Racism qua essentialism―the tendency to ascribe "essences" to groups and make sense
of socio-economic outcomes on that basis―is a staple of dominant ideologies. Feeding
off this disposition, post-9/11 political commentary in the West has come to accommodate
more explicit streaks of cultural racism. The current refugee crisis in Europe is
seeing a ratcheting up of this discourse―sometimes with a scholarly veneer, in part
thanks to the pundit class's (re)discovery of Samuel Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
thesis.
This study compares two subclasses of racialized discourse in Hungary: On the one
hand, the racist rhetoric accompanying late-19th century Jewish migration from the
Russian Empire to Hungary, and on the other, anti-Muslim pundit commentary on the
current European migrant crisis. The latter is formulated in terms that are not only
reminiscent of, but in effect, recycle the building blocks of the former. Like Jews
in the anti-Semitic press of pre-World War I Hungary, migrants fleeing the conflict-torn
regions in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, as well as Muslim Europeans,
are portrayed as driven by culturally ingrained penchants―for violence, sexual predation,
world domination, etc.―at odds with "European civilization". Increasingly, prominent
intellectuals, some of whose public persona includes a professed opposition to racism
join this chorus. As a result, while anti-Semitism, which made a comeback in Hungarian
public discourse following the transition to democracy in the early 1990s is still
condemned across most of the ideological spectrum, the nascent anti-Muslim racism
is not confined to the fringes. Complicating matters further, a variant of the latter
is being branded as not only compatible with but a requirement for combating anti-Semitism.
Highlighting trends in anti-Muslim punditry, the discussion includes results from
a recent survey of anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attitudes in Hungary with an emphasis
on cross-fertilization, strategies of accommodation, and framing.
