{"id":139301,"date":"2018-06-11T01:20:09","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T01:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/hungarys-first-black-mp-aims-to-destroy-prejudice\/"},"modified":"2018-06-11T01:20:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T01:20:09","slug":"hungarys-first-black-mp-aims-to-destroy-prejudice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/hungarys-first-black-mp-aims-to-destroy-prejudice\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary\u2019s first black MP aims to &#8216;destroy prejudice&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Olivio Kocsis-Cake\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/169ED\/production\/_101935629_olivio1.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Orsolya Kovacs<figcaption>Image caption                                      Olivio Kocsis-Cake: Fidesz always finds an enemy who must be hated                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Hungary has a reputation for anti-immigration politics, but a young black liberal MP wants to revamp the country&#039;s image. <\/p>\n<p>Olivio Kocsis-Cake, of the opposition Parbeszed (Dialogue) party, is being sworn in as an MP on Monday, taking a seat vacated by a colleague who is stepping down. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Kocsis-Cake (pronounced &quot;kochish-tsocker&quot;) has become a talking point in Hungary because of the strong anti-migrant rhetoric - particularly against non-whites - ratcheted up by members of the governing Fidesz party, its loyal national media and far-right groups like Jobbik.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;In the 1990s I was physically in danger a number of times when confronted by skinheads on the street. But now this is very unusual. Mostly I just get suspicious looks,&quot; Mr Kocsis-Cake told independent news website Index.hu. <\/p>\n<p>Parbeszed won just five seats in the 2018 election, in which the right-wing Fidesz of Prime Minister Viktor Orban secured a super-majority of 133 seats and the ultra-nationalist Jobbik came second with 26 seats. <\/p>\n<p>Parbeszed MPs sit in alliance with the Socialist Party and together they form a bloc of 20 seats.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Orban defiant on keeping migrants out<\/li>\n<li>The man who thinks Europe has been invaded<\/li>\n<li>Hungary country profile <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One hallmark of Prime Minister Orban&#039;s political reign is an emphasis on blocking non-EU migrants from settling in Hungary, and identifying racial diversity as a threat to Hungarians&#039; ethnic and cultural history. <\/p>\n<p>The so-called &quot;Stop Soros&quot; laws - referring to George Soros, the Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist - going through parliament will criminalise efforts by civil society groups to assist asylum seekers.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      Fidesz&#039;s tough anti-migrant messages link opposition parties to Mr Soros (centre)                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last month Mr Orban said his priority was to &quot;preserve Hungary&#039;s security and Christian culture&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>Hungary rejects an EU scheme for resettling refugees EU-wide and has built a formidable fence on its southern border to keep migrants out.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Fidesz always finds an enemy of the day who must be hated. Brussels, Soros, refugees, the homeless, or the Roma (Gypsies),&quot; Mr Kocsis-Cake recently told Nepszava newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>He said Fidesz ought to focus more on helping the needy and improving healthcare and education. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;Fidesz has been pursuing a hate campaign in recent years. I want to destroy the prejudices and stereotypes that Fidesz has planted in Hungarian society about immigrants,&quot; he told Index.hu.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;That we have to fear immigrants; that they cannot integrate - these are obviously ridiculous notions. I am living proof that you do not have to be afraid of someone else&#039;s skin colour.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>Two different generations<\/h2>\n<p>Olivio Kocsis-Cake was born in 1980. His mother is Hungarian and his father, from Guinea-Bissau, came to Hungary via Senegal in 1976, aged 18. <\/p>\n<p>Like many students invited to communist Eastern Europe from developing countries, Marcelo Cake-Baly studied and graduated at the Karl Marx Economics University. He settled and found work as a Budapest tram-driver and was even a one-time film actor. <\/p>\n<p>Growing up in Budapest, his son Olivio Kocsis-Cake went to school in a very different, post-communist Hungary. Various shades of nationalism flourished under multi-party democracy, and the socialist internationalism of the one-party state that had welcomed his father was assigned to history.<\/p>\n<p>He graduated in history and sociology from the city&#039;s P\u00e9ter P\u00e1zm\u00e1ny Catholic University. <\/p>\n<p>He quit a role in the Politics Can Be Different (LMP) party in February 2013 and became a founding member of Parbeszed, where he worked as a campaign leader, then as a party director for four years. Now he is about to become a sitting MP.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  ATV<figcaption>Image caption                                      &quot;I am living proof that you do not have to be afraid of someone else&#039;s skin colour&quot;                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a recent interview, leftist Nepszava newspaper warned Mr Kocsis-Cake that Fidesz were targeting him, not because of his skin colour, but because of a link with their primary international hate-figure, Mr Soros.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;This Fidesz reaction was to be expected,&quot; he said. &quot;Anyone who does not agree with their politics is immediately called a Soros agent. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;I did participate in a sponsorship programme, in which we researched education programmes for the Soros foundation. Opposition politicians are criticised for everything, in my case this will obviously include the colour of my skin. I have become used to it.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Orsolya KovacsImage caption Olivio Kocsis-Cake: Fidesz always finds an enemy who must be hated Hungary has a reputation for anti-immigration politics, but a young black liberal MP wants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":139302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}