Latest news with #Magyar
DW
6 days ago
- Politics
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Magyar's million steps to Romania — and to power in Hungary? – DW – 05/26/2025
Hungary's opposition leader Peter Magyar walked from Budapest to northwestern Romania in the hope of gaining the support of ethnic Hungarians there. Such support would be key for an election victory. Hungary's opposition leader Peter Magyar was wearing a traditional Hungarian-style white shirt and a white waistcoat embroidered with bright blue flowers when he and several dozen supporters walked across the Hungarian–Romanian border at about 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. As they continued their walk through northwestern Romania, people came out to speak to the Hungarian politician, asking him to pose for selfies or shaking his hand. Drivers honked their horns in greeting. By lunchtime, the group had reached the city of Oradea. Later, while addressing a crowd of several hundred people outside the city's fortress, Magyar said: "the countdown has begun. Hungarians want to be part of Europe. They've had enough of dictatorship and division. They want peace, calm and prosperity." Why did Magyar walk to this part of Romania? Oradea was the final stop on Magyar's 11-day, million-step walk, the latest in his series of high-profile political actions in the midst of an unprecedented campaign of hate and agitation by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his government against anyone who thinks differently from themselves. Orban accuses Magyar and his Tisza (Respect and Freedom) Party of working for the Ukrainian secret service and being traitors, without providing any evidence to back up these claims. Magyar said he wanted to listen to the concerns and troubles of Hungarians along the way and that the walk marked the beginning of the end of the Orban era. It was the first walk of its kind in Hungary. Magyar's walk began in the Hungarian capital on May 14 and took him over 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast to Oradea, which is home to many ethnic Hungarian Romanians. Peter Magyar and supporters walked 300 km from the Hungarian capital to Oradea in northwestern Romania Image: Marton Monus/REUTERS Ethnic Hungarians in Hungary's neighboring countries who hold dual citizenship are not only an important voter group in Hungarian parliamentary elections, they are also traditionally of immense emotional significance for Hungarian society. This is particularly true of the ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania and other regions of Romania. Historical ties For many Hungarians, the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which saw two-thirds of Hungarian territory given to Hungary's neighbors after World War I, remains a major trauma. Almost overnight, large parts of Hungary's population became citizens of other countries. The ethnic Hungarians of Transylvania have a reputation in Hungary as dogged freedom fighters and preservers of all things Hungarian. One of the things that triggered the end of the communist dictatorship in Hungary in 1989/90 were protests against the plans of Romania's communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, to raze up to 7,000 villages in Romania. Many ethnic Hungarians would have been directly affected by these plans. Mass demonstrations against the Romanian regime and in solidarity with ethnic Hungarians in Romania began in Hungary in 1988. Magyar ahead in the polls Although votes cast in Hungarian elections by ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries account for an average of just two seats in Hungary's parliament, no politician who wants to win an election can afford to ignore this voter group or even go against it. Peter Magyar set out from Budapest on May 14 on his million-step walk Image: Marton Monus/REUTERS Recent opinion polls suggest that Peter Magyar and the Tisza Party would easily defeat Orban and Fidesz in a parliamentary election. The next one is due to take place in spring 2026. Magyar's success to date is down to the fact that he denounces widespread corruption in the Orban system and the poor state of the country's public infrastructure, including its education and healthcare systems. This appeals to many in Hungary who are tired of Orban after 16 uninterrupted years of his rule. Orban's big mistake But Magyar is now widening his political strategy. First of all, he is paying more attention to the issue of ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries. He has been helped in this respect by a major political mistake Orban made in the runup to Romania's recent presidential election. Orban gave his backing to the pro-Russian hard-right candidate George Simion, who is known for violent, anti-Hungarian actions in the past. In 2019, for example, Simion and his supporters wrecked Hungarian graves in a graveyard for Hungarian and Romanian soldiers in Transylvania. The attack came as a massive shock to the ethnic Hungarian community. Orban's backing of Simion put him at odds with the leadership of the UDMR, the political party of Romania's Hungarian minority, which is otherwise loyally aligned with the Hungarian leader. A rally organized by Peter Maygar's opposition Tisza Party in Budapest on March 15, 2025, the Hungarian national holiday Image: Attila Kisbendek/AFP/Getty Images Record numbers of ethnic Hungarians in Romania voted for Simion's pro-European opponent, Nicusor Dan, helping him win the election. Focus on Hungarian minorities Peter Magyar made political capital out of this during his speech in Oradea. He portrayed Orban as someone who quite easily puts political interests ahead of the welfare of the Hungarian community in neighboring countries — despite the fact that it was Orban's own party that anchored the protection of this group in the Hungarian constitution. Orban also has close ties to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, both of whom have a long tradition of aggressive policies towards their countries' minorities and in particular their Hungarian minorities. With his campaign against Ukraine joining the EU, Orban has also consciously positioned himself against the interests of Ukraine's Hungarian minority, whose members are strongly in favor of Ukraine's EU accession. Poisoned atmosphere But Magyar is making a concerted effort to ensure that his speeches are not just built on anti-Orban messages. He consciously uses positive messages and often uses terms such as "peace," "reconciliation" and "unity." Viktor Orban (right) has close ties to Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia (left) and Robert Fico of Slovakia (center) Image: Robert Nemeti/Anadolu/picture alliance The reason for this is that after over a decade-and-a-half of Orban rule, Hungarian society is struggling with what has become an extremely polarized, poisoned public atmosphere. Many Hungarians have firsthand experience of the strain political disputes put on friendships and family relationships. Is change imminent? It remains to be seen whether Magyar's message will strike a chord with ethnic Hungarians living in Hungary's neighboring countries. After all, Orban's government supports ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania alone to the tune of several hundred million euros a year. On Saturday, at least, it looked as if most of those who turned out to hear Magyar speak in Oradea were on his side. After his speech, he posed for countless selfies and spoke to locals. Most people seemed curious, saying that they didn't know Magyar very well, but that it was time for a change at the top in Hungary. At his press conference on Saturday, Magyar repeated his mantra: "This is the start of something new." He might well be right. This article was originally published in German and adapted by Aingeal Flanagan.
Euronews
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Russia and Ukraine each release hundreds in large-scale prisoner swap
Ukraine and Russia exchanged hundreds of prisoners on Saturday in the second phase of a massive swap between the countries. Both sides released 307 servicemen, a day after 390 combatants and civilians were freed in the first phase on Friday. "Among those who returned today are soldiers from our army, the State Border Service, and the National Guard of Ukraine,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel. The majority of Ukrainian soldiers released were taken captive in the Donetsk region, some as long ago as 2022, the Ukrainian leader said in an additional video address. He added that others were captured in territories of the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Luhansk regions. A total of 697 Ukrainians have returned home over the past two days, with a third prisoner swap expected to take place on Sunday, which would make it the largest swap in thiree years of conflict. Kyiv and Moscow agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners from each side during the talks in Istanbul last week. It marks a rare moment of cooperation between the two nations, who have failed multipe times to reach on a ceasefire deal. However, the swap did not halt the fighting. On Saturday, a large-scale Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv injured at least 15 people and damaged residential buildings and a shopping mall. "Russia fills each day with horror and murder; it's simply dragging out the war," Zelenskyy said in the video address on Saturday. ""Ukraine is ready for any form of diplomacy that delivers real results. We are ready for all steps that can guarantee true security. It is Russia that is not ready for anything. Next week must be a time for action aimed at increasing pressure on Russia – in other words, aimed at securing peace." Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar walked with a small group of supporters across the border to Romania and was met by supporters in the Romanian city of Oradea on Saturday morning. The president of the Tisza Party left Budapest 10 days ago, and departed on his journey in an effort to win support from Hungarian communities in Romania and appeal to voters who traditionally vote conservative, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán provides financial support to ethnic Hungarians in Romania. "We are not going (to Romania) to escalate tensions or to cause any harm to our Hungarian brothers and sisters living there. We are going there to express our solidarity," Magyar had said before his departure. He had announced the march, called the "one million steps for peace and national unity" initiative, in the wake of Orbán's communion with far-right, anti-Hungarian presidential candidate George Simion ahead of the Romanian presidential elections. "It has become clear that the corrupt, tired and discredited Prime Minister sees Hungarians abroad as a political product. He tried and is trying to lure you to him not out of faith, not out of commitment, not out of love for his countrymen, but merely to win votes," Magyar said in a speech to hundreds of people in Oradea. "And now, in order to retain power, he is trembling, using increasingly crude means, crossing all boundaries, doing whatever he can, regardless of the damage he is doing to the nation," he added. The opposition leader recognised Hungarians "long for a country that loves each of its citizens, a country that does not stigmatise, that does not push into exclusion." He warned that division, incitement and hatred lead to destruction. "Orbán's destruction, hate-mongering and trench-digging are a thing of the past. The final countdown has begun," Magyar concluded. The politician told Euronews that he had experienced positive feedback from supporters, but he was also met by counter-protesters who chanted Orbán's name, and shouted "Traitor!" and "Go home". Magyar ended his speech by addressing the Romanian people. He applauded them for the outcome of their election, and encouraged them to stay on the European path. The politician emphasised the importance of mutual respect between Romanians and the Hungarian community.
Euronews
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar walks across Romanian border
Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar walked with a small group of supporters across the border to Romania and was met by supporters in the Romanian city of Oradea on Saturday morning. The president of the Tisza Party left Budapest 10 days ago, and departed on his journey in an effort to win support from Hungarian communities in Romania and appeal to voters who traditionally vote conservative, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán provides financial support to ethnic Hungarians in Romania. "We are not going (to Romania) to escalate tensions or to cause any harm to our Hungarian brothers and sisters living there. We are going there to express our solidarity," Magyar had said before his departure. He had announced the march, called the "one million steps for peace and national unity" initiative, in the wake of Orbán's communion with far-right, anti-Hungarian presidential candidate George Simion ahead of the Romanian presidential elections. "It has become clear that the corrupt, tired and discredited Prime Minister sees Hungarians abroad as a political product. He tried and is trying to lure you to him not out of faith, not out of commitment, not out of love for his countrymen, but merely to win votes," Magyar said in a speech to hundreds of people in Oradea. "And now, in order to retain power, he is trembling, using increasingly crude means, crossing all boundaries, doing whatever he can, regardless of the damage he is doing to the nation," he added. The opposition leader recognised Hungarians "long for a country that loves each of its citizens, a country that does not stigmatise, that does not push into exclusion." He warned that division, incitement and hatred lead to destruction. "Orbán's destruction, hate-mongering and trench-digging are a thing of the past. The final countdown has begun," Magyar concluded. The politician told Euronews that he had experienced positive feedback from supporters, but he was also met by counter-protesters who chanted Orbán's name, and shouted "Traitor!" and "Go home". Magyar ended his speech by addressing the Romanian people. He applauded them for the outcome of their election, and encouraged them to stay on the European path. The politician emphasised the importance of mutual respect between Romanians and the Hungarian community. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has deployed all of its standing army infantry and armoured brigades to Gaza, local media reported on Saturday. It comes as Israel intensifies its major offensive in the strip. Earlier, the military said it struck more than 100 targets in a timespan of 24 hours, claiming they were targeting infrastructure used by Hamas. Gaza's Health Ministry said the bodies of 79 people killed in Israeli strikes were brought to hospitals. This toll that does not include hospitals in the battered north, which remain inaccessible as they are encircled by Israeli troops preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities. Nine out of a doctor's 10 children were among those killed on Friday, the Health Ministry confirmed. Alaa Najjar, who is a pediatrician at Nasser Hospital, was on duty when an Israeli airstrike hit her home. She had ran home to find her family's house on fire. Najjar's husband was severely wounded and their only surviving child, an 11-year-old son, was in critical condition. The nine children killed in the strike ranged in age from 7 months to 12 years old. Two of the children remained under the rubble. Local health authorities said 3,747 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel intensified its offensive on 18 March in an effort to pressure Hamas to disarm and release all of the 58 remaining Israeli hostages. Hamas said it will only return the remaining hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners, a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from the territory. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected those terms and has vowed to maintain control over Gaza and facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its Palestinian population. Israel's pressure on Hamas has included a blockade of Gaza and its more than 2 million residents since early March, raising widespread concerns about the critical risk of famine. This week, the first aid trucks entered the territory. Since easing the aid blockade on Monday, Israel has said that 388 aid trucks have entered Gaza. However, Palestinian aid groups dispute this, stating that only 119 trucks have made it through the Karem Shalom crossing. Gaza's Health Ministry reported that the total death toll, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians, now stands at 53,901 since 7 October 2023, when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel killing 1,200 people.
Budapest Times
19-05-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Hungary urges EC to reach agreement to end tariff war
State Secretary Levente Magyar said the European Union's executive needed to take steps to reach an agreement with the United States to resolve a tariff war ahead of a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Thursday. 'We would like to again encourage and call upon the Commission to do everything in its power to come to some sort of arrangement with the States,' said Magyar, a state secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He called out the European Commission for its 'belated response' to the reciprocal tariffs and said it 'should have done a better job'. Magyar said Hungary's export-oriented economy was especially vulnerable to the trade war, adding that the new tariffs would cost the country the equivalent of about 1.5pc of its exports. He said any agreement that would stabilise global trade was a step in the right direction. He also warned against retaliation by the EU that could lead to escalation. 'We should sit down, address the American concerns…and then come to some kind of common understanding,' he added. Touching on Hungary's economic relations with China, Magyar said the government would not sever those ties and called initiatives advocating decoupling 'a red line'. He added that around 45pc of China's recent investments in Europe were in Hungary. 'Hungary is benefiting from these very intensive Chinese economic and trade relations. We're not willing to give those up,' he added.
Hindustan Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
The story of maimed nationalisms
'On your feet, Magyar,' wrote Sándor Petőfi, Hungary's national poet, 'the homeland calls'. So opens his iconic poem, Nemzeti Dal, or 'national song'. This line became the heartbeat of inspiration for the Hungarian Revolution against the Hapsburg Monarchy in 1848, a historic event that watchers of the Netflix show, The Empress may have relived recently. But the poet Petőfi himself never returned to his homeland. He died in one of the last battles of the revolution, his body never recovered. As I stood before Petőfi tomb this Spring, my mind went blank, gaping with questions about nationalism and war, and the missing body of the martyr. In the heart of the famous Fiumei Road Graveyard in Budapest, the Petőfi family grave holds the remains of his family members, even those of his son – but the man who gave the nation these unforgettable lines of patriotism could not get back on his feet to return to his homeland. Unlike the great English Romantic poet, Lord Byron, who lost his life in his idealistic immolation in the Greek War of Independence but had his body returned to family vault at Hucknall Torkard in England, the Hungarian national poet remains a towering presence in his very gaping absence in his family tomb in Budapest's famous cemetery. The nationalism of maimed nations is a powerful and dangerous thing. Located right in the core of Europe, Hungary has struggled against just about every current flowing through the continent, crushed by many, resilient against some. Overpowered by the mighty Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages, dominated by the monumental Habsburg Monarchy in the 18th and the 19th centuries, oppressed by Nazism and eventually wrung dry by Soviet communism in the 20th, this is a nation that has been on a traumatised margins of Europe for an eternity. Now on its own after the fall of the Berlin wall, it has repeatedly reached back to the great linguistic and literary nationalisms of the 19th century, immortalised in the words of poets like Sándor Petőfi and Ferenc Kölcsey. But quickly, these invocations turned intolerant and jingoistic under the leadership of the Fidesz party, whose leader Viktor Orbán has proudly declared Hungary to be an 'illiberal democracy'. This state oppresses its own indigenous Roma gypsy community, fans hatred against immigrants, equates queer people with paedophiles, and bans Pride Marches. In its fervour to fight its oppressors, the oppressed has now turned oppressor. Language, literature and music have long been witness and conscience to the nationalism of dominated nations. Deprived of voice and power in the realms of economy and statecraft, suppressed peoples have sung their longings through their bards. The force of their voices is no less than air-raid sirens that pierce through night skies, no less pervasive than the blanket blackouts that blind cities and countries. But what happens when the voice of the traumatised drowns out the voices beneath themselves? That has, historically been the destiny of maimed nationalisms – that they fight by maiming others less privileged than them, whose cries they cannot hear, deafened as they are by their own trauma. Literature has borne witness to such uneven struggles beautifully. When Irish nationalism at the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries claimed the Celtic twilight to sing the beauty of Gaelic peasantry and their myths and legends, it equated its nation with the identity of the Celt, excluding diverse groups that had come to call Ireland home at that time. This was the great literary nationalism of WB Yeats, Lady Gregory, JM Synge, whose poems and plays celebrated the myths and legends of Ireland against the oppressive impact of British colonialism. But fighting its own battle against imperialism, Celtic Ireland had no place for the Jewish people who called it home and brazenly paved the way for anti-Semitism as part of its nationalistic identity. Against the chroniclers of lyric poetry and poetic plays, the arch-modern novelist and chronicler of the contemporary James Joyce crafted his great novel Ulysses with an ordinary Jewish ad-canvassor, Leopold Bloom as its protagonist – its striking mock-hero, if you will. Joyce found the nationalism of the Celtic twilight suffocating and provincial, and intolerant enough to exclude outsiders. Hence his novelistic vision of twentieth century Ireland parted company of the lyricism of the poems and plays that sought to celebrate its past and mythical glories. War cries on the battlefield have inevitably drawn out flowing, rivers of words and music – in print, performance, and now on social media. That is the nature of humanity under the crushing force of attack and oppression. The will to live and thrive creates poetry and performance of a kind that refuses to be throttled. But this will is also of a blinded and blinding kind that refuses to see anything else. The two world wars in Europe saw a flood of patriotic poems and songs that eventually turned into dirges for dying soldiers whose death, in the end, felt utterly meaningless. No better picture than the quick path from the patriotic poetry of Rupert Brooke to the existentialist, even nihilistic poetry of Wilfred Owen, who died in the trenches at the age of twenty-five. But shortly before the English fought the Germans in Europe, they crushed the Afrikaaners, or the Boers – the Dutch-derived people of South Africa in the deadly violence of the Anglo-Boer War of 1902, where they organised the world's first concentration camps – even before the Nazis perfected the science of these death-traps in the second world war. The English maimed and tortured Boer women and children in the concentration camps of the Anglo-Boer war, eventually forcing the Boers to a crushing surrender. What was the result of that crushing defeat? The Boers, forever a second-tier white race in South Africa below the sophisticated, capitalist imperialism of the English, realised that there was nothing but their white skin that kept them from the bare-bones poverty and trauma of the Bantu tribes, the racially mixed 'coloured' people, and the descendants of indentured labourers from Asia. Hurting from their own pain and humiliation, they came up with an aggressive nationalism that, in the name of celebrating their Afrikaaner identity, erected one of the most divisive and unequal social systems ever known to humanity. This was Aparthood in English, in Afrikaans, Apartheid – different rules of life, location, movement, education, marriage, family, property, everything, for different races classified under law. Come into existence in 1948, when the whole world was getting ready for decolonisation movements and soon, into the Civil Rights movements, this system of great inequality lasted through most of the 20th century, only to come to an end in 1994. It wasn't with no reason that Nelson Mandela's striking biography was called The Long Walk to Freedom. When I walked along Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town a couple of years back, from Mandela's tiny cell to the shores of freedom, the magnitude and weight of that shackled walk shook me to the core. That too, was the consequence of a subaltern nationalism running rogue, casting death, destruction, and torture on everybody beneath them. Having lived and worked in close historical proximity of many of these toxic nationalisms that started as legitimate struggles against oppression, I feel deeply troubled by my eroding faith in nationalism itself. The Quebecois nationalism, in the French province of Quebec, against the dominance of English Canada is another one I experienced in close quarters during my years in that country. The Quebecois could see their own marginalisation clearly enough, but were blind to the oppression they carried out to the indigenous peoples right in their midst, people who had stakes in neither English nor French Canada. But who cared about them, and who listened to their languages? There is nothing like our own trauma and suffering to blind us to the suffering of others. At a moment of intensity, one cannot but have empathy for this blindness. But it is the work of song, words, and narratives to bring out the layers of complexities within suffering. This is why the sound of music and poetry, in the long run, outlasts the piercing cry of blackout sirens. The sirens over our heads is loud. But the poems will last longer, and will celebrate those whose souls are carried away by bombs. The empty presence of the national poet in the Petőfi family grave holds more than the thousands of bodies buried all through the Fiumei Road Graveyard. A novelist and critic, Saikat Majumdar is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study in Budapest.
