Hungary, put an end to antisemitic slandering now!

Antisemitic slandering in modern day Hungary

The text to the upper right reads: “Jews! This is our university not your university! Greetings from hungarian students…”

I am truly disgusted. This open antisemitism should remind us of much darker times. For years now, Hungary is moving in a very, very bad direction. And even though the above mentioned note is anonymous, in this case it´s clear that the Orbán regime is at least partially to blame.

I met Agnés Heller at the Taz congress 2011, 2 years ago and asked her about her life. She was born of Jewish origin in 1929 and escaped by luck and cunning the death machinery of the Nazis. After the Hungarian uprising of 1956 she – the Marxist philosopher – fought vehemently against the Russian-controlled Communist party, from which she was expelled 1949 AND 1958. After being expelled from university, too, and years of obstruction, she emigrated in 1977 to Australia.

Obviously Agnés Heller, who had suffered both under the Nazis and the communists, wasn´t afraid to speak her tongue against the antidemocratic tendencies of the Orbán regime after 2010. The following years, the regime did everything they could to destroy the world-famous philosopher´s reputation and to make her life as miserable as possible. At the taz congress where I met her, her speech was disrupted permanently by people who shouted lies and accusations in her direction until the staff had to interrupt them harshly. It seemed crystal-clear to me, they were sent and paid by Fidesz or some party-affiliated organization. For years now the regime has supported, started or tolerated the worst and most disgusting lies and attacks thinkable, including antisemitic slandering. Even articles and open letters in her defense from the likes as Jürgen Habermas and Julian Nida-Rümelin didn´t help.

The Orbán regime has taken an anti-intellectual, anti-democratic path that tries to destroy the past, present and future of its critics, that paves the way for or even instigates antisemitism, antiziganism and other intolerable forms of structural hatred. This course must end now!

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