Hungarian Conservative

I cherished David most for his humanity and intellectual vibrancy. His optimistic smile and encouraging thumbs-up after our conversations were always a source of comfort.

According to Ambassador Yacov Hadas-Handelsman the Gaza War is not just against Israel and it is not a political strife anymore, but a cultural and religious conflict.

On 6 February 2024, the documentary Some Kind of Liberating Effect was screened with the participation of the film’s director Dr Valerio Severino in the Danube Institute. Several different aspects of science and religion were discussed both in the film itself and after the screening in a panel discussion.

Orthodoxy is the second largest form of Christianity in the world, with some 200 million believers, Dr Noble highlighted in our interview, reminding that of the nine recognized candidate countries for membership of the EU, there six countries with an Orthodox majority.

According to Dr Samuel Noble, countries with a predominantly Orthodox Christian population have been able and willing to preserve their traditions. Contrary to the proposition put forth by Samuel Huntington, Dr Noble highlights the primacy of national identity in countries professing Orthodox Christianity, as a result of which, he contends, there has never been a truly unified Orthodox bloc.

‘The divisions inside the conservative movement are less over what should be done, and more over how far we might go, and the right answer is always as far as possible. In a democracy, the path to political success is always practical: for us, that means identifying the problems that worry people most and finding credible and pragmatic ways to make change for the better.’

The brand new edition of our magazine features a piece by Miklós Szánthó, director general of the Center for Fundamental Rights, who wrote about the subversive nature and history of the new Woke ideology; as well as a statistical analysis of the difference in the ways democracies and autocracies wage war by political scientist and military historian Bruce Oliver Newsome, and two Christmas-themed articles as well, as per the holiday season. You can pick up the latest edition of Hungarian Conservative magazine at your local bookstore or newspaper stand; or, subscribe to our quarterly magazine on our website to make sure you never miss an issue.

The conference, held on 27 November 2023, brought together a diverse groups of speakers to discuss the repercussions of the Israel-Hamas war and the situation of the Christian community in Israel.

Tony Abbott, who served as the Prime Minister of Australia between 2013 and 2015, will be joining the line-up of guest lecturers of the Budapest-based think tank the Danube Institute this autumn. He will be giving lectures at events and will be regularly publishing in the print magazine Hungarian Conservative.

In a bizarre speech, Canadian Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen alleged, with no basis whatsoever, that the Conservatives in parliament oppose the modernized trade deal with Ukraine because one of them had a trip to London paid by the Hungarian Danube Institute last summer.

The famous British unorthodox feminist, Mary Harrington recently visited Budapest to talk about ‘reactionary feminism’ and progress at a Danube Institute event.

At the discussion Russia expert David Satter expressed scepticism about Russia being trustworthy regarding keeping the terms of a potential ceasefire, while Attila Demkó argued that Ukraine has already secured a great victory against Russia: it has not become a puppet state of Moscow.

Recently, the Danube Institute co-hosted an event with Helena History Press where Danish author Jaap Scholten talked about his personal experiences while travelling throughout Ukraine in the first six months of the war.

‘I believe that the presence of all of these varying opinions is what makes the Third Danube Geopolitical Summit stand out. As James Carafano, Senior Counselor to the President at The Heritage Foundation noted during his opening address: the Danube Institute is a place that gives a platform for real dialogue.’

The Third Danube Institute Geopolitical Summit took place last week in the Castle District of Budapest, with such illustrious guests sharing their insights as former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, former Czech President Václav Klaus, Head of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Hungarians Abroad Zsolt Németh, and Lewis Libby, researcher at the Hudson Institute and advisor to former US President George W. Bush.

While Hungary is a country with plenty of complexity and, like any other place, has its issues and imperfections—as well as treasures—I have two choices: criticize and judge from afar, or engage and learn. I choose the latter.

Simplistic labels like ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ for a rules-based, nations-centric approach are to be rejected—one can learn from former foreign minister of Hungary János Martini’s new English language book Nation and Europe: In Lieu of Memoirs which was presented to the audience on 18 September at Danube Institute.

‘The Maidan—‘the square’ as people refer to it—became a plaza of fallen heroes in 2014: pictures commemorating the 108 protestors killed by law enforcement during the Revolution of Dignity remind everyone that for Ukrainians the struggle for self-determination didn’t start in February 2022.’

In the latest episodes of the Reflections from Budapest podcast, Director of the Middle East Action Team at the Religious Freedom Institute Jeremy P. Barker explained that their work aims to promote religious freedom rights for everyone everywhere, recognising and hoping that includes even the smallest and most persecuted religious minorities, whether that’s Christians or Yazidis in the Middle East, or Uyghurs in China and others.

The nation celebrated at Tusványos, the Hungarian one, drapes over various states in the Carpathian Basin and consists of a plurality of ethnic and religious groups, fully including not just Christian Magyars but also Jews, Ungarndeutschen, and Roma with roots in the region. Foreign guests like me, who come from outside the Hungarian nation or family of nations, could also feel welcome, because, if devoid of chauvinism, nationhood offers fertile ground for inter-national solidarities and sympathies.

Hungary should assert its national sovereignty and resist the imposition of global norms on aggressive sexual progressivism through UN documents, Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) argues.

Famed American internet personality and political commentator Dave Rubin sat down with writer and columnist Rod Dreher, also from the US, in Budapest, Hungary to discuss the state of conservatism in their home country and Hungary. They both see Prime Minister Orbán as a good model to follow for conservatives in America, and agree that he is being misrepresented in American mainstream media.

Ákos Bence Gát told Hungarian daily Magyar Nemzet that Hungary raised the issue of creating a rule of law instrument during its presidency, which would ensure that the rule of law criteria, for which member states are held accountable, are also upheld within EU institutions. This caused panic.

Highly respected experts, such as former Constitutional Court Justice István Stumpf, Gadi Taub, Senior Lecturer at the Federmann School of public policy from Israel, and James Allen of the University of Queensland in Australia, shared their views on the controversial concept of ‘rule of law’. Their lectures were followed by a discussion between State Secretary for European Affairs János Bóka and Ákos Bence Gát, head of foreign affairs at the Danube Institute.

Nigel Biggar’s recently published book titled Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning is a Sunday Times bestseller. The book is a unique analysis of Western colonialism, and a sober assessment of all the bad and good that the British Colonial Empire stood for. Without hiding the injustices and violence committed by the Empire, Nigel Biggar argues that the Empire was not the embodiment of pure evil.

Hungary has recently been making its presence known in the world of international aid, with its most recent efforts being in earthquake-ravaged Turkey. The small nation has focused its initiatives on providing aid to oppressed Christians, which now face record-level highs of global persecution today. Global aid has poured in to relieve the suffering of the region’s minorities following the end of the war against ISIS, during which the region’s Christians, along with other minority communities such as the Yezidis, suffered barbaric crimes.

The historian from Florida calls people on the right who give up on their values due to social pressure ‘Vichy conservatives’, because they surrender when outnumbered by the opposition just as easily as the leaders of the Nazi-collaborator Vichy regime in France did. Back then, the German occupiers appeared to be a hegemonic force; today, it’s the radical left that seems to be invincible.

‘It is strange to see that some people in the West think that Hungary is reactionary simply because of having a sane family policy,’ Professor Daniel J. Mahoney opines. An interview about statesmanship, human nature and the pitfalls of liberal democracy.

Although today violence is no longer the primary form of persecution Christians face in the country, they still endure other serious forms of discrimination. Among the most pressing issues are economic problems, incompetent legislation by the government and conflicts from inter-communal relations, which they suffer from not just because of their faith, but also because they are an ethnic minority in the Kurdish region.

The successful American talk show host spoke at an event at the Danube Institute. He covered a whole slew of topics, including Trump vs DeSantis in next year’s Republican primary, why he left his left-wing politics behind, and Hungary’s child protection law.