A Chronic Crisis in the Context of Confusion
by George de Poor Handlery | View comments |
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Hungary’s problem is not just that it has a Prime Minister such as Gyurcsány. It is the reaction to him that suggests an ailment.
As elaborated earlier, the combination “small country, big news” seldom materializes. Some explanations are "good ones." Size and significance correlate. If size equals “quality” then, indeed, the heavyweights’ power makes them newsworthy. More: the Sumo wrestlers’ language makes them as accessible as do their means of communication provide a link to the klieg lights. Still, the small countries no one knows more about than you care, can determine the globe’s destiny. A Bosnian teen started The Great War. Israel is a small state. The USSR’s collapse is linked to dwarves such as Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.
These excuses prepared you for a further installment of serial “Hungarian scandals.” Some might assume that the writer’s roots make him happy to dissect the subject. Actually, the matter is one the author would avoid if his skills would not imply a duty to speak up. Why not remain silent? Answer: I did not join this publication to knowingly tell lies, spread manicured “factlets” or to keep connivingly quiet.
A few weeks ago a vulgar “secret” speech by Hungary’s Socialist PM, F. Gyurcsány (it is “great to lead a country” the more so if you cannot do anything else) became public. Its gist: “we have lied morning, noon and night. But we kept the secret of how we f****d up and what we will do once elected.”) On October 1st the Socialists lost the local elections and govern only 2 out of 19 provinces. Their left-liberal partner almost disappeared. Concurrently the opposition (Young Democrats) began a protest action in Parliament Square which is to last until the 23rd of October, the 50th anniversary of the ‘56 Revolution against Communism. The innocents might want to know who the reigning Socialists are. They are the Party-appointed managers of the factories they took over as capitalists, the owners of latifundia they once bossed as Sovhoz managers, and the children of prominent executioners — that is the case of the PM — of Panzer-Communism.
After the slap of the local elections the PM would have resigned had Hungary been a normal country. Proving Central Europe’s and Hungary’s uniqueness, the Socialists stayed and took the offensive. Gyurcsány asserted (October 6th) that he had not falsified facts. He owed apologies. But not for lying — only for having used delaying tactics. The crisis made a strong government — led by him – indispensable to surmount the dung heap. Therefore, he was to be given confidence. Leftist pundits took the pass. The PM’s lie is depicted as an act of statesmanship: had he not told the truth regarding his deceptions? Indeed, his party and the Left-Liberals gave him a majority in a no-confidence vote. Concurrently, on the 7th another secret exploded. Ms. Lampert, the Minister for Local Government, told the party: “trust me.” In the local development bureaus, unlike in the newly elected executives, the Socialist appointees stay in control. So we will be able “to nix the expectation of the YDs as we will distribute the money” and therefore “you may cheer.” Revealingly but not surprisingly, the PM assured the country of what he did not intend to do, on the 8th, that he will cooperate with local governments irrespective of their party affiliation. After this tale it is no surprise that the news of October 10th revealed that, under EU pressure, the deficit was reduced to 6.1%. Only bad sports mentioned that the “success” came about by booking 75 years of revenue from the sale/lease of the Budapest Airport as an inflow.
The moral basis of the PM has disappeared. Hungary’s existing “democracy” excludes its (demonstrating) citizens. Writing on October 9th, Mr. Géza Jeszenszky, (an ex-Secretary of State, UC professor and an esteemed acquaintance) concluded that the Socialists have lost the nation’s confidence. Even if a majority is found in parliament, Gyurcsány needs to resign on moral grounds. Under only slightly similar conditions others, such as Chamberlain and de Gaulle, have done so. Gyurcsány might weather the storm. Predictably, the vote went his way. How this can be is what gives this case its significance.
On October 10th the country was told not to let politics be decided “by the street.” Quite an oddity for Marxists with slogans about the “masses!” Significantly, not reflecting reason but the contorted consciousness of the Magyars, the mantra works. 36% regard the “speech” as “acceptable” and only 60% disagree. 48% do not think that the PM must resign while 46% think that he should go. Indicative of the moral decay at the roots that sends signals to the stem, is a minor item of October 13th. A townlet inaugurated a Burgermeister who won by 15 votes. The winner admitted to have given money to Gypsies to buy their consent as “this vote has to be won even if it takes illegal means.”
Meanwhile the Socialists’ counter-offensive is active. Reports of October 14th allege that the demonstrations demanding the PM’s resignation are related to the reappearance of the native Nazis (Arrow Cross) who took power from old-fashioned Horthy on October 15th, 1944. Concurrently the West is inclined to accept the image that the Left — in control of Hungary’s media — spreads through locally rootless foreign correspondents. Here the writer must inject his judgment of the YD’s. They are hardly the exact reverse of the Socialists. To regard the foe of an evil-doer as clean is as much a mistake today as it was when, after their initial alliance, the Nazis and the Communists fought each other. Hitler’s evils hardly amounted to the once assumed virtues of Stalin. The YD’s visceral anti-American and anti-Israeli position questions their common sense.
This writer used to take pride in some collective actions and leading persons from the sciences, literature, art and finance that Magyars have “committed.” As things stand, this inclination to “feel good by what others have accomplished” is diminished. Hungary’s problem (and many other comparable cases could be mentioned here) is not that it has a PM such as Gyurcsány. It is the reaction to him that suggests an ailment. By itself, the re-election of the PM is demeaning. The more so since he had told the truth when he pretended that “everybody could know” that the country is bankrupt. Even more than the inclination to be bribed — by too little at that — for its vote, the shame is the public reaction to the disclosure of how “we have f*****d up, not a little but a lot, in this “f*****g country.” The “rats,” in the analogy of a comrade of the PM, have reacted inappropriately — at least by normal standards. Here the demonstrations are meant. The daily demos have brought the morally troubled in the tens of thousands and not by the hundreds of thousands on the street. Even more disturbing is that it was the Right that marched. In a country with an intact backbone the voters of the governors would have protested. An equally bad sign: the debacle did not provoke a revolsion within the Socialist party. So far only one “deserting” deputy has raised his head — only to be expelled.
The question — it applies to others in the region too – seeks an explanation for the collectively produced “lows” and especially what the inadequate rejection of turpitude might be caused by. Responding is so painful that the writer once spiked this piece claiming, “I cannot write this.” Now, being about to travel to Budapest to attend the 50th anniversary of the Revolution of 1956, the intellect and the moral mechanism driving it is triggered. Here is the upshot.
In the case of Hungary we have a country that was repeatedly decapitated in its recent history. The Horthy-system (1920-1944) pressured the center-left. The Arrow-Cross (native Nazis) erased the Jews (also the entrepreneurial middle class, intellectuals and scientists). The Communists liquidated by 1953 the enterprising peasants, the managerial class, the intellectuals, burghers with political experience and a sense for “decency.” The revolution of '56 represents a surge of morality expressing a functioning society’s will. When Soviet might felled an uppity nation, Moscow did more than to just crush inadequately armed Partisans. The fallen, the incarcerated, the executed, especially the 200,000 who fled, represented the educated, the educable, the skilled and the flexible talents. Yet, plenty of capable people were left behind. However, in time, their perspective was distorted, their backbone broken by the conclusion that Communist rule is forever. Thus personal survival was to be assured by individual strategies involving cooperation with those who held the whip. If this is a fitting rendition then the change of ‘89 came to a confused society, deprived of its natural leaders, a generation too late to be of full use.
How Hungary will weather her crisis is incalculable. So is the development of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. The successor states of Yugoslavia, (and also of Romania and Bulgaria) are an even dimmer matter. To right the past’s wrongs will require a lot of principled guidance. Whatever will be done for such societies, giving money without strings attached (no typo here!) might make the donor feel good while making the recipients' mismanagement profitable, therefore a chronic condition. Brutal it may be, but “money” for “suffering” perpetuates deprivation. Donations for ineptitude’s consequences make mismanagement profitable since whatever proves to be profitable propagates itself. Therefore, only the hard-nosed can help. Effective succor, not extended to make the donor feel good but to aid the needy, takes little money while requiring a lot of transfer of elementary know-how. “Rich societies” need to learn that (conveniently) throwing (surplus) money at problems might tickle pink the donor: it will help the receiver only marginally. A PC-unclouded view of the record of foreign aid (such as in Africa) confirms the allegation.
handlery@sunrise.ch
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