Hungary: How racist is Viktor Orban’s all-white country?

Peter Magyar, who is leading Viktor Orban in the polls, waves a Hungary flag during an anti-corruption rally in March.
Peter Magyar, who is leading Viktor Orban in the polls, waves a Hungarian flag during an anti-corruption rally in March. Kyiv Independent photo

BUDAPEST – Hungary’s flag is simple. It’s three vertical stripes: red for strength, white for faithfulness and green for hope. 

No. It can’t be.

The white stripe must stand for its population. Few countries in the world are as white as Hungary and even fewer try so hard to keep it that way.

Hungary is as white as the ice rink next to Budapest’s Heroes’ Square. It’s as white as its gargantuan Parliament building. It’s as white as the pale skin of bodies soaking in its luxurious spas.

Every time I come to Hungary I am startled by so much whiteness. It’s a virtual human whiteout. Living and traveling around Europe the last 11 years, and growing up in the melting pot that is the United States, I am used to walking through what looks like the corridors of the United Nations.

Budapest’s Castle Hill from across the Danube last week. Photo by Marina Pascucci

It happened again last week. Marina and I came to Budapest on a twice-delayed trip, and our first here in nine years. We love the spa at our Danubius Hotel Helia and our view of the Danube River. We love what I call the most underrated cuisine in Europe. We love my Hungarian friends who always take us to local places no tourist ever sees.

But this time I came with a more critical eye. Immigration is the major issue facing my home country, the U.S., and my adopted country, Italy. Right alongside them grabbing international headlines is Hungary, whose far right prime minister, Viktor Orban, closed its borders while war refugees and impoverished populations frantically sought new homes and new beginnings.

It’s remarkable – although disturbing – how well it worked. In four days in Hungary, I saw six people of color: four Indian friends and two Blacks, all on the subway. That’s it. I saw a few East Asian tourists but they’re everywhere.

When I’m around all White people all the time, I get nervous. Racism is my Number One deal breaker. I wonder what Dystopian Aryan society I stumbled into. What are these peoples’ attitudes? What topics should I avoid in the bars I frequent at night when I travel?

As it turns out, Hungary isn’t quite as racist as I thought. This was my fourth trip to Hungary and I have never heard a racist epithet. The few people of color I’ve met enjoy living here.

Viktor Orban established some of the toughest asylum laws in Europe. Wikipedia photo

 

Hungary numbers

However, the government policies seem like something out of Mississippi in the 1940s. In 2015, Orban closed Hungary’s southern border so migrants couldn’t even cross Hungary to reach another country. It even built a 13-foot wall along its 109-mile-long border with Serbia. He established one of the toughest asylum procedures in the world. He had a list of only 15 countries from which he would allow migrants.

For the record, Hungary is not the whitest country in the world. Yes, 97.9 percent of its 9.6 million people are native born and only 1.3 percent are from non-European Union countries. (Latest numbers from 2022.) That non-EU figure is sixth lowest among the EU’s 27 nations. 

   

  1. Slovakia   98.8 0.4
  2. Croatia     99.1 0.6
  3. Bulgaria   99.0 1.0
  4. Lithuania 98.8 1.1
  5. Poland      98.8 1.1
  6. Hungary   97.9 1.3

(% of population native born, % of population from non-EU countries)

But Slovakia and Croatia don’t have leaders spewing anti-immigration rants with racist overtones. Orban has become an international hero of the far right which is sweeping across Europe and he has a long-time admirer, not surprisingly, in Donald Trump.

Some of Orban’s comments include:

  • “We don’t see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders.”
  • “We believe that a large number of Muslims inevitably leads to parallel societies because a Christian and Muslim society will never work.”
  • If you take masses of non-registered immigrants from the Middle East into your country, you are importing terrorism, crime, anti-semitism and homophobia.”
  • “By 2035, Hungary must be demographically self-sustaining. There can be no question of population decline being compensated by migration. The Western experience is that if there are more guests than hosts, then home is no longer home. This is a risk that must not be taken.”

Sound familiar? Side by side, Orban on immigration doesn’t sound as bad as the man 77 million American voters elected as U.S. president: 

  • “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
  • “They’re not people in my opinion.”
  • “They’re destroying the blood of our country.”
  • “As soon as I take the oath of office, we will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.”

Orban’s true motivation

So is Orban a racist? Technically, he hasn’t name called as his American counterpart has but Orban so obviously targets Muslim countries, it’s hard not to draw that conclusion. He vehemently denies it, telling a joint news briefing with Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer in Vienna three years ago, “This is not a race issue for us. This is a cultural issue.”

It also may be more than that. 

“I would say political opportunism; racism is a close second,” said Clare Kumar of ODI Europe, a London-based think tank specializing on immigration issues in Europe, particularly Hungry.

Here’s what happened: Orban was elected prime minister in 2010 and four years later he lost a million voters. Then came the Muslim massacre in the office of the Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. Immigration became Orban’s central issue and that same year he laid down the strictest laws in Europe.

He has kept power ever since, a beacon of the right-wing islamophobia that followed.

Daniel Bagameri of IOM Hungary. Photo by Marina Pascucci

A Hungarian migration expert

“There is no ideology there. They simply saw the political game,” said Daniel Bagameri, head of the Swiss-based International Organization for Migration’s Hungarian office. 

I met Bagameri in his modern office’s conference room in a busy retail neighborhood of downtown Budapest. The tall, fit, 39-year-old Budapest native was only 3 when communism fell in Hungary. He represents the modern Hungarian capitalist.

He played Orban down the middle, neither defending him nor defaming him. He explained how Orban’s political strategy worked on immigration. He made a point that Orban didn’t ban immigration of other European countries.

“What the government says in public is they want to defend the Hungarian culture, the Hungarian way of living,” he said. ”Obviously, when they look at neighboring countries, they have no fear of the Hungarian culture being changed. That’s one part of their argument.”

The other part is that refugees from war-torn countries were arriving by an “irregular manner,” meaning they weren’t waiting to be processed. Orban instituted an asylum process in which refugees could only apply in consulates in neighboring Serbia and Ukraine. 

It wasn’t even an asylum claim. It was merely a request to appear before Hungarian authorities and submit an asylum claim.

“And all these requests for an appointment were denied,” he said.

Orban later put out the list of 15 countries that could migrate to Hungary. They were:

Ukraine

Serbia

Bosnia-Herzegovina

North Macedonia

Montenegro

Georgia

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Mongolia

Vietnam

Venezuela

Brazil

Colombia

Philippines

Indonesia

Notice anything? None is from the Middle East or Africa. He laid down a 25 percent tax on any NGO or employer that engaged in “immigration activities.” Of the 100,000 migrant workers in Hungary, 20,000 are Filipino. Why Filipinos?

“They are Christian, Christian and English speaking,” Bagameri said. “Plus, they are cute.”

Orban’s policies did not go over well with the EU or UN. Among the organizations that condemned him include the UN’s Human Rights Commission, the Council of Europe, the European Commission and Organization for Society and Cooperation in Europe. He has been accused of threatening human rights.

What was Orban and his supporters’ reaction when under attack?

“They took pride,” Bagameri said. “What we need to understand is that there’s a very important reason why the government picked the topic of migration and put it at the center of the propaganda.”

Hungarians are among the least-traveled people in Europe. Photo by Marina Pascucci

It’s because Hungarian voters are not comfortable around immigrants. Friday’s ODI Global report showed a European Social Survey that said 60 percent of the population last year felt immigration made Hungary “a worse place to live.” A European commission survey in 2021 showed only 40 percent felt comfortable having an immigrant as a neighbor. That’s a jump from 30 percent in 2017.

The problem is, much like Americans, Hungarians don’t travel much. They are rarely exposed to different cultures and ways of living. Two years ago only 6.8 percent of Hungarians traveled abroad, the 10th lowest in Europe.

“It shows that Hungarians have a fear of the unknown,” Bagameri said. “We know that if you get to know your neighbor, who could be Latino or Filipino or whatever, if you get to know that person you can make friends with them and you have less negative feelings. ‘We hate the Arabs – but that Akhmed who lives next door? That’s a good guy.’”

In 2023 Budapest hosted the World Athletics Championships and many athletes were housed on the outskirts of the city. 

“For them it was the first they’d seen Black people,” Bagameri said. “They believed that they were irregular migrants. They called the police.”

Labor shortage

As it turns out, immigration was an even bigger issue than Orban suspected. In 2016, Orban famously said, “Hungary does not need a single migrant for the economy to work or the population to sustain itself or for the country to have a future. For us, migration is not a solution but a problem … not medicine but a poison. We don’t need it and won’t swallow it.”

However, about four years ago, taking advantage of Hungary’s EU status, Ukrainian refugees left for higher paying jobs elsewhere. Romanian immigrants returned to their home country when its salaries improved.

Suddenly, Hungary faced a labor shortage. Orban came up with his list of 15. (“Countries like Venezuela doesn’t make sense,” Bagameri said. “Nobody from Venezuela came to Hungary.”)

One more problem: Elections are a year away and Orban is getting killed in the polls. A Dec. 5 poll showed that if elections were held that day, Orban’s Fidesz party would receive only 36 percent of the vote. The center-right Tisza party led by Peter Magyar, 43, a member of the European Parliament, would get 47 percent.

Fighting back, Orban has returned to his core subject: immigration. He cut the list of 15 to three: Georgia, Armenia and the Philippines. They all have readmission agreements which hold them responsible if one of their immigrant workers leaves his job in Hungary.

“That was one factor,” Bagameri said. “Let’s not forget the original motivation for Orban is regaining power. Now they have the motivation to clear the countryside of foreigners.”

Kevin Martin has lived in Hungary for seven years. Photo by Marina Pascucci

Immigrants’ views

I came to Budapest hoping I’d talk to immigrants about their lives here. Are Hungarians racist? Is Orban the devil? But for our first two days we saw absolutely no one of color other than East Asian tourists. We’d walk down local streets and pass waves of White people. We went to a mall near the IOM office and the only things of color were the clothes.

Finally one night on the subway, I saw four young Indians board. I asked one how long they lived in Budapest and what they did. They’re in food delivery and have lived here for two years.

“Have you faced any racism?” I asked.

He thought for a minute, as if he’d never been asked the question.

“No, not really. Some are reluctant to speak English. But I like living here.”

The next day we were leaving the subway station near our hotel and a tall Black man left with a Hungarian  woman. I ran to catch up to him and introduced myself. 

Kevin Martin, 26, was born in Italy to a Nigerian mother and a Ghanaian father. He was raised in Brescia, Italy, and came to Budapest on holiday when he was 19. “One thing led to another” and he wound up staying. He has a job in IT.

I asked about racism in Hungary. He seemed eager to discuss the subject.

“I believe my experience is not going to reflect the experiences of all African immigrants but my experience, today I went out with my friend to buy some things, to do some things,” he said. “I haven’t experienced racism today. Yesterday I didn’t experience racism. I didn’t experience racism all this week. I haven’t experienced racism for all of this month. I haven’t had any racist encounters in the last month, either.

“So my answer is I’ve never experienced racism.”

He said he’s happy in Budapest and Hungarians have accepted him. He has not met any bureaucratic roadblocks because he’s Black. I asked how he feels living in an all-White country.

“I never experienced racism personally but when I go online I see a lot of racism,” he said. “I opened Facebook and there was this Black model who was modeling for H&M. They were doing an advertisement targeting Budapest. And the comments … you could not imagine the amount of hate. 

“But what are you waiting for? You are an international company and decided to use for an advertisement a Black model in Hungary and the hate was coming from them not wanting to see the representation of a Black person in their own country.”

This is a very small sample and anecdotal evidence can be very misleading. But I was still pleasantly surprised that the cloud of perceived racism with which Orban has blanketed one of my favorite countries has not seeped into the pores of every person of color. 

I don’t like Orban. I don’t like his rhetoric regardless of his motivation. But as long as there are wars and poverty, immigration will remain a major issue. I just hope all immigrants everywhere lead lives like Kevin Martin and the four Indians.