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UP FRONTThursday 10 September
Migrants finding little sympathy in Hungary for their plight
S. POGATCHNIK come. dominate in small towns one intending to stay in sour their outlook on the for-
A. KULI “If they couldn’t solve their that strongly support the ul- Hungary anyway. eign influx. In 2011, Orban
Associated Press problems back where they tranationalist Jobbik party. “The government says they seized the public’s private
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — live, why do they think “Many Hungarians are don’t want immigrants pension funds worth $13 bil-
A makeshift camp of thou- they’re going to be able to racist. They lack self-confi- here and they can’t take lion to cover government
sands from the Middle East, solve them here?” Szabo dence and see their iden- our jobs away,” said satirist debt and help the coun-
Asia and Africa has been said. tity under threat. And our Gergely Kovacs, a 35-year- try exit an International
dismantled at Budapest’s Such lack of sympathy is a government exploits these old graphic designer. “But Monetary Fund bailout. Its
Keleti train station, and its striking feature of the mas- feelings to boost its own the truth is that nobody sales tax is 27 percent, the
inhabitants have left for sive march this summer popularity,” said Zsuzsanna wants to come here. Every highest in Europe, and Hun-
gary has one of the lowest
People gather at the railway track in a camp near the Hungarian border with Serbia, in Roszke, southern Hungary, Wednesday, Sept. average wages in Europe,
9, 2015. Leaders of the United Nations refugee agency warned Tuesday that Hungary faces a bigger wave of migrants in the next barely $600 a month.
few days and will need international help to provide aid and shelter on its border. “The volunteers were
throwing food and clothes
(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) at the migrants, and they
wouldn’t give me a stinking
Germany. But the loathing from Turkey through south- Zhohar, 36, who has helped immigrant would spend just sandwich. Why are they so
of them lingers in Hungary, eastern Europe. Many of lead volunteer efforts to three days here if we kept generous with them and
which hopes to build a bor- the trekkers interviewed give food, water, medical the borders open. There’s not with me?” said Korne-
der fence strong enough to by The Associated Press aid and other help to those no need to hate them be- liusz Lecz, a former chemi-
keep out future waves of say their worst experiences passing through Hungary. cause they’re leaving as cal engineer who is home-
asylum seekers. have come in Hungary, “It can be hard to con- quickly as possible.” less. As he sat near Keleti
“We need the fence,” said where farmers hiss at them vince Hungarians that Kovacs’ tongue-in-cheek station, he blamed the
Istvan Szabo, a 43-year-old in disapproval and the gov- these people don’t want political movement, the refugees for an ailment in
lathe operator having a ernment leaves their care to take our jobs, our homes, Two-Tailed Dog Party, has his left eye, saying they had
beer at a bar next to the mostly up to unpaid volun- our women, our dogs,” she mocked Prime Minister Vik- brought “contagious dis-
station, where hundreds teers. said, laughing at the absur- tor Orban’s anti-immigrant eases.”
seeking refuge in the Euro- A recent opinion poll spon- dity of the idea. campaign by erecting simi- Near the border with Ser-
pean Union still line up daily sored by the Budapest think Yet Hungary at times has larly designed billboards. bia, farmers express resent-
to buy tickets to Western tank Republikon found that become a theater of the One of them, in English, ment of people running
Europe. just 19 percent believe Hun- absurd, with police expend- notes the hypocrisy in de- through their fields of corn
The tent city sprang up last gary has a duty to take in ing great effort to marshal crying immigration when and sunflowers. They won-
month when the govern- refugees, while 66 percent the migrants to specific hundreds of thousands of der how the migrants could
ment blocked the asylum deem them a threat and spots, only to watch them Hungarians have sought afford to pay smugglers
seekers from traveling by should not be let in. The Ip- walk straight out again to better-paid employment in more than $3,000 for the
train to Austria and Germa- sos survey of 2,000 people, snarl traffic. Western Europe since the journey.
ny. Authorities finally gave published Aug. 27 as the Government billboards country was admitted to “They are not poor. I am
in last weekend and sent Keleti camp was growing, warn the newcomers to the EU in 2004. poor,” said Denes Csonka,
buses to take them to the had a margin of error be- respect the country’s laws “Come to Hungary,” the 55, sitting next to his small
border with Austria. low 3 percentage points. and culture, but the signs billboard advises asylum fields of melons, cabbage
Szabo, like many in this so- The findings reflect a coun- all are in Hungarian, which seekers. “We’ve got jobs in and sun-scorched corn
cially conservative land of try where ethnic minorities virtually none of them can London!” stalks near the border town
10 million, says he doesn’t barely exist outside Buda- read. Many Hungarians struggle of Roszke. “Yet I have seen
understand why they’ve pest and right-wing beliefs Then again, it’s hard to find to get by, and that helps to them almost every night
taking food from my fields
and trampling my crops.
They are taking food from
my own mouth, and they
do not even ask before
they do it.”
Such frustrations find their
grass-roots voice in Job-
bik (pronounced YOB-ick),
which has become the No.
2 party in opinion polls as it
assails Orban’s Fidesz party
for being too soft on immi-
grants and minorities, in-
cluding Gypsies, gays and
Jews. On Saturday, Job-
bik activists demonstrated
for sterner action, waving
signs that read, “Deporta-
tion, not work permits!” and
“Border closures! We don’t
want immigrants!”
“Whoever is a liberal is
scum,” said Levente Mu-
ranyi, a 75-year-old former
Jobbik lawmaker at the
rally. He called left-wing
support for aiding migrants
“tantamount to treason.”q
