KOMAROM, HUNGARY — The right-wing demonstrators have gathered here on the fringe of a long-lost empire, near the border with Slovakia, the banks of the Danube, along rusting train tracks that stretch northwest to Vienna.
They wear wraparound sunglasses, leather vests and combat boots; and they knot around their necks the red and white striped flags reminiscent of Hungary's pro-Nazi party of the 1930s and '40s.
"Take your guns in your hands," rasps a singer. "This is the last fight we're going to win. Endurance."
And then: "I may have big boots. You may throw a stone at me. But this is still my country, this is where my cradle lay."
The crowd has gathered in the September sunshine for the main attraction, Gabor Vona, a charismatic young nationalist who heads Hungary's newest, fastest growing and most controversial political party -- and founded its affiliated militia.
Vona steps out of a minivan, a slight young man with a few shoots of gray in a crop of dark hair. A passing driver leans furiously on his car horn, and the young woman in the passenger seat shows Vona her middle finger as they careen past. Vona blinks and turns away with indifference. He's ready to face his fans.
"You should know that Hungarian policy may change in the very near future," he tells them. "Everyone knows that for the past 20 years we kept silent and bowed down, but this will change."
Vona is riding high these days. His radically nationalistic party, Jobbik, picked up nearly 15% of the Hungarian vote in June elections for the European Union parliament. The Hungarian Guard, the paramilitary organization founded by Vona and his party and distinguished by its Nazi-like iconography and menacing marches through Roma, or Gypsy, areas, is locked in conflict with police and courts.
But if anything, the Hungarian Guard's clashes with authorities appear to be feeding Jobbik's popularity among a disgruntled populace.
Jobbik is quickly gathering strength by galvanizing all manner of conservative Hungarians, especially the young and rural. Analysts say its popularity hinges on its antagonism toward the Roma minority, and party leaders' incessant talk of "Gypsy crime."
The party's rhetoric paints a picture of an isolated Hungarian people and a neutered, ineffective police force at the mercy of robbing, violent Roma. The rise to prominence of Jobbik and its Hungarian Guard has come in tandem with a spate of ruthless attacks on Roma, including children. Analysts say this is no coincidence. They also blame Jobbik for spreading thinly coded anti-Semitism and unsubtle hearkening back to Hungary's Nazi past.
