M2RB: Nirvana
Come as you are, as you were,
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy.
Take your time, hurry up
The choice is yours, don't be late.
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria
Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
As a trend, as a friend, as an old memoria
Hungary's Foremost Anti-Semite Discovers He's A Jew
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — As a rising star in Hungary's far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi was notorious for his incendiary comments on Jews: He accused them of "buying up" the country, railed about the "Jewishness" of the political elite and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols.
Then came a revelation that knocked him off his perch as ultra-nationalist standard-bearer: Szegedi himself is a Jew.
Following weeks of Internet rumors, Szegedi acknowledged in June that
his grandparents on his mother's side were Jews — making him one too
under Jewish law, even though he doesn't practice the faith. His
grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of
forced labor camps.
Since then, the 30-year-old has become a pariah in Jobbik and his
political career is on the brink of collapse. He declined to be
interviewed for this story.
At the root of the drama is an audio tape of a 2010 meeting between
Szegedi and a convicted felon. Szegedi acknowledges that the meeting
took place but contends the tape was altered in unspecified ways; Jobbik
considers it real.
In the recording, the felon is heard confronting Szegedi with evidence
of his Jewish roots. Szegedi sounds surprised, then offers money and
favors in exchange for keeping quiet.
Under pressure, Szegedi resigned last month from all party positions and
gave up his Jobbik membership. That wasn't good enough for the party:
Last week it asked him to give up his seat in the European Parliament as
well. Jobbik says its issue is the suspected bribery, not his Jewish
roots.
Szegedi came to prominence in 2007 as a founding member of the Hungarian
Guard, a group whose black uniforms and striped flags recalled the
Arrow Cross, a pro-Nazi party which briefly governed Hungary at the end
of World War II
and killed thousands of Jews. In all, 550,000 Hungarian Jews were
killed during the Holocaust, most of them after being sent in trains to
death camps like Auschwitz. The Hungarian Guard was banned by the courts
in 2009.
By then, Szegedi had already joined the Jobbik Party, which was launched
in 2003 to become the country's biggest far-right political force. He
soon became one of its most vocal and visible members, and a pillar of
the party leadership. Since 2009, he has served in the European
Parliament in Brussels as one of the party's three EU lawmakers, a
position he says he wants to keep.
The fallout of Szegedi's ancestry saga has extended to his business
interests. Jobbik executive director Gabor Szabo is pulling out of an
Internet site selling nationalist Hungarian merchandise that he owns
with Szegedi. Szabo said his sister has resigned as Szegedi's personal
assistant.
Hungary Far-Right Leader Discovers Jewish Roots
In the 2010 tape, former convict Zoltan Ambrus is heard telling Szegedi that he has documents proving Szegedi is Jewish. The right-wing politician seems genuinely surprised by the news — and offers EU funds and a possible EU job to Ambrus to hush it up.
Ambrus, who served time in prison on a weapons and explosives
conviction, apparently rejected the bribes. He said he secretly taped
the conversation as part of an internal Jobbik power struggle aimed at
ousting Szegedi from a local party leadership post. The party's reaction
was swift.
"We have no alternative but to ask him to return his EU mandate," said
Jobbik president Gabor Vona. "Jobbik does not investigate the heritage
of its members or leadership, but instead takes into consideration what
they have done for the nation."
Szegedi's experience is not unique: The Holocaust was a taboo subject
during Hungary's decades of communist rule that ended in 1990, and many
survivors chose to keep their ordeals to themselves. Russian far-right
firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky was anti-Semitic until he acknowledged in
2001 that his father was Jewish.
Szegedi, who was raised Presbyterian, acknowledged his Jewish origins in
June interviews with Hungarian media, including news broadcaster Hir TV
and Barikad, Jobbik's weekly magazine. He said that after the meeting
with Ambrus, he had a long conversation with his grandmother, who spoke
about her family's past as Orthodox Jews.
"It was then that it dawned on me that my grandmother really is Jewish,"
Szegedi told Hir TV. "I asked her how the deportations happened. She
was in Auschwitz and Dachau and she was the only survivor in the
extended family."
As an aside, the picture above is from a Hungarian, Jewish, anti-Fascist, LGBT(?), automotive and videogame comparison, liberal (in the European sense), anti-Nazi, etc., website. It's kind of funny and makes a little more sense in English than Hungarian, especially when one doesn't know Hungarian, but I take it that the photo is not necessarily complimentary. If any Hungarians know otherwise, please let us know. Oh, here's what I mean about the automotive thingy...
Homophobic or Queer Power? I'm so confused.
Anyhoo, back to the article...
Judaism is traced from mother to child, meaning that under Jewish law
Szegedi is Jewish. Szegedi said he defines himself as someone with
"ancestry of Jewish origin — because I declare myself 100 percent
Hungarian."
In the interview with Hir TV, Szegedi denied ever having made
anti-Semitic statements, but several of his speeches and media
appearances show otherwise.
In a November 2010 interview on Hungarian state television, Szegedi
blamed the large-scale privatization of state assets after the end of
communism on "people in the Hungarian political elite who shielded
themselves in their Jewishness."
Speaking on a morning program in late 2010, he said that "the problem
the radical right has with the Jews" was that Jewish artists, actors and
intellectuals had desecrated Hungary's national symbols like the Holy
Crown of St. Stephen, the country's first Christian king.
Szegedi also complained of "massive real estate purchases being done in
Hungary, where — it's no secret — they want to bring in Israeli
residents."
Szegedi met in early August with Rabbi Slomo Koves, of Hungary's
Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch community, whose own parents were in their
teens when they discovered they were Jewish.
"As a rabbi ... it is my duty to receive every person who is in a
situation of crisis and especially a Jew who has just now faced his
heritage," Koves said.
During the meeting, Szegedi apologized for any statements which may have
offended the Jewish community, and vowed to visit Auschwitz to pay his
respects.
Koves described the conversation as "difficult and spiritually
stressful," but said he is hopeful for a successful outcome.
"Csanad Szegedi is in the middle of a difficult process of reparation,
self-knowledge, re-evaluation and learning, which according to our hopes
and interests, should conclude in a positive manner," Koves said.
"Whether this will occur or not is first and foremost up to him."
Come As You Are - Nirvana from Nevermind
Come as you are, as you were,
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy.
Take your time, hurry up
The choice is yours, don't be late.
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria [x3]
Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
As a trend, as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria [x3]
And I swear that I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun [x2]
Memoria [x3]
Memoria - and I don't have a gun
And I swear that I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun [x4]
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy.
Take your time, hurry up
The choice is yours, don't be late.
Take a rest, as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria [x3]
Come dowsed in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
As a trend, as a friend, as an old memoria
Memoria [x3]
And I swear that I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun [x2]
Memoria [x3]
Memoria - and I don't have a gun
And I swear that I don't have a gun
No I don't have a gun [x4]
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