Orban’s defenders argue that, the literal language of his “mixed-race” comment notwithstanding, he’s really not a racist; he just doesn’t want a horde of Muslims to infect his Christian nation. Does the argument hold water?
There are countries in which religion is a key part of national culture–think Ireland or Poland. Hungary simply isn’t one of them, however. Hungary historically was neither overwhelmingly Protestant nor Catholic. Christianity as a whole took a big hit when Hungary was part of the Warsaw Pact. Today, by all accounts, there are relatively few practicing Christians there, just as in most other EU nations.
Yes, it is true that Hungary was a major battlefield between the Ottoman Turks and the Catholic Hapsburgs for hundreds of years. Those wars, however, ended about 300 years ago. I am not aware of any great lingering Turkish influence on the country other than the baths in Budapest. In that sense, Hungary differs significantly from, say, the Eastern Orthodox Serbs, the Catholic Croats, and the Bosnian Muslims doing battle in the remnants of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
If the fight isn’t over religion, then what is it about? It’s about ethnicity and culture, just as it is for GOP extremists braying about the border. That’s a form of racism, whether the extremists acknowledge it or not.