The G20 summit: Hungarian right-wing newspapers on Vladimir Putin in Brisbane

If I did not have such a low opinion of the hacks at Magyar Nemzet,  Magyar Hírlap, and Válasz, I would feel sorry for them today when they had to cover the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. By all reports, Putin was completely isolated and, in fact, at times was even humiliated. While Barack Obama and the Chinese premier Xi Jinping were met by the governor general and attorney general on their arrival, Putin was greeted by the assistant defense minister.

Pro-government papers had to tiptoe around the delicate topic of Vladimir Putin’s less than friendly reception by practically all the other participants. After all, the Hungarian government has been on an anti-American, anti-EU course for some time while relations with Russia have been rosy. In fact, an opinion piece that appeared in the Russian newspaper Vedimosti called Viktor Orbán our man in the European Union.

News portals critical of the government reported the events pretty much the way other western papers did. Almost all of them mentioned Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s less than diplomatic words to Putin: “I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine.” They said there were rumors of Putin’s early departure from Brisbane. They included Obama’s statement that Putin’s policies are “a threat to the world” and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s warning about further financial sanctions against Russia if Putin does not recall Russian troops from Eastern Ukraine. They also called attention to Putin’s lowly place at the far left of the formal G20 leaders’ photograph and reported on anti-Putin demonstrations.

So, let’s see how the right-wing Hungarian press reported the events in Brisbane. It was Válasz that first tackled the topic with the headline “Obama harshly attacked Putin,” although the bulk of the article was about other things: climate change, strategic cooperation in the Far East, and environmental issues. Válasz specializes in misleading headlines. The MTI report they used also quoted Yuri Ushakov, foreign adviser to Putin, who insisted that Russia has nothing to do with the fighting in Eastern Ukraine. As far as the sanctions are concerned, the Russian position is that “they are illegal and contrary to the United Nation’s Charter.” Not a word about Putin’s problems and the unity of the G20 on the Ukrainian issue.

Magyar Hírlap‘s early report did not rely on MTI. Its headline set the tone: “The West threatens again with sanctions.” According to Putin, the sanctions are harmful for all concerned, including Ukraine. Russia has enough reserves to weather the sanctions. The article also quotes Yuri Ushakov, who informed the public about the forthcoming bilateral talks between Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron as well as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. The article adds that the Russian daily paper Kommersant reported that refugees from southeastern territories of Ukraine turned to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against the Kiev government. They demand financial compensation. All in all, the article relies almost exclusively on Russian sources and reflects the Russian point of view. This should not be a surprise because Magyar Hírlap‘s political ideology lies roughly at the intersection of Jobbik and Fidesz.

Magyar Nemzet was rather slow at reporting on the event. The headline quotes Obama as saying that “Russia is a threat to the world.” At the beginning of the article the journalists DA and KaG summarize the main events of the day: David Cameron said that Russia may face new sanctions if Putin continues with its current policies, Obama considers the Russian policies dangerous, and officially the agenda is about global economic stimuli.

After describing the lovely reception of the delegations of the G20 and Angela Merkel’s wonderful time mingling with Australians on the street, the article continues: “The reception of Vladimir Putin was cooler. Allegedly the Canadian prime minister told him to get out of Ukraine.” They also mention Herman van Rompuy’s and David Cameron’s harsh words about the Russian aggression. It looks as if this particular article was based on information picked up from western sources.

One could say that, however briefly, Magyar Nemzet covered the most important points. Four hours later, however, a new article appeared about the Brisbane summit that “corrected” the earlier picture. Here we learn that Putin will indeed leave early “because the western countries put pressure on him in connection with the Ukrainian crisis.” In this article the emphasis is on the Russian point of view. It recalls an interview with Vladimir Putin with the German ARD television station in which he talked about the adverse effects of the sanctions, not just for Russia but for all countries, including Ukraine. Russian banks have 25 billion dollars in Ukraine which they could certainly recall. The article quotes Dmitri Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, who described the meeting of Putin with Merkel in which “President Putin explained the Russian point of view on Ukraine in great detail.” In addition, it again mentions Putin’s interview on ARD TV in which Putin said that “Russia will not allow the Ukrainian army to destroy all its political adversaries.” Apparently he was talking about the pro-Russian separatists of Eastern Ukraine. Furthermore, according to Putin, Russia’s “European and American partners are not doing any favor to Ukraine when they ruin its financial basis or limit our financial institutions’ possibilities of reaching the international markets. Do they want to ruin their banks? With that move they ruin Ukraine.”

I wonder how long this particular point of view will prevail in Hungary. On Monday there will be a meeting of EU foreign ministers which Hungary’s “super diplomat” will attend. The topic will be new sanctions against Russia. I might mention here that Angela Merkel spent altogether four hours with Vladimir Putin. The first two hours the two spoke alone. In the second half Jean-Claude Junker joined them. If Dmitri Peskov gave an accurate account of the meeting, I have the feeling that new sanctions are forthcoming. After all, according Putin’s spokesman, the Russian president simply described the Russian position. And we all know what that is.

Attacks on Charles Gati and the American media

Charles Gati’s article “The Mask is Off”appeared on August 7 in The American Interest and a day later in Hungarian Spectrum. I guess readers will not be surprised to hear that it created quite a storm in Hungary, especially in the right-wing press. And in a counterattack Válasz published a piece by an Italian politician assailing Gati and whitewashing Viktor Orbán’s ideas on the “illiberal state.”

Let’s start with the reception of Gati’s article, which was not translated word for word but was extensively summarized in Népszabadság on the very day of its appearance. Other left-of-center publications followed suit. Two days later Magyar Nemzet, the unofficial mouthpiece of Fidesz, published an unsigned piece that condemned the article and accused Charles Gati of willfully misinterpreting Viktor Orbán’s concepts and of meddling in the internal affairs of Hungary. His article, it argued, was intended as an instrument of political pressure.

Magyar Nemzet reported on Hungarian reactions to the article, starting with Fidesz’s official position. The answer the paper received emphasized that “Hungary is an independent, democratic state whose government and prime minister were chosen by the Hungarian people.”

Magyar Nemzet, Fidesz if you wish, received additional ammunition from András Schiffer of LMP. After paying lip-service to the importance of checks and balances, Schiffer declared that “Hungary must be governed from Hungary and no matter how serious a situation was created by the ‘system of national cynicism’ it can be remedied only at home as a result of the will of the Hungarian people…. Those from overseas who entertain visions of a cultural war don’t realize that with their pronouncements they hurt the self-esteem of the Hungarian people and unwittingly extend Viktor Orbán’s stay in power.”

Magyar Nemzet also asked a “political scientist” from the Nézőpont Intézet who is a committed supporter of Fidesz and the current government. Gati’s article struck him as “desperate” and, he said, the “foreign misgivings” repeated by Gati “have been ordered” by unnamed foes of the Hungarian government. So, it seems, the sin Charles Gati committed was to dare to “meddle” in Hungarian affairs by voicing his opinion about Viktor Orbán’s regime and by outlining options the United States could pursue under the circumstances. András Schiffer, whose position vis-à-vis the Orbán government is anything but clear, was perhaps the most explicit: foreigners shouldn’t have “visions” about the Hungarian situation, especially since such criticism damages the self-esteem of the Hungarian people. But even the somewhat meaningless Fidesz statement makes a sharp enough distinction between “Hungarians” who have a right to express their opinions and foreigners who don’t.

But then what can we do with Viktor Orbán’s “vision” of the Hungarian nation as a “world-nation” (világnemzet)? This concept is supposed to express the unity of the Hungarian nation regardless of where these Hungarians happen to live. Of course, we all know the reason behind this generous gesture, and we also know the efforts the Orbán government made to limit the number of possible voters from the West while actively recruiting voters from Romania and Serbia. But still, he can’t have it both ways. Either those who are Hungarian by birth are part of the nation and can have a say in the governance of the country or not. Once the Orbán government extended that privilege and made all of us members of this wonderful world-nation he has to take the bad with the good. He cannot pick and choose.

The right-wing Hungarian media is convinced that Viktor Orbán is an innocent political target

As for foreign powers “meddling” in another country’s internal affairs, it happens all the time. Viktor Orbán in his long political career openly sided with George W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney during U.S. presidential campaigns. But others are not supposed to speak their mind about Hungary. Even non-Hungarian Europeans know this. The pro-government Válasz published an article by Luca Volontè, an Italian Christian Democratic politician who was at one time the whip of the European People’s Party in the Council of Europe. Válasz gave this title to Volontè’s polemic against Charles Gati: “Hands Off Hungary!”

Luca Volontè is the only outsider the Orbán government managed to recruit so far. His article sounds not a little suspicious. Almost as if he received some help from Budapest. He seems to be too familiar with the current Hungarian political scene, and the interpretation of Orbán’s speech bears a suspicious resemblance to some of the Hungarian right-wing media’s efforts at explaining Orbán’s message away. We will see whether Fidesz will be able to gather a few more supporters from Europe. The emphasis is on Europe because the current Hungarian line is that in Europe the speech did not make waves; that happened only in the “anti-Hungarian” United States. In fact, Válasz‘s byline made it clear that the anti-Gati voice came from Europe.

And finally, an illustration of the right-wing media’s efforts to control the damage caused by Viktor Orbán’s speech. Today a brief exchange was published, also in Válasz, between Harold Meyerson and Zoltán Laky. Meyerson wrote an opinion piece on August 6 entitled “Hungary’s prime minister a champion for illiberalism” in The Washington Post. Laky, a journalist who obviously thinks that The Washington Post is the mouthpiece of the U.S. government just as Válasz is of the Hungarian government, wanted to know whether Meyerson received instructions concerning Viktor Orbán’s crossing the Rubicon with this speech either from the U.S. government or from the editors of The Washington Post. Meyerson set his Hungarian colleague straight. He has no idea what the U.S. government thinks of Viktor Orbán’s speech and, as far as The Washington Post is concerned, he is not an employee of the paper; the editors don’t even know what he will write about. He is an independent journalist. Yet the title of the Válasz article was titillating: “Permission to target Orbán? The journalist of The Washington Post speaks.”

As for damage control in the United States, I believe the Hungarian government’s chances are slim to none. Budapest can send a new ambassador, as it will in September, and it can spend millions of dollars on lobbying efforts, but its quest is hopeless as long as Viktor Orbán is the prime minister of the country. When the conservative Washington Times publishes an opinion piece entitled “Democracy’s dangerous descent in Hungary,” then Hungary’s chances in Washington are close to hopeless. Viktor Orbán managed to alienate even the paper that in the past usually defended his government.