Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables, and Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Race, Illiberalism, Central Europe
- 1 How Eastern Europeans Became Less White
- 2 How Central Europeans Became Eastern European
- 3 How Central Europeans Became Central European (Time and Time Again)
- 4 Central Europe: Half-Truths and Facts
- 5 The Last of the White Men: Central Europe’s White Innocence
- 6 ‘Have Eastern Europeans No Shame?’ Anti-Semitism, Racism, and Homophobia in Central Europe
- 7 Imitators Spurned: Why the West Needs Central Europe to Stay in its Eastern European Place
- 8 ‘We Will Not Be a Colony!’
- 9 Slavia Prague v. Glasgow Rangers: Lessons from a Football Match
- Conclusion: When the Migrants Come
- Postscript: Confessions of a Canadian Central European
- Notes
- References
- Index
Conclusion: When the Migrants Come
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Tables, and Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Race, Illiberalism, Central Europe
- 1 How Eastern Europeans Became Less White
- 2 How Central Europeans Became Eastern European
- 3 How Central Europeans Became Central European (Time and Time Again)
- 4 Central Europe: Half-Truths and Facts
- 5 The Last of the White Men: Central Europe’s White Innocence
- 6 ‘Have Eastern Europeans No Shame?’ Anti-Semitism, Racism, and Homophobia in Central Europe
- 7 Imitators Spurned: Why the West Needs Central Europe to Stay in its Eastern European Place
- 8 ‘We Will Not Be a Colony!’
- 9 Slavia Prague v. Glasgow Rangers: Lessons from a Football Match
- Conclusion: When the Migrants Come
- Postscript: Confessions of a Canadian Central European
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Let us stay with football for a moment longer. I would like to begin the Conclusion as I have the Introduction, with an allusion to the best-known Central European illiberal leader's penchant for the game. The Hungarian journalist, Pál Dániel Rényi, wrote a whole book on it, claiming that Orbán's view of football was the same as his vision of politics. ‘Orbán has never been a fan in the traditional sense’, writes Rényi,
but he knew well the emotional world of a fan. That sort of commitment is built not on rational pondering but on events, beliefs, heroes, and memories. Shared symbols, convictions, and goals connect to one another the team and its followers. Identification is unconditional, requires no explanation, and resists time. The team: it's eternal. And for the loyal fan, victory is not simply important; it's the only thing that counts.
This was not Orbán's own world, as Rényi makes clear; it was the world he created for his fans. With this kind of mentality, every victory by the leader is cheered by his followers, with little thought given to how it benefits them. He plays the strings of their beliefs and memories; he offers a community of affect at a time of great dislocation. Orbán became a master at this political game, unlike any in Central Europe or even Europe as a whole. But the false consciousness that illiberalism creates is systemic, not personal. In the end, the shared symbols, the unconditional, unthinking, seemingly eternal loyalty are to, as Liz Fekete put it, one's own kith and kin, more than any charismatic leader who can facilitate it. The focus in this book has been on the triumphant rise of illiberalism in Central Europe, between the ‘European migration ciris’ of 2015–16, and the efforts of the opposition that gained visibility in late 2021. The illiberal revolt that Orbán and Kaczynski helped to unleash will, however, likely remain a powerful force for much of this century, and long after they are gone, because in the end illiberalism responds to global and local forces that are much more consequential than the personal whims of any individual, no matter how influential.
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- White but Not QuiteCentral Europe’s Illiberal Revolt, pp. 241 - 248Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2022