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Hungary Has A Xenophobia Problem

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

"Take A Number" is our series that uses a numerical figure to explore problems around the world. And today's number is 10, which is the percentage of Hungarians who, according to a new EU survey, are totally comfortable having an immigrant as a friend. Ten is clearly not a very large number. Joanna Kakissis explains what's driving xenophobia there and how some are trying to defy it.

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JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE 1: Every day at noon, church bells ring as Ibrar Hussein Mirzai finishes his Hungarian language class in Fot, a town near Budapest.

IBRAR HUSSEIN MIRZAI: Living in a safe place, having a job, having your family with you - this is what a normal life is to me (laughter).

KAKISSIS: Mirzai is an 18-year-old Afghan refugee. He loves math, libraries and qawwali, a type of Sufi music. Last year, he was among 1,100 people granted asylum 2 in Hungary.

MIRZAI: I never thought that I would stay here and be in Hungary. But I didn't have any other way to find a peaceful place for me to live my life or whether to go back.

KAKISSIS: His friends warned him that Hungarians hate foreigners, but his teachers and housemates are kind. The supermarket ladies remind him of his grandmother. He even played video games with a border policeman.

MIRZAI: Yeah. I'm just a normal person like them. I don't have any problem with them. They don't have to have any problem with me.

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KAKISSIS: But newly re-elected prime minister Viktor Orban calls refugees Muslim invaders 3. He's referencing history, one that's coded into the bell ringing at Fot's Roman Catholic cathedral.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: This is where the priest lives.

KAKISSIS: The parish priest Sandor Sebok and his dog Apollo (ph) live next door.

SANDOR SEBOK: (Speaking Hungarian).

KAKISSIS: Father Sebok explains that the bells toll 4 for the Hungarian military hero Janos Hunyadi. In 1456, Hunyadi's army stopped the Ottoman invasion of Hungary, just as Orban - the priest says - stopped an invasion by Muslim migrants.

SEBOK: (Through interpreter) These healthy young men who come here as migrants - I see them as soldiers coming here to conquer Europe. What Islam couldn't do with the sword back in 1456, it is trying to do now through migration 5.

KAKISSIS: I catch the train back to Budapest to run this epic 6 story past the sociologist 7 who has been studying xenophobia for 26 years.

Hello, sir. How are you?

ENDRE SIK: Just fine.

KAKISSIS: I'm Joanna...

Endre Sik is 69 with a fuzzy beard and skeptical 8 eyes, like a cynical 9 wizard. Hungarians have suffered a history of invasions, Sik says, and Father Sandor's fear is existential.

SIK: It is the fear that our world would collapse 10. We will lose everything we have - the way we think, the way we construct our reality. It is doomed 11 to success.

KAKISSIS: Since 1992, Sik has polled Hungarians on which nationalities they would admit into the country.

SIK: I would find people who would reject all of them.

KAKISSIS: Sik once made up an ethnic 12 group, the Pirez people. Most Hungarians also rejected the fictional 13 Pirez, or Pirezians as he calls them. In his home office, he points to a T-shirt with Hungarian writing.

And what does the T-shirt say?

SIK: It says the Pirezians do not work, and they steal our jobs (laughter).

KAKISSIS: Were you surprised at all by the results?

SIK: No. The Hungarian form of xenophobia - let's put it that way - is, let's say, the classic form. They are different. We don't know them. Therefore, we hate them. That's the beast in us.

KAKISSIS: Hello.

MARCELL KENESEI: Hello.

KAKISSIS: Educator Marcell Kenesei sees the problem.

KENESEI: Hungary is predominantly white and predominantly very Christian 14. The problem in Hungary is the few opportunities to meet with people coming from different backgrounds.

KAKISSIS: Kenesei knows that firsthand. He's Jewish.

KENESEI: For some people, it's an oxymoron. You cannot be - it's either-or. Either you are Jewish or Hungarian.

KAKISSIS: He supervises nonprofit programs that bring together children from Christian, Jewish, Roma and Muslim backgrounds to craft songs, videos and murals together.

KENESEI: And the notion is that when they finish with the project, they will be proud of what they have done. And they have done it with someone else. And this creates a certain kind of interest towards others.

KAKISSIS: That may not last. Energized 15 by its re-election, Viktor Orban's government is cracking down on nonprofits that support migration, saying Hungary's identity is at risk. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis in Budapest.

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