Date: 2009 október 30.
Subject: National media silent
To: Kutasi József
Foreign nationalists speak, national media silent
European Alliance (photo: stop.hu)In the centre of Budapest on Friday afternoon on the 53rd anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising and the twentieth anniversary of the Hungarian Republic, politicians from around Europe spoke directly to, and saluted the patriotism of, the Hungarian people, wishing them a "brighter tomorrow" in both their own and the Hungarian language. If however, you have been getting your news from the Hungarian terrestrial media, this will be the first you will have heard of this.
In events which marked the further consolidation of Jobbik into the Hungarian political mainstream and its wider prestige amongst the parties of Europe, representatives of nationalist parties from countries as far apart as Sweden, Italy and France came together to speak to Hungarians gathered in the country's capital.
Jobbik's events also included speeches from Krisztina Morvai MEP and Zoltán Balczó MEP (who with Csanád Szegedi MEP are rapidly demonstrating what Hungarians can accomplish in Europe if they put their minds to it) poetry readings and the singing of the nation's anthems.
The participation of politicians from other countries was also important for events of historical significance that were to take place the following day; on Jobbik's own six year anniversary, with the formation of the Alliance of European National Movements, whose creation in Budapest, the heart of Europe, was not coincidental.
The Alliance now constitutes the only significant Europe-wide opposition movement to the increasing federalism, and executive power grab, of the European Union.
However, viewers of Hungarian terrestrial television have been left deliberately ignorant of the momentous events that have been taking place in their country over the holiday weekend, which had been negotiated by Jobbik, the third largest party in the land.
Moreover it also seems that, one of the crucial reasons why Budapest was chosen as the venue for negotiations, namely that it represents the most significant incident so far in the deliberate repression of patriotic sentiment by vested interest laden government – in the form of the events of October 2006; is curiously deemed an irrelevance by the controllers of Hungarian state TV.
In fact, viewers of the main M1 TV channel's news broadcasts on Friday would have witnessed that the mere seconds given to a cursory mention of Jobbik's commemorative event (the ONLY one taking place in the centre of the country's capital) were literally dwarfed a hundred fold by the coverage given to whether or not convicted paedophile, Roman Polanski, was to be extradited from Switzerland or not. Though of what interest by contrast, this would be to the average Hungarian citizen currently escapes us.
As everyone is aware, Friday marked the 20th anniversary of the creation of the modern Hungarian Republic; and therefore – in name at least – signalled the end of institutional Communism in Hungary. Isn't it therefore time that the various terrestrial channels of Hungary shrugged of the control and influence of the two main parties, and stopped engaging in the kind of deliberate censorship by omission that would have found much more fitting a home in the pre-1989 Communist Hungarian People's Republic?
In fact, in a warden message email sent to American citizens (predicatably ignorant that a great many such citizens present in Hungary at this time were '56 veterans) the U.S. State Department sought to warn its countrymen and women of the possibility of unrest in the city of Budapest (which thanks to the diligence of Morvai and the new Hungarian Guard thankfully did not materialize), urging them to keep abreast and informed of actual happenings by keeping an eye on local media... immediatey adding the sobriquet, "Good Luck!"
It is high time these channels were true to the requirements in their charters to their own nation, and perhaps started taking seriously their duty to tell their countrymen and women about what actually takes place within their own borders. It would certainly make for a pleasant change.
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