I hope the authorities do not prosecute yours truly for publishing fake news. I was taking this lot at face value.
It was not a conference, nor was it a debate - as the French moderator declared in his wrap up. It was four men verbally stroking each other's backs (I won't specify any other body parts) and declaring each other heroes, with three of them allowed to ramble on for about 25 minutes each.
No debate, no answering questions - not even softball ones. They certainly moaned about not being reported upon fairly, but how true that is considering their showing today I'll leave up to you.
Admittedly PM Orbán was the best speaker in terms of delivery - but we are made to understand that if you are not a Christian Democratic centre-right Conservative (by who's definition?) then you are a "semi-Marxist" liberal-leftie, and a dangerous one at that.
Humanity is defined by the Hungarian PM as being strictly bi-polar.
Of course, that's a nice, simple argument to put out to your voters - helps them avoid thinking - but that doesn't make it true.
Nor - in my opinion - does it tally with the teachings of that neer-do-well, fake-healer fellah from Galilee who roamed around Samaria two millennia ago.
I mean, he reportedly liked Romans, prostitutes, Geeks and - can you believe it - Samaritans. Jehova Forbid!
Still, fortunately the conservatives of the day saw through him, and - please note, after a fair trial - stopped his little game. Punishment was a bit tough, admittedly, but there were no pesky human rights NGOs stopping what needs to be done in an emergency back then.
I do, however, sympathise with President Vucic (sorry, no diacrits on hand) when he complained that Germany blanked out all exports of ventilators at the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic - yes, it's true that did not do much good for the image or practice of European solidarity.
No time for further analysis here. I'm sure the speakers have enough media friends to broadcast their points of view far and wide, so you'll be able to read and decide for yourselves as to the value of what these "outstanding statesmen" have to offer.
UPDATE - Even the government communications office deems PM Orbán's contribution a "lecture" - which is definitely closer to the truth.
UPDATE 2 - You can enjoy the whole "conference" via a video here:
http://abouthungary.hu/blog/pm-orban-at-europe-uncensored-there-are-two-competing-concepts-for-the-future-of-europe/
And by the way, apparently this was all recorded the previous day - pro government journalists were caught tweeting 'news' of what participants said before they said it on Wednesday morning. :)
Comments