Boycotting Jobbik doesn’t work
March 25th, 2014A liberal commentator encourages mainstream politicians to face Jobbik MPs in public debates as the radical right-wing party is too strong to be ignored.
Jobbik has long passed the threshold under which quarantining the far right can be successful, a blogger who signs himself as “Sabater” writes on HVG online. The only thing one can achieve by sticking to the principle of “not talking to Nazis” is letting their message reach the public unfiltered, he explains. In fact, the media opens its channels to Jobbik, while left-wing parties consistently refuse to take part in broadcasts where Jobbik is also on air. As a result, Jobbik’s messages are aired unchallenged. In Sweden, the extremist Sverigedemokraterna party is being successfully boycotted by democrats, because the National Mail Service joins them by refusing to forward the leaflets of the radicals and because this approach is widely approved by the public. In Hungary, Jobbik got almost 17 per cent of the popular vote last time, it has money, 10 thousand party members as well as a weekly newspaper and an all-round alternative online media. Under these conditions, Sabater says, ignoring them is bound to backfire. “No one can be quarantined behind a fence with a gaping hole in it”, HVG’s author concludes..