Letters to the editor

I can just smile on Gorka?s arrogant statements (Missing the point on Nato, The Budapest Sun, issue 47, November 21-27) like "formerly" prestigious journal Foreign Affairs or the Orbán Government was the "last democratically elected Hungarian Government".


I can just smile on Gorka?s arrogant statements (Missing the point on Nato, The Budapest Sun, issue 47, November 21-27) like "formerly" prestigious journal Foreign Affairs or the Orbán Government was the "last democratically elected Hungarian Government".


Gorka gets really funny when he paints he haunting picture of a major and imminent NATO threat - no other than Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy, who is ready to spill NATO secrets to the Communists.


But what Communists are we talking about? I guess it is the tiny Thurmer?s Worker?s Party...


It doesn?t really matter, Gorka moves on and states... "Never in the last 12 years since we re-won our independence, have any Hungarians seen fit to burn synagogues, or, more damningly, to drag innocent black men behind a truck until dead simply because their skin-color was wrong (or to beat up a young man and leave him to die tied to a fence post because he was gay)."


Now wait a second... while I admit that Hungary?s innocent black men truck dragging statistics are very low... Gorka might be mistaken on the Synagogues.


Didn?t "vandals" try to burn down the Synagogue in Debrecen? How about the Jewish Cemeteries? Swastikas and vandalized stones in dozens of cemeteries?


What about the soccer games? When thousands chanted "Itzig nem viszünk Auschwitzig," (raw English translation "Itzig, next time we won?t transport you to Auschwitz." I guess that means we?ll just do the "job" on the spot!)


Not even mentioning the Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion distribution in Tesco stores, the constant "zsidózást" and "cigányozást" in the Hungarian media.


All these things happened in the last 12 years.


Of course, black men has other problems in Hungary - especially when they play in opposing soccer teams.


Hungarian fans will "greet" them with the Büdös Néger chant which would translate to Stinking Nigger.


Thank God, Gorka identifies that the problem. It is with the "uninformed readers" who might even think "that Hungary?s last Government was a nationalist one."


I wonder where the hell did they get that idea from?





George Lazar


Piedmont, CA


USA


In his article Missing the point of Nato (The Budapest Sun, issue 47, November 21-27), Sebestyén Gorka seemed to imply that Celeste Wallander, writing in the "formerly prestigious" US journal Foreign Affairs, had some hidden and sinister agenda to discredit Hungary's previous administration, and specifically its leader, Viktor Orbán.


My first question is: is this really a likely scenario? Does Mr Gorka really believe that a US defense specialist and journalist sits down to invent new slanders against the former prime minister of a Central European EU candidate country with a population of 10 million? Does Mr Gorka believe perhaps that Ms Wallander, and - who knows? - the entire editorial board of Foreign Affairs, are in the pay of the Hungarian komcsis?


The Orbán administration proved very inventive in identifying enemies more or less everywhere outside the country?s borders. Yet to my knowledge even they didn?t go so far as to locate such nefarious Communistically-inclined scandalmongering activity within the opinion-making circles of the United States.


My second question is: at what point did the "formerly prestigious" journal Foreign Affairs cease to be prestigious? Was it perhaps at the moment when it published an article which appeared to be critical of Hungary?s former administration, and in particular of its charismatic, internationalist, tolerant leader Viktor Orbán?


One further point. Mr Gorka writes that "quite another level of threat to the Alliance is posed by Orbán?s successor, Prime Minister Medgyessy, who was in fact an officer in the Communist secret police." I did not understand this assertion. What, in Mr Gorka?s opinion, constitutes the "threat"?


Perhaps, as Mr Gorka suggests (however improbably), Celeste Wallander "does not know about agent D-209". Perhaps Mr Gorka has already forgotten the findings of the recent Mécs investigation, which identified several "Communist agents" among the representatives of the previous - libelously maligned - government.


I would be interested to read Mr Gorka?s opinions on these apparent paradoxes. Meanwhile, as a fully paid-up member of the international Communist-imperialist-Jewish-Western-liberal-intelligentsia-US/Romanian/Slovak-EU conspiracy to discredit the former Hungarian government and its undeniably vocal leader Viktor Orbán, I look forward to the imminent Washington-orchestrated coup which will reinstall a full-blown Communist dictatorship in the new democratic Hungary.





Simon Corrigan


Budapest


If you could know how thrilled we were with your article about The Weight of Mass! (A sensitive portrait of faith, by Lucy Mallows, Style Issue 46, November 14-20) I have been getting interviewed or written about for 32 years now; this piece impressed me as head and shoulders above all the rest. (And I didn't find myself cringing - there were no errors, no misquotes!) You did a masterful job of weaving together information from the resources available, and you made it flow in such logical and interesting streams.


Thank you for this feat of professionalism. We were dancing in the office when it [the paper] arrived yesterday.





Josephine Nobisso


Publisher


Maria Nicotra


Operations Manager


Gingerbread House


ghbooks@optonline.net


www.GingerbreadBooks.com





I am from Croatia. I have some information that I would like you to print and contact some other newspapers.


A few kilometers from my town, Cakovec, a Hungarian soldier, Elek Almosi (we are not sure if that is the right surname, maybe it?s Albosi, or even Gulesi or something like that but the people are sure about Elek), who was killed in the Second World War and buried by his brother-in-law in 1945.


After that, his brother in law was also killed, so Mr Elek?s family never found out where he was buried. He was a 29-year-old man in 1945 and he had three kids. I got the information from old people in that village near my town and they guess that Mr Elek lived in a part of Hungary that is near Romanian border.


I know where his grave is and I really hope you will print this and that his family will read it. I know it is late, but it is never too late for a family (I know, because my father is still missing from the war that was going on in Croatia).


You have my email and if the family contacts you, please let me know, so we can arrange a meeting, so I could take them to the grave. I am sorry that this family had to wait so long for the truth and I hope that now we will stop the suspense and suffering and make it possible for this family to light a candle on his grave.


I?ve known for the grave whole my life, but I only recently found out that people knew the name of the soldier (it?s a poor village and people didn?t know who to contact about the grave, but they took care of it), so when I found out the name, I wrote to you.





Maja Oreski


Travnik 17, 40 000


Cakovec, Croatia.


ajmemajo@hotmail.com

05.12.2002