Expecting an alien culture, that believes in its superiority, to assimilate over all others would be a vain ambition. Europe did harbour this ambition during the latter part of the 20th century. Faced with falling birth rates, European nations opened their countries to mass migration. Lured by the relative prosperity of Western Europe, hordes in Asia and Africa jumped at the opportunity. Continuous instability in West Asia and North Africa meant that a majority of the migrants came from these areas. As it happens, none of these countries had a stable, working democracy and most of them had declared themselves Islamic countries. The cultural shock of moving to countries of Western Europe, with their prosperity, democracy and liberal socio-religious norms, was too much for the impoverished migrants, many of whom had been educated only in hard-line religious seminaries.

Europe received this alien group with open arms and hoped that these migrants would gradually imbibe the European norms and assimilate in the local culture. The religious preachers, who had accompanied the migrants, however, had other ideas, not the least of which being a duty they believed they owed to God; to convert these European ‘unbelievers’ to their ‘true’ faith and thus have the hosts ‘assimilate’ with the new arrivals. The migrant leaders believed that till their faith became universally accepted, everyone should accept multiculturalism, the peaceful coexistence of diverse cultures within a single society. There being no meeting ground between the two expectations, conflict was inevitable.

The Leftist ideology played an unusual role in the matrix of migration. None of the countries ever ruled by Communists since the formation of the Soviet Union had encouraged migration. The USSR, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia kept their doors closed. In democratic countries, however, the Left was always in favour of open doors. No Leftist party in any democratic country that faced the migration dilemma ever opposed unchecked migration. The reason for this double-faced behaviour of the Left is not far to seek; like the religious ideology of the majority of migrants in Europe, the Left also believes in the superiority of their political ideology over the rest and also in their duty to universalise that ideology. Lenin, the architect of the Soviet revolution, had floated the Comintern, or The Communist International, with the goal of overthrowing the international bourgeoisie and having Communism as the sole political ideology in the world. The fact that the Marxist ideology invariably resulted in the lack of freedom and unhappiness for the populations they ever governed did not deter the Left from their mission.

European leaders, however, remained optimistic, some like Germany’s Merkel more than others, till the exodus of 2015. Europe, having constituted itself into the European Union and having made extremely liberal asylum laws mandatory for its members, watched helplessly as trainloads of migrants descended into their countries, straining the very liberal welfare and support model of these countries. Ironically, these welfare benefits had acted as a magnet for these migrants; now the strain on welfare resources was one of the factors compelling the European leaders to do a rethink on the migration issue.

There was one outlier in the ranks of EU leaders. Victor Orbán of Hungary had taken a “no migrant’ stand in the 2015 crisis. He had sealed the borders with razor wire at record speed, called migration a civilizational threat and criminalised illegal border crossing. He made provision for criminal action against those who provided ‘humanitarian’ assistance to migrants and he showed his defiance by rejecting the EU refugee quotas. On the other extreme was Angela Merkel, the hard-headed leader of Germany, who was born and brought up in Communist East Germany and was a member of a Communist youth organisation during her student days. It may be coincidental that, as German Chancellor, she was seen, more often than not, in a red jacket. It may also be coincidental that, during her 16-year tenure, she set the record for any German leader’s visits to Communist China, having visited that totalitarian country a total of 12 times. The clash between Merkel and Orbán was inevitable but Orbán stood his ground, even as Merkel made the EU pass one punitive order after another against Orbán’s Hungary. Post 2015, news frequently mentioned this clash; Reuters published on September 15, 2017 “Merkel warns Hungary of financial consequences of defying EU on migrants” and BBC said on July 5, 2018, “Migrants: Merkel and Orbán clash over Europe’s ‘humanity’.”

Orbán ’s survived not only Merkel’s and EU’s angst but also his adulation of Putin and the consequent irritation of the US. A BBC article of October 20, 2022, “US reminds pro-Putin Hungary it’s Western ally.” Fate, however, does not follow logic. By 2024, Europe had woken up to the migrant crisis and was taking substantial steps in the complete vindication of Orbán ’s approach towards migration. On October 14, 2024, The Guardian had already declared, “Orbán’s is no longer an outlier.” At that moment, which should have been the glorious pinnacle of his political career, his party lost in elections in April 2026, ending his 16-year continuous rule. During the last couple of years, one European country after another, has come down with a heavy hand not only on migration but also on migrants who are already in Europe and they are now offering even a golden hand-shake, paying up to $40,000 for every migrant who opts to leave Europe. The EU and Italy have now cut deals with Tunisia, paying it to intercept migrant boats and facilitate their return after having a similar arrangement with Libya. This was Orbán’s plea earlier in order to contain migration before it reached Europe. The logic was simple; if an asylum seeker has not reached Europe, any action regarding that person does not trigger any measures under the European Convention on Human Rights. The shift now is not merely in the processes; it is in the paradigm. The emphasis is on deterrence, detention and deportation, not on integration and assimilation. In the new “Fortress Europe”, the border gates do not have welcome signs; the default state of the gates is ‘closed’ and the razor-wire fences at the borders are heavily securitised lines of exclusion.

The ghost of Orbán is all over Europe and is not confined to the far-right. An article in the Heritage Foundation on April 12, 2026 by Paul McCarthy brings out the fragility of the leftist ideology when confronted with populist demands in a democracy. The title of the article says it all, “Viktor Orbán Lost the Election but He Won the Argument.” It says the once-derided policies of the Hungarian strongman “have not only endured; they have become the emerging consensus.” In March this year, the EU members decided by a 389-206 vote that the member states may deport rejected asylum seekers to offshore “return hubs.” Only a few of the ayes were far-right; these very Europeans had pinched their noses in disgust when Trump had worked out an arrangement in 2025 to pay El Salvadore $6 million to deport Venezuela’s notorious Tren de Aragua gang members to that country. All the human rights groups who had widely criticised this action against dangerous gang members are now conspicuous by their silence at the EU decision to deport illegal migrants and their children under a similar deal with underdeveloped countries of Africa.

Accepted norms in any society are usually considered sacrosanct; In reality, however, these are so only as long as the power under which these were born endures. As the political winds change, so do the norms; it appears that in the final analysis, it is the norms that kowtow to the popular voice of the day and not the other way around.  / DAILY WORLD /

(R N prasher is a former IAS officer. The views expressed are his personal.)