A tale of being isolated

The row of diplomatic meetings has begun with a talk between PM Orban and Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics and also one of the world's leading sports diplomats.

Budapest, 2023. augusztus 19. A Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda által közreadott képen Orbán Viktor miniszterelnök (j) fogadja Sebastian Coe-t, a Nemzetközi Atlétikai Szövetség (WA) újabb négy évre megválasztott elnökét (b) a Karmelita kolostorban 2023. augusztus 19-én. MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher Fotó: Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher

Fourteen years ago, marking the French national holiday of 14 July, German soldiers marched on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, right where their grandparents had once marched in as Hitler's invading troops. And the year before, Chancellor Merkel was greeted with applause in the Knesset, where she arrived to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday.

The fine examples of international reconciliation and the formation of new alliances following historical grievances that are still painful for older generations make posters such as the one that the dwarf Hungarian political party Momentum has just made itself noticed with particularly comical. On this one they took point with the Turkish president, among others, being a guest in Budapest on the Hungarian national holiday honoring the country's founding king, who embraced Christianity. As the reader may know, the Turks were our enemies half a millennium ago. Quite a long time ago, but also much later than St Stephen's reign.

The bread of pro-opposition supporters must be bitter. Budapest is currently hosting the world's biggest sporting event of the year. Broadcasts of the fastest men on the globe competing in the men's 100-meter sprint finals were being followed in two hundred countries without exaggeration, and on Sunday night we saw Europe's biggest fireworks show.

Meanwhile, heads of state in turn enter the Hungarian PM's office in the Carmelite monastery, while Tucker Carlson, one of America's best-known media personalities - who just interviewed Donald Trump - catches the Serbian head of state for an interview at the Embassy on Dozsa Gyorgy street in Budapest. If we were liberal campaign strategists, we'd be sweating bullets over these, but not because of the high humidity. They proclaim that the Orban government is isolated, a dark spot on the map, and that no one comes here...

And the leftist-liberals criticize the guests in Budapest saying they are not democratic enough, or are even illiberal. A debate can be opened about who they consider to be sufficiently democratic - in addition to the Swiss, who usually decide their own affairs -, if NATO member Turkey is not considered democratic either, but let that debate not be led by Rui Tavares, Judith Sargentini or Daniel Cohn-Bendit.

Let us remind everyone that democracy is not a late August retake of the Democracy and Rule of Law exam at school, but the art of discussing diverging interests and finding the common ones.

Nevertheless, somehow it is never the Belgian-Luxembourg or the Austrian-Swiss summits that make the world press, even though those countries are in cahoots with each other. The diplomatic work in the Hungarian capital has culminated these days in talks with the presidents of Azerbaijan, Serbia, Turkey and the Emir of Qatar, among others.

Anyone who does not see the importance of this has been living in a box in recent years instead of seeing for themselves that even in the shadow of war, our region is dominated by migration and energy security issues and that these countries are important players in those matters. 

If you were to believe, for example, that it is liberal Luxembourg that is detaining unwanted migrants and securing Europe's gas supplies, you would most probably be wrong.

Momentum's poster is interesting – or disingenuous –  in light of the fact that their liberal (grand)fathers once had a spectacularly hard time digesting the historical tradition of St Stephen, naming Hungarian President Mihaly Karolyi and his minister Oszkar Jaszi from the WWI era as their standard-bearers.

The row of diplomatic meetings has begun with a talk between PM Orban and Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics (previously the International Association of Athletics Federations) and one of the world's leading sports diplomats. The English leader is a former top middle-distance runner, so hopefully he will satisfy the most discerning liberal tastes, as his fellow countrymen have been watering the beautiful English pastures for eight hundred years. But that was not why Mr Coe’s appearance was interesting in PM Orban’s office in the Carmelite Monastery. It was because they had serious things to talk about.

Cover photo: Prime Minister Viktor Orban receives Sebastian Coe, President of World Athletics, elected for another four-year term, at the Carmelite Monastery on 19 August 2023 (Photo: MTI/Prime Minister's Press Office/Benko Vivien Cher)