00.740 ha csak néhány napra is, de megszereztek a nemzet számára.

00:38:03.920 Ha hiszünk, a magunk erejében képesek vagyunk tégedvetni a kommunista diktatúrának,

00:38:08.920 ha elég eltökéltek vagyunk, rászoríthatjuk az uralkodó pártot, hogy alávesse magát a szabad választásoknak,

00:38:15.920 ha nem tévesztük szem elől 56 eszméit, olyan kormányt választhatunk magunknak,

00:38:20.920 amely azonnali tárgyalásukat kezd az orosz szapatok kivonásának haladéktalan megkezdéséről.

00:38:33.920 Ha van bennünk elég mert, hogy mindezt akarjuk, akkor, de csak akkor beteljesíthetjük forradalmunk akaratát.

00:38:45.920 Senki sem hiheti, hogy a pártállam magától fog megváltozni.

00:38:50.920 Emlékezzetek, 1956. október 6-án Rajk László Temetésének napján a párt napi lapja, a Szabadnép Öles Betükkel Hírlete címlapján soha többé.

00:39:03.920 Csak három év telt el és a kommunista párt AVH-s legényeivel vékés, fegyvertelen tüntetők közé lövetett.

00:39:11.920 Két év sem telt el a soha többé óta, és az MSZMT Rajkéhoz hasonló koncepciós perekben ítélte halára ártatlanok százait, közöttük saját eltársait.

00:39:22.920 Ezért nem érhetjük be a kommunista politikusok semmire sem kötelező ígéreteivel.

00:39:28.920 Nekünk azt kell elérnünk, hogy az uralkodó párt, ha akar se tudjon erőszakot alkalmazni ellenünk.

00:39:35.920 Nincs más mód, hogy elkerüljük az újabb koporsókat, a maihoz hasonló megkésett temetéseket.

00:39:54.920 Nagy Imre, Gimes Miklós, Losonci Géza, Maléter Pál, Szilágyi József, és a néptelen százak a magyar függetlenség és szabadságért áldozták életüket.

00:40:07.920 A magyar fiatalok, akik előtt ezek az eszmék még ma is érhetetlenek, meghajtják fejüket emléketek előtt.

00:40:14.920 Nyugodjatok békében!

00:40:16.920 M eldöebbünk, roliggatok között. 0.81

00:40:19.920 Jónyomra önetek tökén preméletemne.

00:40:25.920 Jónyomra ó Társok, hogy előtt g

00:40:41.760 Soros. And everything you've described to me today tells me why George Soros hates Victor Orban.

00:40:49.680 Orban is for limited regulated immigration, not mass immigration. He's for an ethnic national 0.83

00:40:56.040 identity. He's not a globalist like Soros. He's opposed to cultural Marxism in the form of

00:41:02.560 transgenderism. He is skeptical of global governments like the European Union. Of course 1.00

00:41:09.100 Soros hates him. But that final comparison is that when it came to resisting tyranny,

00:41:15.940 Orban stood up in a country where there were still Soviet tanks and said, Russians go home.

00:41:22.300 Whereas Soros, and he was only a teenager at the time, but he secretly collaborated. He went around

00:41:29.120 with the Nazis. And I'm not blaming a teenager for pretending he was a Gentile and hanging out 0.87

00:41:36.660 with a Nazi officer who was expropriating. I'm just saying there were two paths. One was a path 0.55

00:41:42.780 of cowardice and opportunity that George Soros took. And the other was a path of I'm going to speak truth

00:41:47.980 to power that Victor Orban took. It is no surprise to me that Soros hates Orban so viscerally. How did

00:41:55.180 Orban win that battle? Because Hungary was sort of Soros's home turf. He's Hungarian. He's got so much

00:42:04.080 money. It can really sway things here in Hungary. How on earth did Victor Orban and his Fidesz party

00:42:09.720 possibly beat George Soros and his billions? How did that happen?

00:42:15.400 Well, it was a long process. But also, it's funny what you said, because I mean, in the 80s,

00:42:20.980 Soros played a much more positive role in Hungary. At least we still think that. So he did support some

00:42:26.300 of the opposition movement. Orban actually attended Oxford on a scholarship from Soros.

00:42:32.460 So a lot of the opposition leaders got fellowships from him. So I didn't know this story about him

00:42:38.360 collaborating. He was a teenager. But he, I mean, here, let's play a clip from 60 Minutes.

00:42:46.060 He, on his bicycle, he delivered notices to the Jews to report to the train stations. And then his 0.90

00:42:52.780 father basically seconded him. He pretended he was a nephew or something of a Nazi officer who was

00:43:00.000 expropriating Jewish property. His father told him to do that to survive. And I'm not blaming a 0.94

00:43:06.660 teenager for doing what his dad said. Well, surviving, yeah. Yeah. Here, let's, I want to show our viewers

00:43:11.180 who may not have seen this. Here's the clip of when Steve Croft of 60 Minutes asked Soros about his role

00:43:18.740 during the Nazi occupation. Take a quick look.

00:43:21.380 You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian. Right. And you watched 0.60

00:43:34.480 lots of people get shipped off to the death camps. Right. I was 14 years old. And I would say that

00:43:42.200 that's when my character was made. My understanding is, is that you went out with this protector of

00:43:47.780 yours who swore that you were his adopted God's son. Yes. Yes. Went out, in fact, and helped in the

00:43:55.720 confiscation of property from the Jews. That's right. Yes. I mean, that's, that sounds like an 0.99

00:44:02.260 experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it

00:44:10.180 difficult? Not, not, not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child, you don't, you don't see the connection.

00:44:22.020 But it was, it created no, no problem at all. No feeling of guilt. No. That if I weren't there,

00:44:30.420 of course, I wasn't doing it. But somebody else would, would, would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the,

00:44:36.620 whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator. The property was being taken away.

00:44:42.480 So I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.

00:44:48.700 Are you religious? No. Do you believe in God? No. I don't feel guilty because I'm engaged in an

00:44:57.880 amoral activity, which is not meant to have anything to do with guilt. I just, thanks. I just wanted to

00:45:03.540 play that clip again to remind people. So you're saying Soros was actually helping the good guys

00:45:08.760 in the eighties. That's interesting to hear. Yeah. We have this feeling that he played a more,

00:45:13.580 how should I say, beneficial role, which later turned to what you're saying to, I think there

00:45:20.060 was this difference. So I think Soros feels personally betrayed a bit by Orban because he saw him as a

00:45:27.020 protégé, but Orban said no to some of these progressive policies. So when it turned to,

00:45:32.360 you know, being in government and adapting some of the policies Soros would have liked,

00:45:38.960 Orban definitely charted a different path. So I think it's a very complex relation they have.

00:45:44.400 But, you know, the first Orban government, which was a coalition government,

00:45:48.020 in power from 1989 to 2002, so four years, and they lost the 2002 elections. It was a very close

00:45:57.500 election. But in the end, they lost. And I think that was crucial to understand how Fidesz thinks now,

00:46:05.660 because they started, they realized that without proper media support, without proper support in the

00:46:13.160 countryside, and, you know, people, party organizations in the countryside, they will not be able to be in

00:46:17.720 elections. And they started to build this up. They started their media organizations. They started

00:46:24.400 kind of a building of local offices in the countryside. And of course, the economic crisis, and also the

00:46:32.240 kind of the gross mismanagement of the Socialist Party, which they were doing in the 2000s, helped,

00:46:36.800 because Fidesz managed to get a two-thirds majority in the parliament in 2010, which was a very

00:46:45.440 extraordinary support from the people. But since then, they have been managed to reproduce that in

00:46:51.820 each of the elections. And it shows people like what he's doing. But especially after 2010, they really

00:46:58.360 focused on even more support of kind of conservative civil society, even more support of conservative

00:47:06.360 media. So, they really built up kind of an opposition or kind of a counterbalance to some of these

00:47:13.080 progressive policies. So, unlike in America, or I guess it's the same in Canada, it's not like 90% of

00:47:21.040 the media is globalist progressive. Here, it's 60-40, 50-50. I'm not sure about that.

00:47:26.740 Really?

00:47:27.080 Yeah. So, we have actually a significant counterbalance to some of the progressive medias. And that's why they

00:47:33.940 hate him. So, if you would look at some of the New York Times or other narratives about Hungary,

00:47:38.440 they would say that Hungary, you know, they would say it's actually the reverse. So,

00:47:43.420 Orbán has all the media and it's controlling everything, which is not true. I mean, actually,

00:47:48.880 that's true in America or Canada, that the progressives are ruling all the media and there's

00:47:53.080 hardly any outside voice. Here, it's basically, I would say, almost 50-50. But they hate that because,

00:47:59.800 you know, people can see the other narratives quite easily. So, I think, I mean, they needed this

00:48:08.220 eight years in opposition to kind of build themselves up. They needed some luck with the

00:48:13.360 Socialist Party being so terrible. But afterwards, after they came into power at a second time in 2010,

00:48:20.380 they really cleverly built on this support and kind of organized effective civil society

00:48:28.640 and media opposition counterbalance to some of these policies. And that's why you have a flourishing

00:48:35.320 think tank scene in Hungary. That's why you have flourishing right-wing media in Hungary now.

00:48:41.080 Hmm. And I heard that the U.S. just approved $25 million to set up independent media in Hungary,

00:48:49.420 which, I mean, it's pretty obvious what that means. That means anti-Orban media. I was shocked

00:48:54.500 to hear this. I just heard it and I haven't had a chance to delve into it. Did that happen? And is that

00:49:00.440 Joe Biden's administration really saying, we're going to dig up your backyard? I mean, that's shocking to

00:49:06.720 me. They would never do that in, say, Ukraine. They would never do that in...

00:49:13.440 Or in Germany or the UK or...

00:49:15.060 Yeah. Yeah. It's astounding to me. Did that happen?

00:49:19.060 Sadly, it did.

00:49:20.060 And what's the reaction? I mean, imagine if the reverse was true. Imagine if Orban 0.72

00:49:24.820 sent $25 million. But actually, for a country of 10 million people, $25 million is an astonishing

00:49:32.060 amount. You would have to be 30 times more money to have the same impact in the United

00:49:37.020 States, because the United States is 30 times bigger.

00:49:38.780 But imagine, well, if, let's say, Russia would do that with any country.

00:49:41.900 Yeah.

00:49:42.220 Or Iran or China. I mean, that would be huge uproar.

00:49:45.660 Well, I mean, just to math on that, that would be like almost a billion dollars in America to

00:49:52.140 have anti-Biden media. That would be a diplomatic incident.

00:49:56.400 Yeah. What was the reaction here?

00:49:58.480 Well, we feel that a huge betrayal. I mean, this is an ally. We are a NATO country. America should

00:50:06.960 be our friend. And it's just, you know, doing something like that is a huge betrayal. And I

00:50:13.600 think it's a terrible move. But to make matters even worse, it's... Well, actually, we had a kind

00:50:20.720 of a coalition of opposition parties running against Fidesz. And the leader of that is quite outspoken.

00:50:25.840 He's a bit like Trump in this sense that he will say things which a lot of people will not,

00:50:32.720 but he's in a good way. And actually, he went into one of the radios and he acknowledged that

00:50:39.280 they got about $10 million from America for the election.

00:50:45.440 So he's the CIA man. He's the CIA man.

00:50:47.360 Yeah. But I mean, imagine, I mean, if this would happen in America, that Hungary would be giving 0.55

00:50:51.360 millions of dollars to parties. That's crazy.

00:50:54.480 I mean, you would never, never, I mean...

00:50:55.600 And how did Hungarians react? Like that is not a... 0.83

00:50:59.120 Well, they feel that this person is basically a spy or is betraying Hungary and should be in jail.

00:51:04.160 And was this before the last election that this came out?

00:51:06.160 No, it is after the election. So... And actually, there's some talk about perhaps

00:51:11.920 prosecuting this person because this technically is illegal. And also, it now turns out that the

00:51:17.840 opposition mayor in 2019 might have got, again, a bit more than a million dollars from American

00:51:24.400 donors for his mayoral campaign.

00:51:27.040 It's one thing to get money from American donors. And that may be illegal. And you've got to follow

00:51:30.960 the law. But when the US government itself is funding people that take...

00:51:37.200 I'm sorry. So that was... Technically, it was donors. So we don't know who gave the money.

00:51:40.880 Oh, okay.

00:51:41.280 But it's kind of... It seems that it was only one or two people, which again, is quite...

00:51:46.080 Well, I think we can guess who the one or two people is that's giving millions of dollars in Hungary.

00:51:52.560 Well, how is the relationship between Hungary and America, UK? Canada is not really relevant,

00:52:01.760 I don't think here, even though I wish it were. Hungary has been a NATO ally for almost 25 years.

00:52:09.440 Hungary has a free market, or at least close to a free market. It feels Western, walking around the

00:52:17.840 city. I feel more like Europe than Asia or Central Asia. It feels modern, not ultra-modern, but modern.

00:52:33.360 Is Orban facing the West or the East more? And is he being pushed away by the West?

00:52:38.880 Well, I think he's trying. I mean, we're a Western country, and I think most Hungarians feel that,

00:52:45.360 but with proud roots from the East. So according to our history, Hungarians came from somewhere from

00:52:51.280 Siberia or the steps. And a bit more than a thousand years ago, we settled in the Carpathian Basin and

00:52:58.240 built a state. And St. Stephen embraced Christianity. And since a thousand years, we've been this proud

00:53:04.800 Christian Western power. Sometimes sadly cut off from Western development by the Ottomans, by the 0.92

00:53:11.200 Soviets, but still there's this sense that we're a Western country. But besides that, I think Orban has 0.91

00:53:16.960 been trying as kind of a policy, as a small state, to have fairly good relations with other powers in

00:53:23.600 the world. And of course, the most infamous was Russia and China. But that's not just these countries.

00:53:30.240 I mean, this got a lot of attention from Western media. But actually, South Korea was one of the biggest

00:53:35.520 investors for years in Hungary. So it was kind of a general global opening that, of course, we are

00:53:40.560 EU members, we're NATO members, we're a part of an alliance, but we should, you know, at least economically

00:53:46.000 have fairly good relations with East Asia, with Africa, with Arabic countries and others. So there is

00:53:52.960 generally this concept that we should have good relations with them. But of course, as I said, there's this

00:53:58.640 strong sense that we're a NATO member and we should, you know, we actually will reach the 2% GDP,

00:54:06.800 you know, for military next year. So we're trying to be good NATO.

00:54:10.880 Canada is only 1.38. So you're far ahead.

00:54:13.600 Yeah, but also the Ukrainian war was kind of a wake up call.

00:54:16.000 So well, and let me ask,

00:54:17.120 but going back to what you originally asked that we do feel that, I mean, I'm very much a transatlantist.

00:54:23.840 And I think our think tank is bad. But it is increasingly being difficult to be that here

00:54:28.800 because of all the bad things we're getting from the current American government and Obama wasn't

00:54:33.760 that much better. So what we feel from America is that they only care about transgender rights,

00:54:39.600 social issues. Now, of course, there's a good excuse with the war that we're not doing enough in Ukraine.

00:54:44.560 How about global warming? Is that a big deal here in Hungary? In Canada, that's all you hear about.

00:54:50.000 In the UK too, net zero, carbon capture, green energy. Is any of that?

00:54:55.840 It's not as bad as it's there. And actually, the government here tried to embrace some parts

00:55:01.840 of it as a conservative government. So they do say that as conservatives and Christians,

00:55:06.320 we do have a responsibility towards the environment. So they did try to do some,

00:55:12.240 which I think was actually okay. So I think as a conservative, you know, being against...

00:55:17.760 Do they have a carbon tax? Are they saying outlawed fossil fuels?

00:55:20.800 No, no, no, no. We will never do that.

00:55:22.240 The net zero, do you want to talk about that?

00:55:23.600 No, the craziness is not happening. It's more like we have to protect some of the environment.

00:55:28.080 Well, I mean, no one would disagree with that.

00:55:29.760 And, you know, besides fossil fuels, we're happy to support solar panels and some of the, you know,

00:55:35.600 alternative energy sources. So there is some form of that that we should embrace some parts of it,

00:55:41.280 but not go full crazy on the net zero things and others. So, and I think it's been fairly,

00:55:47.520 of course, you have some young people who are protesting sometimes about it, but it's usually

00:55:50.800 like 100 people or something. So it is happening. And a lot of young people kind of

00:55:56.880 sympathize with that, but it's, for the time being, hasn't been as, it's a bit like the transsexual 1.00

00:56:01.520 movement that you have already kind of elements of it. But actually, I think that was much more,

00:56:06.160 much stronger than the climate change movement here. I interrupted you. You said that this is

00:56:10.640 bundle of ideas from the West, transgenderism, open borders, et cetera. And that's making it 0.96

00:56:15.440 difficult for Hungary to have a warm transatlantic friendship. How has the Russian interdiction,

00:56:24.160 the invasion of Ukraine changed things? Because of course, Hungary is a NATO ally. But I see

00:56:31.120 in English on Twitter, Viktor Orban tweeting calls for peace, which, I mean, who wouldn't be for peace?

00:56:40.080 Well, I see a lot of people in the West saying, this is outrageous. If you're for peace, you're for

00:56:45.200 Putin. Yeah. So where is Hungary on the war in Ukraine? On the side of peace. And it hasn't been

00:56:52.400 very popular, not even in the region, sadly. Has Ukraine, sorry, has Hungary given any weapons or

00:56:59.680 training to Ukraine? Or any money? Money, yes. And a lot of support. According to my knowledge,

00:57:06.880 not actual weapons. You might have sent some ammunition, but I'm not 100%. But money and a

00:57:13.120 lot of humanitarian support. Are there any refugees from Ukraine who have come to Hungary? Yes.

00:57:19.600 They mostly use Hungary as a transit country. So most of them actually just go. But there are

00:57:24.240 some of them here. And when they were coming, we gave them all the support. So we set up all the

00:57:28.320 centers. We really welcomed them in very warm minds and hearts. And actually, they were grateful for

00:57:35.920 that. So sometimes they would acknowledge that how the Hungarians were very gracious, accepting all the

00:57:41.040 migrants, helping them and also sending these things. But of course, they always say that they're 1.00

00:57:46.480 not sending any weapons and they're not giving enough support. But as I said, that's not true. I mean,

00:57:52.880 I would say that we're doing 80%, 90% the same Poland is doing. We're just not sending actual weapons. 0.70

00:57:58.400 Right.

00:57:58.480 And I mean, honestly, we don't really have anything to send because we actually now,

00:58:05.920 as I said, we are reaching the 2% GDP criteria. We are reshuffling our military. So the socialist

00:58:11.840 government basically destroyed our military. They sent some of our last tanks to Iraq during the

00:58:17.200 the training of the Iraqi army after the fall of Saddam Hussein. So we don't really have that much

00:58:26.080 equipment. So we got rid of the communists, but we are still getting the new American and German 1.00

00:58:31.120 equipment to kind of reorganize and have a modern army and not the former Soviet army. So we don't

00:58:36.720 really, we wouldn't really have anything to send, even if we wanted to. But I think there's this idea that

00:58:42.160 we should try to somehow, you know, make these two countries sit down and, you know, achieve some

00:58:50.240 form of peace because it's, it's for Hungary, because it's a neighboring country. It's very bad 0.99

00:58:54.960 economically. I mean, actually, ethnic Hungarians are living in Ukraine, who are fighting in the war

00:59:01.200 on the side of Ukraine, who are dying. So actually, Hungarians are dying in this conflict, which a lot of

00:59:06.000 people don't know. So we really have, you know, skin in the game. And that's why we would like

00:59:12.080 to have a peaceful resolution to this as soon as possible. Other than calling for peace, has

00:59:18.000 Ukraine been involved in any attempts to have peace talks? I know that there were some meetings that

00:59:23.360 Israel was involved in Turkey. Is Hungary involved with that? Or is it just not really in the action on

00:59:29.200 that? We try to do our best. And we have very good relations with both Turkey and Israel, actually,

00:59:33.680 as a country. But I don't know about how these are going. And my understanding is that, I mean,

00:59:40.320 neither the Ukrainians nor the Russians are very cooperative in these talks.

00:59:44.880 Well, things are pretty dire. Well, listen, you've been very generous with your time. I guess I have

00:59:50.000 one last question for you. I think that the story of Hungary, there's a lot of stories about it. And

00:59:57.360 there's a lot of great men. We're in a room with an extraordinary looking gentleman on the wall.

01:00:03.680 I mean, this country... That's Lajos Botanyi, our first prime minister. He was actually martyred by

01:00:09.120 the Habsburgs. So they shot him after the revolution we had against the Habsburgs. And what year was that in?

01:00:14.960 That was, well, I'm not sure when they executed. I think it's 1849. But the revolution was 1848-49.

01:00:22.240 I mean, this place is rich in history. We didn't even talk about the Turkish invasions and the battle. I

01:00:28.800 mean, there's so much here. This is a country of momentous people, indispensable men, you could say.

01:00:38.000 And that's my last question for you. As an outsider, and I acknowledge that my knowledge is

01:00:45.120 pretty shallow. It seems to me a lot of things hang on Viktor Orban himself. From that stirring speech

01:00:54.080 he gave almost 40 years ago, to his leadership of the party, to the building of civil society,

01:01:05.200 the NGOs, the think tanks, the media, the organization. But he's not going to live forever.

01:01:11.600 He might lose an election one day. What would Hungary look like when Orban is gone? Whether

01:01:22.320 that's in four years, eight years, or tomorrow. Is there a group of people who could fill that

01:01:30.880 leadership void? Or would things fall to a globalist socialist who would undo the last dozen years? Because

01:01:40.080 you can smash things pretty quickly. And I feel like Hungary has been rebuilt not just from 1.00

01:01:48.880 the Soviet occupation, but from the socialist interregnum. And I like how it looks and how it feels.

01:01:56.080 But is it dependent on that one man? Well, that's a difficult question. I'm hopeful on one hand,

01:02:03.440 because I think we did manage to build a quite strong conservative civil society and think tanks,

01:02:10.240 which I think most of them would actually survive a government change and could be active

01:02:16.080 under a socialist government, let's say. I currently don't see a person who could feel

01:02:22.880 Orban's shoes. We have, you know, good politicians, but I mean, as a statesman-like person like Orban,

01:02:29.920 I just don't see a person like that currently, which doesn't mean there is not a person like that.

01:02:35.840 I'm hoping that somebody will turn up or is already there, just we don't see that person as much.

01:02:41.280 We will certainly be in a much more difficult situation because, as I said, I mean, the first

01:02:46.720 Orban government, the coalition government, our conservative movement was much more fragmented

01:02:51.760 before Orban came in. And you needed this powerful personality to kind of bring together everyone,

01:02:56.640 from the Christian Democrats to the liberal conservative to the national conservatives.

01:03:01.760 So it will be difficult, but I see this glimmer of hope that we did manage to build this very powerful

01:03:11.200 civil society. And, you know, it took 30 years. I mean, because at the fall of communism,

01:03:15.520 there was no civil society. I mean, there were some, you know, former communist things,

01:03:19.120 but certainly no conservative or right-wing civil society. So it's, I think, a huge accomplishment.

01:03:25.840 But on the other hand, if you look at countries like Ireland, which, you know, 30 years ago was

01:03:29.920 very conservative, and now it's quite opposite. I mean, countries can change very rapidly. So

01:03:35.600 because of that, I'm also a bit fearful of what will happen if we will not have Orban,

01:03:40.960 or we will have even four or, you know, eight years of progressive governments. Because, I mean,

01:03:46.480 they can change public thinking and things quite rapidly. So, yeah, I'm kind of mixed in this regard.

01:03:55.040 Well, listen, I wish you good luck. And I get the feeling that the Danube Institute is an important

01:03:59.600 part of keeping Hungary on the right path. Great to spend some time with you. Thank you very much.

01:04:04.240 It's a pleasure. Right on. Well, there you have it, a feature interview with Isran Kis,

01:04:07.920 the executive director of the Danube Institute. For all of our special reports during our visit to

01:04:13.280 Hungary, go to thetruthabouthungary.com. And if you like our work, feel free to chip in. Of course,

01:04:19.920 we take no government money from any government, and we rely on you, our viewers. So if you feel

01:04:25.600 compelled to support our citizen journalism, you can do that right there on the same webpage,

01:04:30.960 thetruthabouthungary.com.

01:04:37.520 Well, what do you think of that? Send me an email to ezra at rebelnews.com. And if you want more,

01:04:42.320 go to thetruthabouthungary.com. Our trip is going to take a turn for the interesting.

01:04:47.120 Tomorrow, we're actually going to Romania, an ethnic Hungarian region called Transylvania,

01:04:53.440 and we'll have more reports from there. We'll try and have a one-on-one with the Prime Minister,

01:04:57.200 Victor Orban. Until next time, on behalf of all of us at Rebel News, around the world,

01:05:02.880 to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - July 20, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Taking a different path： Hungary's stand for national identity

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