A group of “headscarf-wearing women and black men” got off a Hungarian-registered bus at a rest stop near the country’s western border. That was all it took for Virág Gulyás, a journalist and influencer for Mandiner, one of the Orbán regime’s flagship media outlets, to suggest that Péter Magyar had begun the mass resettlement of illegal migrants. It apparently did not occur to her that they might be foreign students.
Fidesz influencer’s narrative fits neatly into Orbán’s propaganda
“There isn’t much of a tourism branding angle on that bus,” Gulyás wrote, swiftly concluding that the passengers could not be tourists and must instead be illegal migrants.
These, of course, are the people against whom the Orbán government claims to have taken action, building a border fence and spending roughly a decade frightening the public with warnings that, unless Fidesz remained in power, the country would be overrun by immigrants.
That narrative only partly reflected reality. The migrants who gathered at Budapest’s Keleti railway station and along the motorways in 2015 were not trying to enter Hungary; they wanted to travel west. Their bottleneck was caused precisely by the closure of Hungary’s western borders.
Since the change of government, it has emerged that the Orbán administration had planned to build a refugee camp in Vitnyéd. It had also long been known that the government had admitted large numbers of guest workers, who have since become indispensable in certain sectors as Hungarian workers have emigrated.
Meanwhile, Péter Magyar has been repeatedly attacked for allegedly welcoming illegal migrants. The Tisza government, however, has consistently made its position clear: it would reject the admission and subsidisation of migrants, maintain the fence along Hungary’s southern border, and co-operate with the European Union in addressing a problem that affects several countries.
Fidesz-linked influencer immediately mistook foreign students for illegal immigrants
Ms Gulyás’s post fitted the Fidesz propaganda machine perfectly. She claimed that a Hungarian-registered bus was carrying “headscarf-wearing women and black men” near Sopron, as though an organised programme of mass settlement had already begun.
The National Conference of Student Unions (HÖOK) responded, however, and clarified that the passengers were students enrolled in the Stipendium Hungaricum programme, launched by the Orbán government in 2013.
They were in Hungary to study and, on returning home, to use the knowledge they had acquired for the benefit of their own countries. They were also expected to remember the generosity of the Hungarian state, which provides scholarships and other forms of support, form lifelong friendships and professional relationships, and thereby help advance Hungary’s national and foreign-policy objectives while improving the country’s image abroad.
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HÖOK said that more than 11,000 students were studying in Hungary under the programme this year. The students pictured had been visiting Sopron, where they learned about a wide range of subjects, from the city’s Roman remains and its famous referendum to its rich student traditions, the origins of the Hungarian people and the foundation of the Hungarian state.
Let us hope they took plenty away from the trip — and that the Fidesz influencer’s insulting post did not reach them.
Rather than apologise, however, Ms Gulyás insulted HÖOK over its response and angrily declared that, although the organisation had now offered an explanation, she would continue photographing every suspicious-looking bus and bringing the matter to public attention.
She even appealed to her 182,000 followers, asking them to send her more pictures of a similar nature.
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This is not a news report. It is an editorial, and should be clearly labeled as such. In fact, it is written so poorly and tendentiously that it belongs on some blog site rather than an outlet that has the word “news” in its name.
Oh, and re “It had also long been known that the government had admitted large numbers of guest workers,” there is a galaxy of a difference between legal migrants and illegal aliens.
But this “reporter” knows that fully well, and we also know why he deliberately conflates the two.
Those who are so enamored of open borders and opposed to measures to exercise basic border controls should really leave a place like Hungary and, as the Brits say, s.d off to a West European country or, indeed, Great Britain itself.