Left-wing fears of anti-immigrant shift
November 18th, 2015Left-wing commentators caution against linking the terrorist threat to the current wave of migration to Europe, but fear that their consistent efforts to encourage a friendly attitude towards migrants have suffered a huge blow after the Paris terror attacks.
Without mentioning Hungary’s leaders explicitly, Népszava’s Péter Somfai suggests that those who have always opposed Muslim immigration, would be wrong to feel vindicated by the Paris terror attacks. He says building new fences would be the wrong answer, because it would feed the kind of hatred which is at the root of terrorism itself. He admits however, that after what happened in Paris, the temptation is difficult to resist.
In Népszabadság, veteran columnist Ervin Tamás fears that exhortations by “responsible statesmen” not to link the carnage in Paris to the flow of immigrants will be futile. The average citizen will find it difficult to distinguish between the two and will demand the construction of what Tamás calls both ‘physical and symbolic fences’. As a result, most heads of state and government resign themselves to the fact that long term humanist ideals will be overtaken by the immediate desire for revenge.