Hungary had barely celebrated after Saturday’s unexpected but well-deserved 1-0 win over England in the UEFA Nations League at the Puskás Arena when political attacks began to surface again in the western media. This time, however, the harsh media criticism has struck a chord with Hungarians, as it was aimed at young children rather than the country’s conservative government, as is usual.
Opinion article by Dániel Deme
Apparently, boos could be heard from the stands during the national anthem as the England players took a knee before the game. According to reports, these came from the Hungarian stands, which were occupied by young fans under the age of 14. Adults were banned from the stadium due to the disorderly behavior of fans last year, but UEFA granted an exception for the qualifier in Budapest, allowing over 35,000 Hungarian children to cheer on their national team.
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It’s unclear what prompted the alleged boos among the children, or how many were involved, but the incident was compounded by the statement by England manager Gareth Southgate, he said: “I thought that’s why we do it, why we try to educate”. He added that there were “pantomimic boos as the team came out to warm up, it was different with this kneeling. That felt like inherited thinking to me… That’s why we’re doing this, that’s why we keep taking a stand and we’ll continue to do that in the future.” “I have no idea why people are trying to boo that gesture,” he added.
Why would anyone in their right mind object to a football team openly supporting an extremist political movement that openly calls for the abolition of the nuclear family and the abolition of the police, whose protests have burned shops and cars, police officers and journalists under attack and whose leader is currently under investigation for giving each other millions of dollars worth of donated mansions?
The cultural imperialism underlying Southgate’s thinking is probably hidden only from Southgate himself, even if he unconsciously manages to answer his own question. Hungarians have resisted foreign cultural, gender and racist evangelists and their much-maligned Child Protection Act introduced, which expressly forbids targeting school-aged children with identity politics. The law is clear that educating their children about controversial political, sexual or gender issues is the sole right of parents. In other words, there is no need for the England national football team to bring racial education to ‘less fortunate’ parts of the world.
Southgate’s annoyingly simplistic statement that these children display ‘hereditary thinking’ also implies that their parents are racist too. In return, however, one could ask the England manager to reflect on his own ‘hereditary thinking’, no doubt instilled in him by his parents or previous teachers, in keeping with noble British traditions such as diplomatic skills, respect for freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, A little more respect for childhood and national sovereignty. A degree of inherited thinking might also benefit players who, consciously or unconsciously, bow their heads to a prescribed morality, kneeling before an ideology actively involved in removing statues of their national heroes, who dubbed their country’s saviors in the war as “Fascists ‘ and puts into the minds of unsuspecting young children ideologies like Critical Race Theory that divide them.
For the world media to label 35,000 young Hungarian children who became emotional during a soccer match as “racist” is indeed a new low in journalism. Shouting monkey chants or berating players, whether black or white, because of their ethnicity is racist. Booing an entire squad that gets on their knees when they should be standing proud and singing their national anthem is not. To collectively stigmatize children for being children and saying what they think is a shame.
Some British newspapers, like the former Conservative Daily Telegraph, promptly muted their comments below the articles accusing the racist behavior of the Hungarian children. It’s ironic that they smear accusations at children that should only be reserved for adults, while at the same time treating their own readers as children who aren’t trusted to speak their minds politically correctly. Or do they simply want to hide the fact that the vast majority of their subscribers are unhappy with this line of thinking and would have shown the Telegraph editors how far off their interpretation is and how unconnected they are with popular sentiment towards footballers who play on knees go, has to do? The readers of Daily Mail on the other hand, had the opportunity to express themselves in the comments and lo and behold, the vast majority of them fully supported the feelings allegedly shown by the young Hungarian fans. “Stop shooting yourselves in the foot, the arguments are clear, just get on with football,” wrote one of them. “It’s the English players who need education. People are tired of being lectured by footballers with bad morals,” wrote another.
In recent years Hungary has been at the forefront of a Christian cultural revival, the rediscovery of the Christian roots of its own nation and of European civilisation. Perhaps the national team should be led by a priest brandishing a censer and singing psalms over a loudspeaker for the second leg in England. Because when footballers want to export their country’s morals and teach others what to think, that’s one way the Hungarian team can retaliate with the English. One thing, however, that all parties should refrain from is the senseless political stigmatization of children. They must be the ones laughing innocently or occasionally booing when the emperor is found naked.
(Via: Hungary Today – geschrieben von Dániel Deme, Presentation: Zsolt Szigetváry / MTI)
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