Hungary's 'Orbanization' Is Worrying Europe

Niccolo and Donkey Thursday 21 Jun 2012

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Hungary Reconstituted

With the victory of the center-right coalition of the Fidesz-Hungarian Civic Union (Hungarian: Magyar Polgári Szövetség ) and the Christian Democrats ( Keresztény Demokrata Néppárt ), conservatives gained a huge majority in parliament. They immediately started to draft a new constitution to replace what many saw as the last remnant of the country’s socialist past.

The first step was taken on September 7, 2010, when an ad hoc parliamentary committee started to make preparations. After numerous debates about matters of principles, the early drafts of the new Hungarian constitution were written between January and March of 2011. It was finally adopted by the Hungarian parliament and signed into law by President Pál Schmitt on April 25, 2011.

Controversy ensued almost immediately.

The politico-cultural foundation of the constitution, as enshrined in its preamble, can be summarized by three words: God, homeland, and family.

The preamble starts with a reference to the first line of Hungary’s old national anthem, which asks God to bless the Hungarian people. Although the constitution itself clearly embodies the principle of separation of church and state, it also refers to their cooperation. And despite recognizing the country’s various religious traditions, it explicitly mentions the Christian roots of Europe, as well as the role of Christianity in the history of the Hungarian nation.

It is interesting to note that there were no serious attacks on these points from non-Christian religious groups in Hungary; it was mainly atheist intellectuals who attacked these religious elements.
Another frequent target of critics is the Easter constitution’s defense of what we may call the traditional family. The new constitution says that a marriage is solely a union of a man and a woman, and furthermore, that Hungary protects the family as the basis of the nation. This clause has been condemned by left-wing groups in Hungary and across Europe as being insufficiently broad for failing to include same-sex marriages.

For them, the other extremely problematic element in the new constitution has to do with the dignity of human life. By talking about the inviolability of human dignity and the protection of the fetus from the moment of conception, the Easter constitution doesn’t explicitly prohibit the right to abortion, as its critics assert. But it does open the gates for anti-abortion legislation to be introduced in parliament—or at least some limitations on government-funded abortion on demand.

The last controversial element in the constitution is the issue of nationhood. A foreign observer should know that Hungarian political life is rather historically conditioned. This means that despite the prevalence of familiar pragmatic or ideological issues in the country’s political debates—such as the role of the market and state, questions of human rights, and so forth—the main dividing lines are not those that are well-known in Western Europe. Rather, Hungarian political life is seen only in relation to religious tradition and in the context of an interpretation of Hungary’s past—mainly that of the 20th century.

The constitution, for example, proudly mentions Saint Stephen, the founder of the Hungarian state and the first King of Hungary (1000-1038). It also makes explicit reference to other great forebears of the country, and makes note of the intellectual and spiritual unity of the nation, which is the patrimony of every Hungarian citizen, and which was torn apart by the ideological movements and international conflicts of the 20th century. This language has been interpreted by critics of the constitution as a hidden and dangerous re-evaluation of the Trianon (1920) and Paris (1947) treaties, which defined the country’s borders and subtly chipped away at Hungarian unity.

Thus, because it is rooted in the country’s traditions and is critical of international treaties, the Easter constitution has been accused of being a threat to the European status quo. For critics, advancing this accusation is important so that the entire debate may be exported to international forums—and Hungary can be placed in the crosshairs of the international community.

The constitution condemns the crimes committed under both the National Socialist and Communist dictatorships, and it further specifies the date of Nazi occupation as the day on which the country lost its liberty. The first statement here makes it impossible to consider the Communist regime as any different from the Nazi one and clearly points to the interwoven political, economic, and intellectual frameworks that Hungary has been trying to shed during the post-Socialist period. Of course, linking the Socialists to the Nazis in this way is rather unpleasant for Europe’s socialist family, but doing so is not unprecedented, especially in light of the scholarly work of Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism .

Within the country there is a historical-political debate taking place about how to interpret the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1945. The right in Hungary calls it occupation, but the left sees it as liberation. In the eyes of the left, the period between of 1945 and 1948 was the “honeymoon of democracy” created by the Red Army.

According to the Hungarian left, there is a fine Socialist tradition in the country after 1945, while the pre-Socialist past is all rubbish. But the new constitution implicitly re-evaluates the country’s Socialist era in contrast to its pre-Socialist past—and finds the former wanting.

Finally, the very end of the constitution’s preamble speaks about the abiding need for spiritual and intellectual renewal in Hungary—something that members of the Vanenburg Society, an organization of traditionalist conservative intellectuals, have been discussing avidly in the context of Europe since 2006.

Arrow Cross Friday 22 Jun 2012

Couldn't these snakes at least read a history book before spreading their filth? Wikipedia? Anything? I wish Horthy were deporting Jews, instead of stalling and preventing the operations as long as he could.

Niccolo and Donkey Sunday 14 Oct 2012

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Nasty hit piece on Hungary from The Toronto Star in respect to gypsies

Bohdan Khmelnytsky Wednesday 17 Oct 2012

This is good for Canada, but bad for Hungary. But I don't know exactly how this will play out.

I myself am somewhat shocked at the presence of gypsies here. Not too long ago when I was living in Poland I encountered gypsies and observed them as if they were some mythical entity. My grandparents had warned me of gypsies and I have had a good dosage of gypsy jokes, and so they were quite quaint at first. That is until I was accosted by a pack of gypsies when I cut across through a park. I'm a large guy, but the fact that there were about 8 of them made things quite uneasy. I also witnessed the thievery, intimidation and begging schemes they set up. There was even a campaign in Poland to stop giving gypsies money called "money harms a child" to warn westerners to not give into these parasites. At the same time cygani is now becoming a bad word, like gypsy. They are to be called Roma.

They truly are a plague, and it is great that the Harper government has been able to control this threat by simply upholding our laws. Gypsy migrants claim refugee status or lie on their papers, when examined their lies are found and they are denied papers. Many just claim refugee status then disappear into Hamilton or Toronto, hiding from the non-threat that is the CBSA.

Yet by upholding the rule of law, we are being anti-gypsy. More than anything however, our neo-con government fears a downturn in economic relationships with europe. By accepting EU refugees we are essentilly calling the EU hateful. That is the main point of the neo-cons. But the talking point is upholding law, since that registers with the voters.

It's complete bullshit. I wish we truly were anti-gypsy. We aren't. We're just trying to maintain our laws for once.

But I wonder, would it be better that they leave the old country and infest this doomed dominion instead? The gypsyies would be a great way to show the failure of multiculturalism. Afterall, literally a millennium in Christendom barely had an effect on them. One polish far-right piece called them the "retarted children of europe" completely unable and unwilling to assimilate despite numerous benefits. If they come here Trudeau's multi-cultural world will hardly be a threat, they'd thrive here.

Or does it even matter in the end, since they multiple like rabbits despite the fact that it's been decades since there was a culling.

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 2 Feb 2013

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Hungarian Leader Adopts Policies of Far-Right

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Internationally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán likes to present himself as a champion of democracy. At home, though, he is implementing one policy after the other that is inspired by the right-wing extremist Jobbik party. Too often, Brussels downplays the problem.

The right-wing extremists in Hungary's Jobbik party like to advertise themselves as "honest, clean and genuine." The "juster" or "better" ones, as their party's name implies, place particular value on the authenticity of their party's political agenda. Still, they have a serious problem: Leading Jobbik politicians claim that members of the government coalition led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are constantly "stealing the issues and ideas" of the party and peddling them as their own.

There's a good reason why Hungary's right-wing extremists, who took 17 percent of the vote in 2010 elections, are frustrated. Orbán and his ruling majority have been veering further and further to the right. Indeed, hardly a week goes by these days in which politicians from Orbán's Fidesz (Alliance of Young Democrats) party or prominent party backers somehow publicly adopt a right-wing extremist stance.

"There are no longer any clear boundaries between the thinking of Fidesz and Jobbik," says György Dalos, a prominent writer and political biographer. And what he says about cultural policies also applies to many other policy areas of the Hungarian government. Indeed, Orbán and his ruling party are implementing a major part of Jobbik's right-wing extremist platform. While some policies are toned down, others are adopted unchanged. For example:

When Orbán's government entered into power in May 2010, it passed a law declaring June 4 a "Day of National Unity" of Hungarians all over the world in commemoration of the Treaty of Trianon. The 1920 peace agreement deprived Hungary, one of the losers of World War I, of two-thirds of its former territory.

Statues of communists regarded as traitors were pulled down and, with Fidesz politicians in attendance, statues of Miklós Horthy were erected. The far-right leader of Hungary between 1920 and 1944 had a hand in the World War II deaths of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews.

The Hungarian National Core Curriculum (NAT) recommends the works of anti-Semitic writers from the interwar period. The media law requires journalists working for public media organizations to promote a national identity in their reporting. And the preamble of the constitution in force since 2012 evokes the spirit of the Horthy regime.

In a measure geared mainly toward members of the Roma minority, the government has made it necessary for citizens to perform volunteer work and allow their living spaces to be inspected for orderliness in order to receive social-assistance payments.

The rights of paramilitary militias have been bolstered. And, in a concession to Roma-haters, a right to use arms for self-protection on one's own property has been introduced.

Citing patriotic pride, the government kicked officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) out of the country in the summer of 2010. It introduced a financially worthless but vote-winning "crisis tax" that foreign companies have to pay. Lastly, using populist and anti-capitalist slogans, the government announced a loan moratorium in 2011 that was de facto only tailored for Fidesz supporters. The measure allowed private debtors to pay back foreign-currency loans from banks abroad in full at a set interest rate. Economics Minister György Matolcsy spoke proudly of the government's "unorthodox" economic policy.

However, critics of Fidesz doubt that the party -- and Viktor Orbán, in particular -- is serious about wanting to distance itself from right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism and antiziganism, a term denoting racism toward the Sinti and Roma. Kristián Ungváry, a historian who has just published a 700-page book on the interwar years of the right-wing extremist Horthy regime, describes the party's policies as a "sham."

"The party speaks with two tongues," Ungváry says. "On the one hand, one distances oneself from right-wing extremism in order to maintain a good reputation abroad and because one notes that the political damage would be too severe. On the other hand, Fidesz pays tribute to anti-Semitic writers of the interwar period … or expresses right-wing extremist positions in regime-friendly newspapers because it wants to attract voters on the right."

Attila Nagy, a political scientist at Budapest's Méltanyosság Institute, also believes that the Fidesz won't turn away from more extremist stances. He admits that there is genuine outrage about right-wing extremism in some party of the party, but he adds that "this part, which backs a clearer pro-European course, is currently not a decisive one within the party."

Niccolo and Donkey Saturday 2 Feb 2013

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Orban has been playing this strategy brilliantly; use Jobbik to allow Fidesz the room to move rightwards as he can always point at Jobbik and say "hey, those guys are the extremists!". This allows him to offset foreign pressure akin to how Tudjman used the HSP to alleviate pressure on the HDZ.

Stubby Sunday 3 Feb 2013

I'd love to see things like the Castle laws attacked in the US as a concession to anti-black racists.

Arrow Cross Saturday 9 Feb 2013

This article is just leftist scaremongering. For some reason, they hate this shallow right-liberal government so much, they'll stop at nothing to try and "blacken" its name. In reality, the stolen, Jobbik-inspired policies it lists are nothing more than token gestures that won't get Fidesz in trouble, but will also keep some of the delusional, patriotic middle-class vote that'd long have been swayed by the "extremists" otherwise. Most Fidesz voters are Jobbik voters - they just don't know it yet.

If the government truly had a secret agenda of genuine national interest at heart while it regrettably "has" to lay down before Israel, America and Brussels at every single turn, it would still be able to crack down on the nationwide crime and terror Gypsies cause and other countries handle much more firmly. But again, they need their votes, too, so these political whores must appease them. They don't need the "votes" of Serbia, Romania and "Slovakia" though, yet, every time there's a national conflict, they end up submitting and running with tails between their legs when their precious, omega-style "dialogue" refuses to work yet another, predictable time.

Just recently, this servile government has erected a statue in honour of a XIXth Century Romanian nationalist with the hatred of Hungarians usual in that era. In "return", the Vlachs blocked a public Szekler flag in Transylvania with a giant Romanian tricolour, demanding that Hungary does not interfere with their "internal affairs". Justly served.

CLAMOR Tuesday 16 Apr 2013

Hongrie: quand l'Etat tranfère les écoles à l'Eglise

Sous couvert de bonne gestion, le Premier ministre ultraconservateur favorise le transfert des établissements scolaires aux institutions religieuses. Ce qui lui permet de remettre au goût du jour une morale traditionaliste.

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/mo...t-tranfere-les-ecoles-a-l-eglise_1186745.html

Hungary Hands Over Public Schools to Religious Institutions

The Hungarian government is transferring public schools to religious institutions, reported the French magazine L’Express .

This policy has infuriated socialist leaders within and outside Hungary and even in European countries where public education has had calamitous results. The angry complaints center on the fact that traditional morals are being restored with the help of Hungarian government policy.

Schools have brought back the singing of religious hymns as well as beginning the classes with prayer. And students’ parents get to choose the catechism to be taught to their children.

Churches retain their school subsidies regardless of the number of students. In the small town of Alsoörs, which L’Express presents as a typical case, out of a total of ninety-six families only two voted against transferring the school to the Church, underscoring the strong popular support this measure has.

http://www.tfp.org/tfp-home/news-co...public-schools-to-religious-institutions.html

Niccolo and Donkey Tuesday 16 Apr 2013

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The Guardian takes a few shots:

Hungary is on a fast track to the past

Of course these "lies" have been around only since Fidesz came to power in 2010. The party's landslide victory handed the new prime minister, Orbán, an opportunity to change the constitution. So what's the problem?

The EU identified three main ones: the new media law, the earlier obligatory retirement age for judges and the independence of the central bank. It exerted pressure on Hungary and little by little these points were addressed – but the most recent amendments weakening the constitutional court have taken everything back to square one. The minister for economic affairs is now the head of the central bank.

A catalogue of other changes worry Hungary-watchers, and Hungarians themselves. Most importantly, committees have been filled with government supporters and their terms lengthened to well beyond the life of parliament. Then there is the ousting of prominent theatre directors ; the scaling-back of the film industry; the smearing and demonising of internationally known figures such as philosopher Agnes Heller and Nobel-prize-winning author Imre Kertész ; the financial starvation of magazines and radio stations; the purging of dissenting voices in the media ; the sacking of headteachers – and a great deal more. Women have been told to go back to the kitchen and have children. The party and its properly "Hungarian" values must take precedence.

This sits alongside a tolerance of savage anti-Jewish and anti-Roma rhetoric, including from journalist Zsolt Bayer , a founder of Fidesz and a good friend of the prime minister. In the last few weeks the government has handed out three major public awards to far right cultural figures. After some international embarrassment they withdrew one of them. And now there are laws that render rough sleepers liable to prosecution.

Like all governments, this one claims that it is simply sorting out problems created by its predecessors. But why, if this is so, has there been such a rise in the emigration of young, qualified people , particularly since 2010? There are about 500,000 of them working abroad by some accounts, maybe 100,000 in the UK. Fidesz is having to enact new legislation to deal with it.

The past year has seen changes to the school syllabus to include prewar fascist writers, and the building of statues to Admiral Horthy , the inter-war leader who allied Hungary with Nazi Germany. Fidesz's notion of national values – so easily "betrayed" by those who do not share their political sympathies – trumps everything. Opposition exists, but the cultural and political ground is being cleared of such voices. The government is on a fast track back to the 1930s.

Hungary's 'Orbanization' Is Worrying Europe

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