I have been studying radical right politics for almost 25 years. When I started, the Berlin Wall had just come down and only a handful of radical right parties were represented in national parliaments. That one of them would one day be part of a national government in Europe was considered impossible. Today, radical right parties, or parties many would have considered as such in the early 1990s, are part of governments in Finland, Greece, Latvia, Norway, and Switzerland – while the Danish minority government depends on support from the right.
Despite the electoral and political successes of radical right parties, they are not as important as mainstream media and politicians make out. I have spent my career arguing this and still believe it – on average, radical right parties gain less than 10% of the vote in national elections in EU member states, while the parties that do get into government rarely get any of their priorities fully implemented.
My main point is not that the rise of the radical right is unimportant, but that these groups are often not that relevant. We devote far too much attention to relatively irrelevant groups and often ignore more significant phenomena. Think about the hype around the English Defence League or Pegida in Germany, neither of which has had any serious effect. Or how about the enduring fascination with neo-Nazis and skinheads? Both are, at most, a criminal justice issue in a few European countries.
Misguided emphasis on the most extreme and photogenic radical right groups also plays out in Hungary. As the international media continues to give little or no attention to the increasingly radical right rhetoric of prime minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party, they continue to publish alarmist articles and op-eds about the rise of the radical right Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) – despite the fact that Fidesz probably has a more radical discourse (though not ideology) than Jobbik.
I am not claiming that Orbán is a radical right politician. Given his many ideological swings, who knows? What I am saying is that it doesn’t matter anymore. Whether he is inspired by a genuine ideology, or has adopted an opportunistic strategy in order to fend off the Jobbik challenge, Orbán has transformed Fidesz into a party that seems increasingly driven by a combination of nativism, authoritarianism and populism – hallmarks of radical right ideology.
At its core is ethnic nationalism, with the nation defined in ethnic terms, ie the roughly 15 million “ethnic Hungarians” living in Hungary and surrounding countries (notably Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine), rather than in civic terms, ie the barely 10 million citizens of Hungary.
Accepting the restrictions of EU membership, Fidesz wants to change the meaning of Hungary’s borders, rather than the borders themselves. It has tried to do this by giving all “ethnic Hungarians” citizenship of Hungary, though preferring them to remain in the ancient lands of pre-Trianon Hungary.
Nationalism is combined with authoritarianism, with the government increasingly cracking down on media and NGOs considered “disloyal” to the nation (ie to Orbán and Fidesz), and with strong populism, which presents Orbán as the authentic voice of the Hungarian people who are fighting off a (EU-sponsored) leftwing conspiracy.
Since the horrific terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, perhaps earlier, Orbán has added a strong dose of xenophobia to this toxic mix. As leaders from around the world descended on Paris to speak in defence of free speech, however hypocritical they were, the Hungarian PM used the #JeSuisCharlie demonstration to launch an anti-immigration campaign that is becoming more problematic by the day. In a speech given at the 26th Bálványos summer open university and student camp last weekend, Orbán said:
“What we have at stake today is Europe, the European way of life, the survival or disappearance of European values and nations, or their transformation beyond recognition … We would like Europe to be preserved for the Europeans. But there is something we would not just like but we want because it only depends on us: we want to preserve a Hungarian Hungary.”
While Orbán lacks the eloquence, and classical training, of Enoch Powell, make no mistake: this speech was more significant that Powell’s infamous Rivers of Blood speech of 1968. While Powell was a member of the Tory shadow cabinet, a position he lost because of the speech, Orbán is the almighty ruler of Hungary – more or less jokingly referred to as Orbánistan by his opponents. He doesn’t just warn about “the survival or disappearance of European values and nations”, he organises xenophobic referendum campaigns and builds walls on his borders – roughly 25 years after the Iron Curtain was lifted in, of all places, Hungary.
Even more upsetting than Orbán’s increasingly radical right politics is the deafening silence from the rest of Europe. The EU has criticised only some specific aspects of Hungary’s illiberal democratic regime – most notably political control of banks and the media – as the powerful centre-right European People’s party stands staunchly by Orbán, its former vice-president. The US has spoken out at times, but seems more worried about antisemitism and Jobbik than anti-immigrant policies and Fidesz.
Even the usual suspects such as anti-racist organisations and the leftwing media, normally so quick to condemn racism and warn about the rise of fascism, have been sidetracked by lesser threats such as Jobbik and Pegida. But while they are fighting the radical right at the European margins, it is growing deep within the heart of the EU. It’s time to shift priorities.