https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/kriegserklaerung-an-die-demokratie-wie-trump-transmenschen-antifa-und-demokraten-zum-neuen-feindbild-macht\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nFor what Orb\u00e1n is enacting here is less a security measure than a political performance. Antifa, short for \u201canti-fascist,\u201d is not a clearly defined entity but a catch-all term for loosely connected groups and activists who oppose fascism, neo-Nazis and far-right structures. It is more of an attitude, an ideology, than an organized movement with structures such as those common to terrorist organizations. In Hungary, where Orb\u00e1n and his Fidesz party have held almost unchallenged power for a decade and a half, antifascist groups hardly play any role in political life. But it is precisely this fact that makes the decision so transparent. Orb\u00e1n points to a single incident in 2023: At that time, antifascist activists attacked several suspected participants in a far-right event in Budapest. Among the accused was the Italian activist Ilaria Salis, who spent over a year in Hungarian pretrial detention. Her case caused diplomatic tensions between Rome and Budapest, mainly because of the detention conditions. In May 2024, Salis was released to house arrest - shortly thereafter she won a seat in the European Parliament. With the immunity of an EU legislator, she was able to evade Hungarian prosecution. Orb\u00e1n has since railed against the \u201cAntifa parliamentarian,\u201d who in his view left people half dead and now from Strasbourg lectures Hungary on the rule of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus a singular incident becomes a state construct. Trump has announced in the United States that he will designate Antifa a \u201cmajor terrorist organization\u201d - and Orb\u00e1n promptly delivers the Hungarian copy. That both know how thin the factual basis is does not matter. What matters is the effect: an enemy image that can be exploited in the media, a slogan that produces fear and at the same time distracts from their own abuse of power. While far-right groups and violence have long been identified in statistics as the main threat, attention is now focused on a phantom that lends itself more easily as a projection surface than their own entanglements. In the end, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s step appears less like a legal decision than like a performance for the international stage: the authoritarian pupil following his American role model down to the last detail. The fact that antifascist activists are hardly present in Hungary does not make the decision weaker but exposes it - as a symbolic show of power that in its absurdity borders on caricature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n