{"id":126,"date":"2014-12-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/?p=126"},"modified":"2014-12-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T05:00:00","slug":"nahcs-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-globe-and-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/nahcs-letter-to-the-editor-of-the-globe-and-mail\/","title":{"rendered":"NAHC’s letter to the Editor of The Globe and Mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

To: Mr. David Walmsley
Editor-in-Chief
The Globe and Mail
Toronto, Ontario M5V 2S9
dwalmsley@globeandmail.com<\/a>
Letters@globeandmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

17 December 2014<\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Walmsley,<\/p>\n

RE: Hungary\u2019s unjust condemnation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Mackinnon\u2019s 14 and 15 December articles on Hungary \u2013 \u201dHungary at centre of Cold War-style struggle between Russia and the West\u201d<\/a> and \u201dStatue in Budapest based on Second World War evokes dark history\u201d<\/a> \u2013 suggest to Canadian readers that Hungary is gradually turning into a dictatorship, while it \u201csympathizes with Russia in the conflict over Ukraine<\/em>\u201d. It also implies that democracy in Hungary is in danger and that Prime Minister Orb\u00e1n \u201dexpresses admiration for the systems<\/em>\u201d of Vladimir Putin\u2019s Russia, as well as Turkey and China.<\/p>\n

This is simply misguided and untrue.<\/p>\n

Hungary never took Russia\u2019s side in the Ukrainian conflict [Ref. 1<\/a>], however, it emphasized that a peaceful resolution \u2013 preferably without the economic sanctions hurting EU member states including Hungary \u2013 should be sought. If one wants to read into this any side taken by Hungary, than it\u2019s rather the side of Ukraine, since during the height of the crisis (when Russian gas supplies were stopped to Ukraine), Hungary pumped more gas to Ukraine than any other country, dropping its own reserve levels to dangerous levels \u2013 close to the minimum limits set by the EU. Pumping more gas was technically not feasible, as confirmed by EU Commissioner for Energy, G\u00fcnther Oettinger in September 2014 [Ref. 2<\/a>].As for the \u201cadmiration\u201d of the likes of Russia, Turkey and China: the original speech from Prime Minister Orb\u00e1n in Hungarian (delivered on 26 July 2014 in Tusn\u00e1df\u00fcrd\u0151, Romania), stated that \u201cthe most popular topic in thinking today is trying to understand how systems that are not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies and perhaps not even democracies, can nevertheless make their nations successful. The stars of the international analysts today are Singapore, China, India, Russia and Turkey.<\/em>\u201d [Ref. 3<\/a>] This is quite different than what Mr. Mackinnon implies! It simply states the fact that some nations, which appear to emerge as winners in the global economic race, are not part of the family of standard Western liberal democracies. Also, how could Hungary be an \u201cadmirer of Russia\u201d when it actually reduced Russian influence in Eastern Europe by a number of steps, for example by buying back 21% of the shares of MOL, Hungary\u2019s oil and gas conglomerate from Russian Surgutneftegas [Ref. 4<\/a>]? Finally, for the suggestion that Hungary is turning into a dictatorship, it is best to cite the 2002 Nobel Prize winner for literature, Mr. Imre Kert\u00e9sz of Hungary, who as a Holocaust survivor and one who lived decades under the communist rule in Hungary, has experienced two dictatorships first-hand. In a recent interview to the New York Times (NYT), Mr. Kert\u00e9sz replied to a direct question from journalist David Straitfeld that although he is \u201cnot pleased with everything happening in Hungary today,… but certainly Hungary is no dictatorship. This is empty, ideological language, to call Hungary a dictatorship today!<\/em>\u201d [Ref. 5<\/a>]. To his (and our) disappointment, Mr. Kert\u00e9sz\u2019 words were never published by the NYT, \u2013 in his view because perhaps this was not the answer the NYT journalist was looking for [Ref. 5<\/a>]. It demonstrates the true greatness of a Nobel Prize winner that his opinion \u2013 which he based on facts \u2013 could not be distorted neither by the popular trend of unjustly portraying Hungary as the \u201cenfant terrible of the European Union\u201d (as Mr. Mackinnon writes) nor by his own subjective views.<\/p>\n

As Canadians of Hungarian origin, as well as representatives of the largest Canadian Hungarian organization, we aim to promote the friendship between Canada and Hungary, two allied nations within NATO. This, however, requires fair and facts-based reporting about either country in the other\u2019s media. We hope that The Globe and Mail will strive to ensure that the highest journalistic standards are upheld and that it will contribute to reporting about Hungary to Canadians by fair and facts-based reporting in the future.<\/p>\n

We would appreciate if you would publish our opinion in the Letter to the Editor section.<\/p>\n

Thank you. Regards,
The 16 members of the Board of Directors of the National Alliance of Hungarians in Canada (NAHC)<\/em>
an umbrella organization founded by 65 Canadian-Hungarian organizations www.kmosz.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To: Mr. David Walmsley Editor-in-Chief The Globe and Mail Toronto, Ontario M5V 2S9dwalmsley@globeandmail.comLetters@globeandmail.com 17 December 2014 Dear Mr. Walmsley, RE: Hungary\u2019s unjust condemnation Mark Mackinnon\u2019s 14 and 15 December articles on Hungary \u2013 \u201dHungary at centre of Cold War-style struggle between Russia and the West\u201d and \u201dStatue in Budapest based on Second World War evokes … Continue reading “NAHC’s letter to the Editor of The Globe and Mail”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kmosz-nahc.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}