Migrant Crisis leaves Hungary bitterly divided

War on all fronts," thunders the headline in the
conservative daily newspaper, Magyar Nemzet - a
reference to both the battles between desperate
refugees and Hungarian riot police, and to
Hungary's deepening diplomatic isolation.
Csaba Lukacs, the paper's leader writer, depicts a
Hungary under attack from young, stone-throwing
Muslim men: "Hungary's border was besieged by
those who think they have the basic human right to
march across Europe without documents."
Many in Hungary agree with these sentiments.
In Roszke on the Serbian border, through which
tens of thousands of refugees have walked in
recent months, little remains of the refugee camp
constructed last weekend - just in time to help the
last of the migrants.
A few white humanitarian tents, 34 portable toilets,
and some people sifting through the rubbish for
anything of value.
But in the cornfields and sunflower fields nearby,
there are knapsacks, clothes, children's toys and
human excrement in every row. Many patches
where people slept or hid, or fled pursuing
policemen, have been flattened.
"I'm so glad this is all over," local farmer Zoltan
Varga told me, as he inspected his red peppers.
Some of the crop was trampled underfoot, he said,
as people ran through the fields. Some migrants
slept in his greenhouses and caused damage there.
He had watched Wednesday's police intervention at
the Roszke road crossing on television.
"The police acted correctly," he said. But he also
felt sorry for the families with children. "If they had
to come, why couldn't we lay on trains to take them
across the country?"
Hungarian police 'had little choice'
The clashes at the Roszke-Horgos border crossing
divide pro-government and opposition newspapers.
Magyar Idok, a paper launched recently by the
ruling Fidesz party, argues the "determination and
aggressiveness" of the migrants left Hungarian
police with little choice but to use water cannon.
Centre-right Magyar Nemzet says "the Hungarian
border was besieged by those who think that it's
their basic human right to march throughout Europe
without papers."
But centre-left Nepszabadsag reacts sarcastically
that "the strong Hungarian nation can breathe
freely. We no longer have anything to worry about".
And a commentator in centre-left Nepszava
remarks: "We can now get on with our everyday
Hungarian lives surrounded by barbed wire and
shunned by migrants, neighbours, brothers, pals,
close friends and investors."
The government has been anxiously watching
public opinion polls, and commissioning its own
private ones, for any sign of an improvement in
their popularity, which sank drastically last October.
An important factor in its handling of the crisis has
been the loss of a million supporters, and a surge in
the popularity of the radical nationalist Jobbik party,
which shares Fidesz's anti-migrant rhetoric.
The latest poll by the pro-government Szazadveg
think tank gave them some comfort, suggesting that
the popularity of Fidesz grew from 43% in June to
48% in September.
But those figures are challenged by Professor
Gabor Toka, a public opinion specialist at the
Central European University in Budapest.
"I haven't seen any evidence that would support the
claim that the government's handling of the refugee
crisis has increased its popularity," he told the BBC,
pointing to the results of five separate pollsters
since January.
From the opposition side, liberal weekly Magyar
Narancs depicted Prime Minister Viktor Orban with
a curly, Hitler-style moustache made of coils of
barbed wire - prompting a small demonstration
outside its offices by Orban loyalists.
The dispute has further polarised an already
deeply-divided society.