The Hungarian government has decided to "organize" a referendum to object to the EU's decision to distribute refugees to member countries. The number of the refugees Hungary was supposed to accept is less than 1,300. In order to oppose the settlement of such a marginal number of distressed refugees, the democratically elected government of a country of 10 million residents has chosen to organize a referendum. The mere act of having recourse to such an instrument shows the depth of populism reigning in Hungary within the Orban administration.The number of refugees allocated to Hungary - 1,300 - is a number I could personally go and interview myself within a 5-kilometer radius of where I live in Istanbul. I see these people every day, mostly the petit-bourgeois of Syrian towns, rich enough to rent a small flat in Istanbul, desperate enough not to try to immigrate to Western European countries. I see them every morning, every afternoon, with their families or sometimes alone, all with the same blank look on their faces as if they look without seeing. Just paying a little attention to their behavior could give one an idea about the tragedy they have endured.It would be a crime to ask whether these people should be removed from the country they were forced to emigrate to. If a referendum were organized today in Turkey, mostly people would vote to let them go elsewhere, as if such an "elsewhere" really exists. It is extremely dangerous to take the evil out of the box by invoking "popular legitimacy," in dire times like the one we are now living in. Responding to an intricate issue with a simple "yes" or "no" is never a solution. In the case of Hungary, it was an outright electoral maneuver, to give Victor Urban another opportunity to erect himself as the Hungarian patriot opposing the Brussels diktat.Hungarians are very brave and patriotic people; they have shown it twice, once in 1956 and again in 1989 against the Soviet Union, in spite of being in an incredibly asymmetrical balance of power. Titillating this patriotic fiber of the population against nonexistent enemies is called populism at best and fascism, at worst.The opposition Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), the Democratic Coalition (DK), the Együtt (Together) Party and Dialogue for Hungary (PM) all called on Hungarians to boycott a referendum. They hardly could have won the case by asking the voters to cast a "yes" ballot. Contrary to expectations, their appeal has been heard and the voter turnout has hovered at a mere 39.72 percent, well below the 50 percent threshold that is required to make the referendum legal. "Never mind," said Viktor Orban, arguing that 98 percent of the votes cast were nays and saying he would change the Constitution accordingly in order to make the referendum valid. Anyhow, he wants the message of the Hungarians to be heard in Brussels.Orban's messages were heard loud and clear in Brussels and elsewhere. His idea of changing the Constitution to meet his own political expectations looks more and more like a "calvinball" game from a classic Calvin & Hobbes comic strip where rules are not defined and changes are made according to Calvin's advantage during the game.This shows all of us, in a very eloquent manner, that the only way to "make Europe" discover "common values" is through accepting differences and institutionalizing respect for those differences, within a system of freedom and mutual acceptance. No other reference, be it religious, cultural, traditional, linguistic can be instrumental in establishing a peaceful existence for the populations of Europe and non-European countries. A very enlightening article has been written on this subject by professor Hanioğlu in his weekend column in Sabah daily newspaper.The alternative approach can be extremely disastrous. The sorry example is the result of the Colombian referendum to legitimize the peace agreement between the government and the FARC guerrilla movement. Bringing with it another half-century of armed conflict, the peace agreement which was arduously negotiated and finalized, has been submitted to the assent of Colombian population through a referendum. Well, the outcome has been a rejection, albeit with a very narrow margin. The agreement was rejected by 50.2 percent of voters while 49.8 percent voted in favor of it - a narrow difference of less than 63,000 votes of the total 13 million ballots that were cast. So the Colombian Army will resume fighting the FARC in tropical forests as large as two-thirds of Turkey's entire area. Already, this conflict has claimed the lives of 260,000 people. With less than 40 percent of people going to the polls, the deal has been rejected in what is being called "democratic legitimacy." Perhaps referendums should be evaluated according to their correct value and not be used to undermine representative democracy.