Hungarian Nightmare: Viktor Orban’s War on George Soros

The Hungarian ‘populist’ has targeted Soros and the great liberal university in Budapest he founded—and which embodies everything Orban and his cronies fear. More than the education of 1,500 students will be interrupted if—as now seems likely—the lights are turned off at Budapest’s Central European University. European Union values and Hungary’s future as a member of the democratic family of nations are on the line. Picture this: 1,500 high-spirited students from 116 countries—rushing to classes taught by teachers from 51 nations, in a spectacular, newly expanded campus near the banks of the Danube. These students will soon join 14,000 others who have already graduated from one of the continent’s world-class universities and carry back to their home countries the most important lesson any school can teach today: to be critical patriots, in CEU Rector Michael Ignatieff’s words, trained to trust evidence, able to separate truth from fakery.