Financial Times Person of the Year: George Soros

The prestigious British business magazine has chosen George Soros as the Financial Times Person of the Year.

Portfolio reports that the Financial Times regards Soros as the representative of liberal democracy and of an open society – values that were victorious during the Cold War. The magazine further argues that the Hungarian-born American businessman has to face the strongest and most influential people in the world, like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump, who are trying to ‘delegitimise his person’.

However, it is not only Soros who has a hard time against the forces of nationalism and populism but the ideas he stands for; namely, the balance of liberal democracy is in danger, too, all the way from Hungary to America.

The Financial Times argues that Soros is the only person who builds his own foreign policy as a private individual.

Soros, who has been fighting racism, intolerance and authoritarianism as a philanthropist for 30 years now, shared his own opinion on the backlash he constantly receives from national populists. More specifically, from those in Europe:

“I am blamed for everything; they even call me the Antichrist. I wish I did not have this many enemies, but I take it as a sign of me doing something right.”

He also explained that, in his views, Donald Trump is his own enemy; a narcissistic person, who wishes the world revolved around him.

Soros believes that the world is in a state of revolution,

not having lost faith in another vote on Brexit actually happening in the near future in Great Britain.

Furthermore, he compared the European Union in some ways to the final days of the Soviet Union, since the bureaucracy in Brussels fails to see that they are about to draw the shorter straw. The EU is in the hands of constitutional lawyers who are getting things done through backdoors.

Soros told Financial Times that he is sure his son will carry on the cause they took up together, for which they will stand up, no matter what the results are:

“We will fight, even if we win or lose. Though I do not like losing that much”

Featured image: www.facebook.com/OpenSocietyFoundation

Source: portfolio.hu