Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza was finished in 1895. 30 years after the end of the American Civil War.
Hungary’s Hero Square monument, which looks a lot like the one at Grand Army Plaza, was completed in 1896. It honored the founding of Hungary — 1000 years after its establishment.
Hero Square has demonstrations. These days the demonstrators say “People for Peace.” Signs are in English and Hungarian. They display the flags of all the counties of Hungary. Several of those counties are part of Romania, the Czech Republic, and other nearby countries.
Hungary lost territory after WW I. 71% of its territory. 58% of its population. 32% of its ethnic Hungarians. People for Peace want the territory and the people back. People for Peace want a country of 20 million people rather than 10 million.
People for Peace don’t explain the magic by which pre- WW I Hungary will be put back together..
Take Transylvania. Romania received Transylvania in the Trianon Treaty after WW I. Seventy-five percent of Transylvania’s population is ethnic Romanian. 20% is ethnic Hungarian. Transylvania would not choose to become part of Hungary.
The Hungarian government, which does not tolerate everything, allows this fringe Hungarian group to demonstrate. The government’s popularity rests, in part, on its treatment of non-ethnic Hungarian refugees, Muslim refugees from the Syrian War. Those refugees were rejected.
What about the Jews? In this country that once had about 750,000 Jews. That saw about 450,000 of them killed in the last year of WW II. Prime Minister Victor Orban, the proponent of “illiberal” democracy, is particularly ill disposed toward liberal Jews. He targeted George Soros. He closed the university Soros created.
Orban rejects accusations of anti-Semitism. His Hungary welcomes Bibi Netanyahu and Chabad. They are not liberal.