For the past several weeks, I have been following the Syrian Refugee Crisis on the news. I think that it is an incredibly heartbreaking situation and when I saw that there would be a Becker Rose Cafe covering the topic, I knew that I wanted to go. Professor Holly Case led the cafe and spoke specifically about Hungary’s role and response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis. I had known that many European countries were against allowing refugees into the country, but I hadn’t realized that Hungary had erected a physical fence to keep the refugees out. After learning this, I was again surprised that this action had been taken without the approval of the majority of the public. Most Hungarians want to help the refugees. Of the Hungarians that don’t want to explicitly help the refugees, the majority of those people aren’t significantly opposed to having them in the country. There is a very small group of people in Hungary that really don’t want any refugees in the country. I found this fact incredibly surprising but I’m glad that I am now aware of this.

Another fascinating aspect of Professor Holly Case’s cafe was when she talked about a Hungarian activist group called the Two Tailed Dog Party. Victor Orban is the conservative Prime Minister of Hungary and the Two Tailed Dog Party runs anti-Orban campaigns. The members of this party are against Orban’s refugee policies and their campaigns are very satirical. Unfortunately, this party has no intention of becoming politically involved. Rather they just make their opinions known. I think that since this party realizes the harshness of Orban’s policies, they should become politically involved especially since many Hungarians seem to support their opinions.

Overall this cafe was very enlightening. I learned a lot about the Syrian Refugee Crisis that I hadn’t known from just looking at news media outlets. It is an unfortunate situation and I hope that European countries work to humanely solve the issue.