Our answer is clear: we would like Europe to remain the continent of Europeans. [. . .] We can say we want it, because it depends only on us: we want to preserve Hungary as a Hungarian country. – Viktor Orban

For those who have noticed the migrant crisis in Europe, Budapest is a flashpoint for the problem. Hungary has implemented what the Western media calls emergency anti-immigration laws, or alternatively, what the Hungarian leader would call protective measures.

The man in charge of Hungary, criticized for a hard stance on migrants, is the man quoted above: Viktor Orban. He has many more quotes on the crisis of Europe, which is not just a crisis of immigration but of multiculturalism, history, existence, and will. Orban is one of the few immigration hardliners in charge of an EU nation, and he is feeling the heat for not complying with Brussels. Orban is a rebel in more ways than just immigration, and it is best to look at what he has done in Hungary to explain why he can speak publicly as he does on the migrant flows.

Viktor Orban was once your standard politician. As a young man, he received a scholarship from the Soros Foundation, studied at Oxford, and founded a political party like a good, post-communist, reform-minded young man. Orban worked in his career towards centralization and shook hands with the right leaders from the United States and European Union. Something changed dramatically, though, after the 2010 elections.

Orban’s Fidesz party decided to make sweeping changes to Hungarian politics.

Fidesz took control of parliament with a supemajority, and with that supermajority decided to rewrite the constitution. Seats in parliament were reduced, taxes and pensions altered a bit, with an important change being that supermajorities were to make future changes, where they were formerly strictly done by the current government getting a majority. Further, the retirement age was lowered for judges and prosecutors, pushing out hundreds. Judicial review was scaled back on certain matters. It was an attack on a power node that Fidesz did not control, freeing Orban and company up to shape the ruling apparatus to their needs. They did not stop there.

Orban and Fidesz passed laws with on the press that caused Western media to flinch. The laws did not just mandate what the media could do, but also who could act as a watchdog for the media. They could not reform the institution, so they created a separate institution with power over it. One can feel the anguish of the Western writer in these words:

Soon after Orban’s Fidesz party came to power in 2010, the Fidesz-dominated parliament adopted new media legislation. Changes included a requirement that all media register with the state and that their output should be “balanced”, of “relevance to the citizens of Hungary” and “respect human dignity”. It also weakened protection of journalists’ sources. Penalties for breaking the rules included fines, suspension, or being shut down. Enforcing these new rules was a new watchdog, the Media Council. Its composition is decided by parliament. Because Orban’s Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority in parliament, the council is made up exclusively of Fidesz appointees. In another change, all state media and news production was bundled together in one organization – MTVA – whose leader is the leader of the Media Council. According to critics of the legislation, including the European Parliament and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the cumulative effect of these changes was to jeopardize media freedom.

No one ever asks: is media “freedom” a good thing? The declared good thing?

Orban and his lieutenants did not stop there. Reform is impossible, so the solution is to create systems and replace. While they could watch and control the message, there is always the problem of not having your guys deliver the message:

As Hungary’s media laws changed after Orban became prime minister in 2010, there was also a clear-out of staff in state media. Many senior executives and hundreds of staffers were removed, union representatives said.

This is framed as unfair firing for political reasons. As an observer of Western media and academic practices, this is hypocritical to bemoan. This is supposedly unfair, but how many lecturers, tenure candidates, and other academics, even at the foundational, “prospective protege to groom” level, have been filtered out for political reasons in ways that reinforce dominant political parties and ideological systems in the West? In Hungary’s case, as one reporter put it, “one party controls the system now,” and in Hungary, this is not a pro-globalization party.

While Orban’s old moves in his early days were about centralization, now Orban’s government moves towards seeking and restoring sovereignty. Orban has also taken aim at foreign NGOs and paid off the IMF loan early that Hungary accepted prior to his recent premiership. Expelling NGOs is a new approach Russia started and that others, like Hungary and India, are following. Orban’s government is aware of the external and potentially undermining influence that NGOs supply a host nation.

The new approach to debt is not just about the IMF loan, which was an easy money supplement to aid them in the economic crunch of the post-2008 crisis. Hungary has actually reduced its debt-to-GDP levels since Orban’s ascension. We live in an interconnected world, but removing NGOs and eliminating the IMF loan and controlling debt destroy avenues for foreign infiltration. Governments around the globe are re-learning lessons prior generations (Argentina being one) learned, namely that debt first becomes a tool for foreign influence, and then second, a means to extract wealth from an impoverished nation.

Orban’s government did not stop with hard mechanisms of government but attacked softer issues. Hungary declared that life starts at conception and began requiring prescriptions for emergency contraception, restricted the vote from those “mentally limited,” and affirmed heterosexual marriage, while still allowing gay couples to register unions. For the Western press, these measures amounted to an attack on democracy and human rights, but they could also be framed as Hungary asserting sovereignty and aligning modern government functions with post-liberal, non-Western values.

This is where we find Orban as a key figure in the current migrant crisis. Orban is enacting policies, building walls, and speaking out against Brussels’ move to accept migrants by the thousands. Not unexpectedly, some Western media outlets are upset at his immigration stance. In this case, Foreign Affairs marshaled a Hungarian writer to condemn Orban, which is in keeping with the strategy of promoting dissent internally, so that it doesn’t appear as though it’s a foreign provocation or a Western attack. However, a quick look at the author, Peter Kreko, shows that he’s already by default a Western-friendly progressive with connections to openDemocracy. These outlets seem to have an unusual focus on Orban’s changes.

Orban is also giving the people something beyond bread and circus. Pointing out the problem as externally driven from below (migrant waves) and above (Western elite), Orban gives Hungarians ‘bad guys’ to channel negative energy towards. In the preamble to the new constitution, there are dramatic changes that would sound alien to Western, secular ears:

The new constitution’s preamble is laden with references to God, Christianity, the fatherland, the “Holy Crown of Hungary,” and traditional family values…

Fidesz is trying to publicly affirm old beliefs. Similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to re-invigorate the Russian people with historical references, Orthodox imagery, and natalist policies, Orban is connecting this regime and the country it represents to a deep past that current Hungarians identify with and remember. The new constitution even mentioned the old Crown of St. Stephen. It is a cultural rallying cry reinforced in the very constitution, with Orban placed at the front and center in the role of defender.

While originally a product of it, Orban now stands as a rejection of the globalist mission. Hajnal line history may come into play, as Orban echoes similar sentiments spoken by Putin in recent years. Hungary, like Russia, is new to Western democracy, with less than a century under its belt, due to an interruption of communism. Orban and Putin both know the core fact that no Western leaders voice.

Orban can make bold statements that so many in the West would love to hear their leaders speak. Look at their control of their national systems. Western leaders have no such control, nor could they assume such control. American readers can hear the hypothetical cries that would come from all of the media, “Our nation was founded on a free press!” Unfortunately, that view betrays a certain naivety. The Western press is free to be bought and free to be corrupted by a conspiracy of zealots.

Look at the steps Orban and Putin have taken to completely change the framework of how their nation operates. This frees Orban to speak as he does. If Greece had had the same ambitions, it could have held the line and used its naval resources to deal with migrants on boats, considering its special position on the continent and Mediterranean, but its leaders traded sovereignty for financial assistance.

Not all is perfect. Orban has his faults, and populist democracy is still subject to the threats of democracy. Orban and his party are still subject to the people, but they have taken steps to control how the people see them and what the people hear. This is how and why Orban can position himself against the Western system.