The Rhetoric of Hungarian Premier Victor Orban: Inside X Outside in the Context of Immigration Crisis

Contesting cosmopolitan Europe: Euroscepticism, crisis and borders

“…Prior to the issue of mass migration, the PM had already successfully instrumentalised the collective memories of the 1848/1956 freedom fights salient to the Hungarian public to gain electoral support. The arrival of the unprecedented number of asylum seekers in summer 2015 served as an opportunity to reinforce the "Us" and "Them" dichotomy by evoking the past memories of the Ottoman conquest (Mendelski 2019;Lamour & Varga, 2017). Fidesz have constructed the image of Hungary as a nation which, although left alone and suffered multitude of traumas, has always been able to fight back and regain its freedom from foreign and/or domestic aggressors.…”

5 Revising Humanitarianism and Solidarity . Migration Management and Peripheral Europeanism in the UK, Poland, and Hungary

“…Prior to the issue of mass migration, the PM had already successfully instrumentalized the collective memories of the 1848/1956 freedom fights salient to the Hungarian public to gain electoral support. The arrival of the unprecedented number of asylum seekers in summer 2015 has served as an opportunity to reinforce the Us and Them dichotomy by invoking the past memories of the Ottoman conquest (Mendelski, 2019;Lamour and Varga, 2017). Fidesz have constructed the image of Hungary as a nation which, although left alone and suffered multitude of traumas, has always been able to fight back and regain its freedom from foreign and/or domestic aggressors.…”

Bridging Copenhagen and Paris: how Hungarian police accept anti-immigrant discourse

“…It claimed that migrants pose a threat to the "Hungarian way of life", "national homogeneity" and the physical integrity of citizens. Muslim "hordes" of "invaders" threatening Christianity have been a core element of the campaign (Mendelski 2019;Gyollai and Korkut, 2019;Vidra, 2017;Sereghy, 2017). The government envisioned Islamisation, terror, the destruction of Western civilisation and sexual harassment of Hungarian women.…”

“…Moreover, the government argued that the migration crisis had been unleashed by the Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist George Soros, whose "plan" was to "settle one million migrants in Europe''. In the government's view, NGOs providing humanitarian aid to asylum seekers serve the execution of the so-called "Soros Plan" and act on behalf of Soros as his "agents" (Mendelski 2019;Vidra, 2017;Sereghy, 2017). These narratives have been disseminated through media outlets, giant billboards and propaganda leaflets entitled "national consultation" that were sent to every household.…”