A student shows a combo pictures of three dictators, Austrian born Hitler, Castro and Stalin with Viktor Orban

Politics

الحكومة المجرية وحملة الأكاذيب الفاشلة

Dec 8, 2017 George Soros

نيويورك ــ في شهر أكتوبر/تشرين الأول، أرسلت حكومة المجر استبيانات إلى كل الأسر في البلاد (4 مليون أسرة) لاستطلاع آراء الناس حول سبع إفادات تصف خطتي المزعومة لإغراق أوروبا، والمجر بشكل خاص، بالمهاجرين واللاجئين المسلمين. لقد ساقت الحكومة سبعة تأكيدات حول ما أسمته "خطة سوروس". وقد فندتها جميعا استنادا إلى تصريحاتي المنشورة أو عدم وجود أي تصريحات منشورة قد تثبت هذه التأكيدات.

والآن، أصدرت الحكومة النتائج المفترضة لما أسمته "التشاور الوطني" بشأن خطتي المتوهمة، مدعية أن هذه الممارسة كانت ناجحة إلى حد غير مسبوق. وأنا أترك الأمر لجماهير الناس المجريين لكي يقرروا ما إذا كان الرقم المعلن لعدد المشاركين، 2301463 مشاركا من أصل مجموع السكان الذي يبلغ 9.8 مليون نسمة، مُضَخَّما، وإلى أي مدى. ومن الممكن استقصاء القائمة التي تضم أولئك الذين شاركوا والتحقق مما إذا كانوا شاركوا بالفعل. ولكن بدلا من ذلك، أريد التركيز على جوهر الحملة.

كان التشاور الوطني ونشر النتائج أحدث عنصرين في حملة دعائية ضخمة جارية يمولها دافعو الضرائب في المجر لمصلحة حكومة شديدة الفساد تسعى إلى صرف الانتباه عن فشلها في تلبية التطلعات المشروعة لشعب المجر، وخاصة في التعليم والرعاية الصحية. بدأت الحملة في الصيف بإغراق الأماكن العامة بملصقات تحمل صورة مقربة لوجهي المقطب وتحتها عبارة "لا تدع سوروس يكون آخر من يضحك".

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George Soros

Writing for PS since 1997
126 Commentaries

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Foundations. A pioneer of the hedge-fund industry, he is the author of many books, including The Alchemy of Finance, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means, and The Tragedy of the European Union: Disintegration or Revival? His most recent book is In Defense of Open Society (Public Affairs, 2019).

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 16 Comments on this article

Jason Smith Jan 5, 2018

Some people are really blind and close-minded by falling into traps of conspirator idiots. I don't know what is going on in Hungary but thanks to you, the world has become a better place. I have a huge respect as you keep fighting for democratic values around the globe and help many young to get educated for free. I hope I will have the same opportunity as you do to spread the democracy.
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Jan Stecki Dec 13, 2017

I wonder if Mr Soros reads these comments? He would have my sympathy but for the unworthy manipulation on this very page. Hist text (about Hungary) is adorned with a photo of J.Kaczynski(a Pole) but then a nightingale appears chanting aggressively hate speech plus fake news, attacking Polish govt. i.a.
Mr Kaczynski is a decent man who has not ever harmed a fly though he may hold mistaken political views. It is unworthy of Mr Soros to use such tricks.
I am cancelling my subscription
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Paul Jefferson Dec 10, 2017

Many supporters of Trump and Israel are deeply suspicious of George Soros. Why? Of course, it's not antisemitism, as he disingenuously claims. No, it's because he is a meddling globalist, in an age when people want to reclaim their national sovereignty. Now for some guesswork: I wonder if Soros is a post-modernist, because he writes very broadly that, "The open society is based on the idea that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth". I also suspect he is a Cultural Marxist, adhering to the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt school, because he advocates "a society based on critical thinking". I'm only guessing, but his words do seem very carefully chosen. There must be reasons why he is not trusted, and he should admit to them honestly. If he is indeed a post-modernist and Cultural Marxist, he should honestly cite that as one reason why he is not trusted.
- Maurice Simpson Dec 10, 2017
  
  Quite a mental leap you make from meddling globalist to cultural Marxist. Do you expect credibility to accompany your fertile imagination ?
  - Janos Nagy Dec 31, 2017
    
    Well actually not.
    Globalist ideology is nothing else but the very fundamental ideology of communist ideology based that incomes and wealth must be taken away from who has it and give it to the ones that doesn't have it.
    Of course in communism 1.0 it was within some countries like Hungary.
    Now in communism 2.0 called globalization it's between countries where the wealth of individuals especially the middle class in the developed countries must be given to the poorer countries.
    Of course corporations made the deals with the globalist since it was not their wealth this time not like in communism 1.0 where corporations were destroyed.
    So Mr Soros is an obvious Marxist.
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  - Paul Jefferson Dec 11, 2017
    
    To clarify, a "globalist", in common parlance, is a person who supports, for example, the recent exodus of American factories to foreign countries such as Mexico and China, regardless of the consequent impoverishment of American factory workers. Globalists are also considered to "oppose nationalism, national sovereignty, and self-governance", and instead, "they favor open borders". Source: conservapedia.com/Globalism
    While that may not be the official dictionary definition of the term globalist, it's what many people mean when they use the word. In that sense, Soros is widely considered a globalist, and is resented as such -- not because he is a Jew. For example, consider this article from Breitbart, which is very pro-Israel:
    breitbart.com/big-government/2017/10/31/paul-singer-and-george-soros-billionaire-bookends-of-globalist-opposition-to-trump-agenda/
    And this one too:
    frontpagemag.com/fpm/263873/george-soross-open-border-foundations-joseph-klein
    Soros surely understands all this, and he is being disingenuous in his sulking claim that he is resented because he is a Jew. That seems a ploy to gain sympathy and smear his opponents as anti-Semites, but it only harms Soros' credibility.
    As for Cultural Marxism, the founders of the movement, including Antonio Gramsci, wanted to undermine Western culture, so we know that's a fundamental objective of Cultural Marxism. One way to accomplish that is to allow Muslim immigration into Europe at such a fast rate that there is no possibility of assimilation. That seems consistent with George Soros' advocacy of Muslim immigration, as do his carefully chosen words in the article that I've already quoted. Moreover, now that Europe's Muslim immigration crisis has become such a disaster, he no doubt wants to avoid blame, but he has already destroyed his credibility with his insincere claim of anti-Semitism, so I don't believe him.
    In summary, a Cultural Marxist can be a "globalist" by undermining national sovereignty in order to facilitate the destruction of Western culture. But a person can also be a globalist purely for economic reasons. In my original post, I didn't intend to suggest any logical connection between globalism and Cultural Marxism -- though there can be one. So I don't see any logical leap in my first post.
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Paul Jefferson Dec 10, 2017

George Soros is comparing Muslims with Jews. This is inappropriate. The Jews were native to Europe, and were an existing part of European culture for centuries. The Muslims are immigrants flooding in, and they are not an existing part of European culture -- except for the limited influence of the Ottoman empire. Historically, Muslims are foreign invaders and conquerors of Europe. These days, many Europeans view Muslims with suspicion, due to Islamic terrorism, due to the hostility of certain Islamic scriptures toward non-Muslims, and due to the intention of some Muslims to form a world-wide Caliphate, which would subjugate Christianity and Western culture. This is explained clearly by former Islamic terrorist, Tawfik Hamid, in his book, Inside Jihad.
- Maurice Simpson Dec 10, 2017
  
  Thanks for pointing out that which is often overlooked. Contextual clarity is important in forming the right perspective .
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j. von Hettlingen Dec 9, 2017

In this commentary George Soros expresses his thankfulness to many Hungarians who do not buy their government’s propaganda campaign launched against his Open Society Foundations (OSF). He has pledged to devote the rest of his life to supporting "free thought and expression, academic freedom, and the protection of minorities and minority opinions" - not only in his native Hungary, but across the globe.
The author, a Hungarian Jew, is famous for his philantropic causes and outspokenness, which had in the past earned him both praise and criticism in equal measure. In October he transferred $18 billion to his (OSF), making it the world's third largest charitable foundation, behind the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and the Wellcome Trust. His promotes civil initiatives to reduce poverty and increase transparency, and on scholarships and universities around the world, especially in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, since the 1980s.
Hungary's autocrat, Viktor Orban had been a recipient of a Soros-funded scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in 1989. Two decades later, Soros donated $1m to Orbán’s government to help the cleanup after the “red sludge” environmental disaster. Over the years, the billionaire had spent hundreds of millions of dollars financing education and civil society projects in Hungary, and the Central European University (CEU) he founded is among one of the world's top 100 universities.
In recent years Soros has been Orban's No 1 public enemy. Earlier this year Hungary passed a bill that aimed to force the CEU out of the country. In June Soros had been vilified in a campaign and accused of being a political puppet master. Posters, many of which had anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on them, showed the grinning philantropist beside the words, "Don't let Soros have the last laugh". On one poster someone wrote "dirty Jew" on his forehead. The slogan was a reference to Orban's claim that Soros was working to settle a million migrants in the EU.
Soros fell out with Orban during the 2015 migrant crisis, when he called for the humane treatment for refugees. This ran up against Hungary’s ultra-conservative government under Orbán, a rightwing nationalist. When the dispute intensified, Orban described Soros as someone who had “ruined the lives of tens of millions of people” with currency speculation. Soon after Soros hit back with a speech in Brussels in which he referred to the Hungarian government as a “mafia state.”
Hungary complained about the EU seeking to change Hungary’s tough migration policy, and maintained that an organisation funded by George Soros - the Hungarian Helsinki Committee - provided free legal assistance to about 3.000 people in 2016, including many asylum seekers. Orban was outraged by many lawsuits these people launched against his regime. In 70 cases they took Hungary to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
In the past Soros was mainly criticised by the political fringe, rightwing nationalists and radical leftists in the West. In recent years, criticism comes also from the illiberal establishment in Eastern Europe. Soros is not only loathed in Hungary, also in Romania, where he and his organisations are said to feed "evil". In Poland a lawmaker from the conservative government even called him “the most dangerous man in the world”.
The far-right in the US also joined in, with the radio host and Donald Trump supporter Alex Jones lashing out at Soros, alleging he heads a “Jewish mafia”. The philanstropist was the main talking point ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Hungary. The Israeli prime minister did not condemn the anti-Semitic campaign against Soros, because many in Israel hate the philantropist due to his criticism towards the far-right government's racist and anti-democratic policies. He contributed millions to combating the Jewish state's 'restrictive measures' against minorities.
Despite controversies, Soros should carry on with his work until his last breath. He is the opposite of another Jewish billionaire, the reactionary casino tycoon, Sheldon Adelson, who supports the ultra-right settlers' politics in the West Bank, funding pro-Israel Republicans' campaign, urging Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Isreal's capital and being tough on Iran etc.
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ahalmos Dec 8, 2017

Thank you for this honest and open reply to all those atrocities you have been experiencing. Thank you for reminding us of the democratic and humanistic values we want to stand by. Cheap, populist propaganda and nasty, antisemitic rhetoric is blinding the masses. Be assured, there are still people around who share your views albeit always fewer living in Hungary under the current illiberal climate.
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Mirek Fatyga Dec 8, 2017

In my personal view, the problem of refugees, while objectively important for Europe as a whole, is a distraction here.
Eastern Europe needs to confront her demons, and urgently so, before they separate this part of the continent from the West and throw it into a turmoil.
A fundamental mistake was made after WW2. An impression was deliberately created, and propagated into historical narrative, that the problem of Fascism was limited to Germany. It is definitely true that Germany was responsible for the holocaust of the Jews. It is also true that Germany was primarily responsible for the outbreak of WW2, although there the false narrative raises it's head already. Factually, Hitler and Stalin were jointly responsible for WW2. The temporary alliance between the West and Stalin which was necessary to defeat Hitler was responsible for the falsehood of laying the blame for the outbreak of WW2 entirely on Germany. The greatest falsehood by omission is "forgetting" the fact that Fascism was widespread in Europe during the interwar period. Both in Hungary and in Poland, but by no means only there, there were strong and menacing Fascist movements. In Hungary, the Fascist movement was highly complicit in the extermination of the Jews, as it was in Slovakia and the Baltics. Poland lucked out to an extent that there was no collaborationist government.
This past needs to be confronted now, and urgently. Fascism is so dangerous because it tends to work. Fascism is a political methodology of controlling societies through incitement of emotion. Fear is one of the strongest of human emotions and Fascism uses fear liberally, frequently converting it into tribal hatred of "the other". One should not and must not play around with words: Eastern Europe is witnessing an outbreak of Fascist tendencies which, in many ways, return her to old, interwar patterns. People of Eastern Europe need to be told, in no uncertain terms, what they are participating in, or for those who dislike these trends but stand idly by, what is it that there are tolerating in their midst. Euphemisms like "illiberal democracy" or "just nationalism" are not helpful.
- Steve Hurst Dec 8, 2017
  
  Mirek, the right wing or whatever name you want to give it is a response to the failure of the left wing or whatever name you want to give it. The growth of the right wing is due to people thinking no one is listening to them or looking after their interests. Migrants may be a sideshow but it is indicative. Unemployment, and AI, which will make more unemployment, is the near horizon problem.
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Steve Hurst Dec 8, 2017

The statement of what Europe could or should accommodate as migrants becomes totally irrelevant in the face of what the European public is prepared to accept. Migrant flows above the level that acceptance level simply damages the migrants situation because public backlash occurs. There are two further problems which just plain do not help. It is that the frontier countries to the South of the EU have major unemployment problems; and that flows then are locally intensified northward with certain countries as the target destination. In the face of this any bucket figure for what can be coped with simply falls apart. Further it becomes quite clear most migrants are not asylum seekers but economic migrants - which simply damages genuine asylum seekers who the figures suggest are very much the minority in this flow. It is this mix that has lead to slavery becoming reestablished in N Africa
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