Hungary's “anti-capitalist” far-right: Jobbik and the Hungarian Guard

Abstract

This article discusses the political success of the far-right Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik). Jobbik is usually depicted as owing its success to anti-Roma and anti-establishment sentiment, mobilized with the help of a paramilitary organization, the Hungarian Guard. With the examples of the party programs, the speeches of Jobbik leaders during marches of the Hungarian Guard, and the press releases of the party between 2008 and 2010, this article shows how Jobbik not only attempts to mobilize anti-Roma sentiment, but also tries to present itself as a party taking considerable interest in the economic issues of poverty and inequality triggered by capitalism. It also suggests that the party's success might in fact also be due to this focus on the economy, as well as due to increasing efforts on behalf of the party leadership to differentiate their positions from those of the main center-right party, Fidesz. This could explain how even though authorities banned the Hungarian Guard in July 2009, Jobbik nevertheless doubled its number of voters in the parliamentary elections of April 2010 (and achieved a further increase in absolute vote numbers in 2014) as compared to its electoral outcome in the European Parliament elections of June 2009.

Keywords:

• far-right
• Hungary
• post-communism
• Eastern Europe

Notes

1. The quote is from the 2013 congress of Jobbik. A recording is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgKQsG7czQE (accessed 13 November 2013).

2. Poland could be, next to Hungary, another example, as it experienced important successes in mobilization on behalf of the radical nationalist Ruch Narodowy. An observer called Jobbik the model for the strategies and discourse pursued by the Ruch Narodowy (Varga 2012).

3. In other words, they oppose the idea of equating boundaries of the state with those of the nation (Brubaker 1999).

4. For instance, the 2009 statement of Hungary's parliamentary commissioner for human rights and social scientist Maté Szábo, declaring that “gipsy crime” indeed exists: http://www.errc.org/article/hungarian-rights-groups-denounce-anti-romani-statements-by-hungarys-parliamentary-commissioner-for-civil-rights/3025

5. Kovács (2012) shows for instance the latter to be happening in the context of Jobbik mobilization and Antisemitic prejudice.

6. See a recent study showing that Hungary has – among post-communist countries – after Bulgaria the highest share of people believing their country to be heading in the wrong direction (Juhász, Krekó, and Molnár 2012, 20).

7. Several authors expressed concerns about the successful drive of governments in the 1990s to pursue economic reforms without much consultation and by sidestepping trade unions and a protesting public but with dramatic increases in social spending; ever since EU accession, agreeing to the EU's Maastricht criteria in the 2000s has greatly limited the CEE governments' capacity to spend on welfare, something that has often increased the already existing dissatisfaction with the results of the economic reforms of the 1990s (Greskovits 2007; Ágh 2010). In a Polanyian vein, it has been argued that the key question arising from these developments is who, with what discourse, and to what result captures the “anger” and “frustration” unleashed by market reform in post-communist publics (Ost 2006; Vanhuysse 2007); at the case of Poland, Ost (2006) further explored how it is radical nationalist discourse that seems to gain most from such anger and frustration.

8. See for instance the statements of Jobbik veterans Gábor Szábo and Gábor Zázrivecz (the latter changed his surname from Zázrivecz to Vona) made in the Jobbik-sympathetic documentary A Jobbik Nemzedék (The Jobbik Generation), a 2010 documentary film available here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R30fmLzFslY (accessed 2 June 2014).

9. According to the same Molnár (2007), who was one of the leader of what became the coordinating body for the protests in late October 2006, the “Hungarian National Committee.”

10. This seems by now to be the dominant explanation among Hungarian social scientists. Although they do not deny the importance of the 2006 mobilization for Jobbik, they argue that the creation of the Gárda should be seen in the context of a series of crimes committed by Roma ethnics starting in Autumn 2006 in Olaszkaliszka, and Jobbik's search for a way to politically exploit those crimes (Karácsony and Róna 2011; Paksa 2012).

11. A video of the meeting is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNU5PuKQNYE (accessed 20 October 2013).

12. There is also a 25-page English version of the 2010 program, available on the Jobbik website, http://jobbik.com/sites/default/files/Jobbik-RADICALCHANGE2010.pdf. It also includes Jobbik's discussion of “gipsy crime,” but in a shortened version, not including the examples given in the original Hungarian-language text.

13. One can think, for instance in the case of “mass involvement in fights,” how widespread such fights are among groups proudly claiming Hungarian ancestry, such as Ferencváros and Ujpest football team supporters (for background see http://www.hungarianfootball.com/2012/05/ujpest-vs-ferencvaros-a-background/, accessed 14 June 2013).

14. Meant here are mainly the “Pax Hungarica Movement,” an organization openly propagating “Hungarian National-Socialism,” and various other organizations close to it; for a description see Paksa (2012, 197–208).

15. The analysis actually uncovered a very small number of articles dedicated to both issues: in the pre-EP campaign, only four articles out of 100 addressed Roma issues, and that was the highest number in the 2009–2010 period, while the economy and welfare issue covered a maximum of 9 articles out of 100, in mid-2010. It is nevertheless interesting that Jobbik gives so little space on its website to an issue (the Roma) credited to have brought it its first electoral success.

16. For instance, one of the few press releases focusing on Roma issues demanded that since “the Hungarian educational system cannot socialize Gipsy children anymore,” and since “within Gipsy society there is downward trend,” with “Gipsy families giving each other abnormal examples,” Roma children should be taken away from their families and put into special schools, with the right to see their families “once or twice every week or month, pending on the tutor's approval” (Jobbik 2010d).

17. In Vona's words during 19 May 2012 Jobbik Congress:In Parliament, the Fidesz-KDNP government tried taking the wind out of our sails[ … ] I am sure that without Jobbik's presence in Parliament, there would not have been any official Trianon-commemoration, there would not be double citizenship [granted by the Fidesz-government to ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries], and there would be no class trips abroad [for Hungarian children to neighboring countries with large Hungarian communities]The full talk of Jobbik leader Vona during 19 May 2012 Congress can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRMNpcY8D3s (accessed 12 November 2013).

18. See the same recording as in note 15.

19. The transcript and recording are available here in Hungarian, http://atv.hu/belfold/20120419_juhasz_oszkar_felkeszulten_haboruzna_a_zsidesz_rendorei_ellen, with a weblog also offering a more complete transcript and discussion in English here: http://thecontrarianhungarian.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/scandalous-jobbik-civil-war-tapes-with-transcript-of-gyongyospata-mayors-remarks/ (accessed 20 June 2013).