The reception of Viktor Orbán’s speech in the West and in Romania

The world is in such a turmoil that although Viktor Orbán’s open admission of his goal to eliminate the “liberal” component of western-type democracy might be considered a watershed both domestically and in Hungary’s relation with the European Union, it is receiving scant attention. After all, the armed conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are serious current problems, while Viktor Orbán’s threat to Hungarian democracy and to the European Union would have  negative implications only in the future.

In English I managed to find only a couple of news items about Orbán’s speech. The Associated Press published a short summary which was then picked up by ABC. Zoltán Simon’s reporting from Budapest for Bloomberg was more detailed and to the point: “Orbán Says He Seeks to End Liberal Democracy in Hungary.”  This article must have had a large readership judging from the number of comments.

Vox.com quotes an important passage from the speech: “I don’t think that our European Union membership precludes us from building an illiberal new state based on national foundations.” Actually, I trust that this will be a sticking point soon enough. The author of the article also takes issue with Orbán’s contention that illiberal states are economic success stories; they are in fact doing a great deal worse than liberal states. Russia, Turkey, and China are all poorer than Croatia, Poland, or Hungary for that matter.

The German and Austrian papers that are usually full of news about Hungarian politics are silent. Perhaps everybody is on vacation. I found only one German article and even this one only through a Hungarian source. It appeared in the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung. The title of the piece is “Enough!,” a reference to the question of how long the European Union will tolerate Viktor Orbán’s anti-democratic policies that have already transformed Hungary into a non-democratic state. “One must urgently pose the question whether Hungary led by Viktor Orbán wants to remain part of the European Union or not.” And while he was at it, the journalist suggested that the European People’s Party should expel Hungary from its delegation.

On the other hand, interest in Orbán’s speech was great in Romania. After all, it was delivered there and its implications can already be felt. Romanian-Hungarian relations are at an all-time low.

Before I turn to the Romanian press I would like to talk about Viktor Orbán’s contradictory messages and how they affect the Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries. Let’s start with Romania. The Hungarian minority in Romania is large: 1.2 million people or 6.4% of the population. Yet, according to the Romanian constitution, Romania is a “nation-state.” The Hungarian minority would like to have Romania be officially transformed into a multi-national state.

Orbán should know full well that the highly charged nationalism he is advocating is not in the interest of the Hungarians in the neighboring countries. Nationalism on one side of the border evokes nationalism on the other side. This is exactly what happened in Romania. Bogdan Diaconu, a nationalist politician and member of parliament, published an article in Adevarul, a leading Romanian newspaper, which was subsequently translated into Hungarian. The nationalistic hate speech of Diaconu there was countered with obscene, equally hateful comments by Hungarians.

Surely, Orbán’s nationalism does not make the life of the Hungarian minority any easier in the neighboring countries. Just the opposite. Great suspicion follows every word Orbán utters in connection with his plans for the “nation.” And that is not all. Orbán’s attack on Hungarian NGOs that receive foreign money was also a double-edged sword. He argued that this money is being used to influence the Hungarian government, which cannot be tolerated. But the Hungarian government is financing Hungarian NGOs and parties in Romania and Slovakia. Thus, the Hungarian government is trying to influence the Slovak and Romanian governments on behalf of the Hungarian minority. What will happen if Romania or Slovakia follows Orbán’s example and refuses the receipt of any money from Budapest destined for the Hungarian NGOs? In fact, one of the Romanian articles that appeared in Romania Libera talked about the incongruity of Orbán’s stance on the issue. According to the journalist, if Orbán tries to silence the NGOs financed from abroad, “the bad example” might be imitated in other Eastern European countries where democracies are not yet sufficiently stable. We know which countries he has in mind.

In any case, although for the time being it is unlikely that either the Slovak or the Romanian government will try to imitate Viktor Orbán, Romanian commentators are worried that Hungarian bellicosity will have an adverse effect on the stability of the region. Romanian papers talk about an “illiberal” state’s possible revisionist tendencies which could upset the stability of the region given the presence of Hungarian minorities in Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, and Serbia.

All in all, Orbán with this speech declared war on several fronts. Against his own people, against the European Union, against Hungarian civil society, and last but not least by his overcharged nationalist rhetoric against the amity of nations in Eastern Europe.

——

I would like to call everyone’s attention to Hungarian Free Press, a new English-language news portal from Canada. Here are some introductory words from the editor-in-chief:

The Hungarian Free Press, an online newspaper published by Presszo Media Inc., a Canadian federally-registered company based in Ottawa, was launched this morning. The HFP aims to offer informed opinion on current events in Hungary and East/Central Europe, and to expose to a broader English-speaking audience the explicit move away from liberal parliamentary democracy, which now appears to be the overt policy direction of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government.

While pro-government English-language publications, such as the newly launched Hungary Today site, as well as Mandiner’s English-language blog, The Hungarian Globe, aim to create the impression that Mr. Orbán’s government is really no different than any other right-centre or conservative administration and is simply “attacked” by the left for the same ideological reasons, this is not an accurate reflection of the situation. A good case-in-point is Hungary Today’s coverage of Mr. Orbán’s Tusnádfürdő (Băile Tușnad) speech, where the prime minister formally declared that the days of Hungarian liberal democracy were over and that his preferred authoritarian political model was similar to that found in countries like China, Russia and Singapore. Hungary Today, in its coverage, made it appear that Mr. Orbán, like most right-centre politicians, was merely challenging the welfare state and was attacked for this reason by the left-centre opposition, thus making the speech and the reactions that followed seem like “business as usual” in the world of parliamentary politics.

In 1961, American President John F. Kennedy was among the most articulate in expressing the media’s role in the long-term survival of multiparty democracy. Kennedy, addressing the American Newspaper Publishers Association on April 27th, 1961 noted:

“Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”

The HFP joins a very small handful of English publications in exposing the danger that Mr. Orbán and his avowedly illiberal, anti-democratic and openly authoritarian government represent in the heart of Europe.

Randolph L. Braham: The Reinterment and Political Rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy

It was twenty years ago, on September 3, 1993, that Miklós Horthy, regent of Hungary between 1920 and 1944, was reburied in Kenderes, the Horthy family’s ancestral home. The reinterment was controversial, mostly because half of the cabinet of Prime Minister József Antall attended the ceremony as “private persons.” 

Since then there have been sporadic efforts to rewrite the history of the Horthy era. In the last three years the Hungarian government has upped the ante, quietly but steadily encouraging a full rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy despite official denials of any such attempt. About a year ago in Washington Foreign Minister János Martonyi categorically denied any attempt at a rehabilitation of either Horthy or his regime. But the rehabilitation continues. For example, the twentieth anniversary of the reburial was remembered in Kenderes a couple of weeks ago. On that occasion Sándor Lezsák, deputy speaker of the Hungarian parliament, gave a laudatory speech about the former governor. According to him, “The [1993] reburial was a historical atonement, but we cannot be satisfied with that. Even after twenty years, the results of the hypnotizing effects of the poisonous lies of the socialist-communist four decades are still with us.” In his speech Lezsák accused “the historical criminals” who are back and who tried to remove important documents from the archives in an attempt to falsify history. He suggested setting up a research institute for the study of Miklós Horthy and his family. The institute would be a central depository of all documents relating to the Horthys.

Below is a short article by Randolph L. Braham, the renowned historian of the Hungarian Holocaust, entitled “The Reinterment and Political Rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy.” It appeared in Slavic Almanach, vol. 2, edited by Henrietta Mondry and Paul Schweiger (Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 1993), pp. 137-40. Professor Braham predicted twenty years ago that the full rehabilitation of Miklós Horthy would occur not too far in the future. I thank Professor Braham for allowing Hungarian Spectrum to republish this article.

* * *

The remains of Miklós Horthy, the former Regent of Hungary (1920-1944), were brought back from Portugal and reinterred in his hometown of Kenderes on 4 September 1993, together with those of his wife and youngest son.* Hungarian nationalists all over the world will undoubtedly hail the former head of state as a patriot who successfully championed the twin causes of anti-communism and revisionism. They will recall that during his rule, the country evolved along a nationalist-Christian line and made great strides towards the reestablishment of Greater Hungary by reacquiring some of the territories that were lost under the peace treaties of Trianon (1920). But was he really a patriot?

Horthy was a representative of the conservative-aristocratic elite that perpetuated an anachronistic semi-feudal class system. His domestic policies aimed at preserving the privileges of the landowning aristocracy and stifling the aspirations of the peasantry. In foreign affairs, his primary objective was to bring about “the revision of the punitive peace treaties”–a policy that led to Hungary’s adherence to the Axis and the establishment of an authoritarian proto-fascist regime. Horthy’ s Hungary embraced Hitler’s revisionist ambitions and was the first among the Nazi satellite states to sign the Tripartite Pact (20 November 1941). Having joined the Axis aggression first against Yugoslavia (11 April 1941),and then against the Soviet Union (27 June 1941), Hungary soon found itself at war with the Western democracies as well. After the crushing defeat of the Hungarian and German armies at Voronezh and Stalingrad early in 1943, the Horthy regime aimed to bring about the gradual extrication of Hungary from the Axis Alliance. But the pursuit of unattainable goals–the retention of the reacquired territories, the avoidance of a Soviet occupation, and the possible preservation of the “traditional system”–led to disaster: Hungary was first occupied by the Germans (19 March 1944) and then by the Red Army. Horthy himself was ousted on 15-16 October, in a coup engineered by the Hungarian Nazi radicals acting in conjunction with the Germans. Under the new “Hungarist” regime, Hungary became the only Nazi satellite to fight to the very end and, consequently, once again emerged as a major loser after World War II.

Disastrous as Horthy’ s domestic and foreign policies may have been for the country at large, they proved catastrophic for Hungarian Jewry. They contributed to, if not actually determined, the virtual destruction of the loyal and highly patriotic Jewish community that contributed disproportionately to the modernization of the country. It was during Horthy’ s tenure that the once flourishing Jewish community was subjected to increasingly severe discriminatory measures that led to its decline and eventual destruction. Like the other members of the aristocratic-conservative elite, Horthy was a “civilized” anti-Semite, who was particularly scornful of the “Eastern,” unassimilated Jews. Shortly after he was named commander-in-chief of the counter-revolutionary national forces in 1919, several units of the army engaged in pogroms that claimed thousands of Jewish lives. Almost immediately after his inauguration as Regent, Hungary adopted the first anti-Jewish law in post-World War I Europe (22 September 1920). This was followed by increasingly harsh laws in the late 1930s. In the summer of 1941, from 16,000 to 18,000 so-called “alien” Jews were deported to near Kamenets-Podolsk, where most of them were slaughtered by the Nazis. Early in 1942, close to one thousand Jews were murdered in the Bácska area by Hungarian gendarmerie and military units. Tens of thousands of Jews later died while serving in forced labour companies.

While it is true that in contrast to those in Nazi-ruled Europe, the Jews of Hungary were relatively well off, the ever harsher anti-Jewish measures of the late 1930s prepared the ground for the acceptance and successful implementation of the Final Solution programme after the German occupation. During his Schloss Klessheim meeting with Hitler on 18-19 March 1944, Horthy gave his consent to the delivery of several hundred thousand “Jewish workers” to Germany. The German and Hungarian experts on the Final Solution took full advantage of this agreement to carry out their ideologically defined racial objectives. After the inauguration of the Horthy-appointed government of Döme Sztójay, the Jewish community of Hungary was subjected to the most ruthless and concentrated destruction process of the war. With the instruments of state power at their disposal, the Nazis and their Hungarian accomplices succeeded in “solving” the Jewish question at lightning speed. The isolation, expropriation, ghettoization, concentration and deportation of the Jews–anti-Jewish measures that took years to carry out in Poland–were implemented in less than four months. On 7 July, Horthy halted the deportations (they in fact continued until 9 July), but by then all of Hungary, with the notable exception of Budapest, was already Judenrein. The Holocaust in Hungary claimed close to 600,000 victims.

Horthy’ s admirers will, no doubt, remember primarily his halting of the deportation in connection with the Hungarian Holocaust. But even at that late hour, Horthy apparently did not act on his own initiative. He was subjected to great political and moral pressure by Pope Pius XII, King Gustav of Sweden, and other Western leaders who were informed of the grisly details of the Holocaust in Hungary. Influential as these pressures may have been, perhaps the determining factor that induced Horthy to act was the rapidly deteriorating military situation. The Red Army was fast approaching Hungary, and the Western Allies were already fanning out in France after their successful landing in Normandy. While the Jews of Budapest may have been saved by Horthy–a credit also claimed by the Raoul Wallenberg myth-makers and even by the German and Hungarian Nazis–the Jews of the Hungarian countryside, including those of the territories acquired from Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia, were liquidated during Horthy’ s tenure. And this took place on the eve of Allied victory, when the secrets of Auschwitz were already widely known.

Hungary’s disasters notwithstanding, contemporary chauvinists will continue to remember-and admire Horthy’ s blend of conservative anti-communism and militant nationalism. The reinterment of his remains is likely to emerge as the first step towards his full rehabilitation as a “patriot” who tried to advance Hungary’s best interests as he perceived them to be. In a series of interviews, Prime Minister József Antall identified Horthy as a “Hungarian patriot” who should be placed into the community of the nation and the awareness of the people.” The national mint issued a commemorative medal with Horthy’ s likeness. The reburial ceremony was attended by tens of thousands of Hungarians, many of whom were presumably longing for the return to the “good old days” of the Horthy era. Among those attending as “private citizens” were four leading members of the government, including the Minister of Justice, István Balsai, and the Minister of the Interior, Péter Boross.

Judging by the events surrounding the reinterment of Horthy’s remains, rehabilitation will probably be all but complete in the not-too-distant future. It is the task of objective historians concerned for Hungary’s soul and democratic future to keep the record straight.

——

*Miklós Horthy died in Estoril on 9 February 1957, at age 88. His son, Miklós Jr., died on 28 March 1993, at age 86. They were buried together with Mrs. Horthy, who died in 1959, in the English Cemetery in Lisbon.

Coming to an understanding with Viktor Orbán and his followers?

Yesterday’s post didn’t excite too many people. But how can one compete with Trianon? Who cares about the LIBE Commission’s report and the 500 some proposed “amendments,” mostly from Fidesz MPs and their Hungarian friends from Slovakia and Romania? On top of it all some people didn’t even get the details although I gave a link to the amendments that are available on the Internet.

But isn’t it the case that these amendments are a hundred times more relevant to the fate of the Hungarian people than absolutely useless discussions of a treaty, however just or unjust it was, that cannot be altered? Revisionism was the cornerstone of Hungary’s interwar foreign policy and some people were convinced, as was John F. Montgomery, U.S. ambassador in Budapest in the 1930s, that “the Hungarian people were not quite sane on that subject.” Well, it seems that some Hungarians are returning to the very same insanity that led Hungary nowhere except to another lost war, the loss of millions of its people, and a series of absolutely tragic events. But there are always people who are incapable of learning from past mistakes. Just like the Bourbons.

So, discussing Trianon endlessly and crying over Hungary’s misfortunes are dead ends. The Venice Commission’s opinion and the LIBE Commission recommendations, on the other hand, are of the utmost importance. The outcome of the investigations of the Hungarian government’s reshaping of Hungarian democracy into an authoritarian or even worse regime affects the very future of Hungarian democracy.

Let’s talk a little bit about the fate of Hungarian democracy. Some people are convinced that true democracy no longer exists in Hungary due to Viktor Orbán’s “renewal” of the country. I know that a lot of the readers of Hungarian Spectrum are certain that Viktor Orbán and his ilk will be running Hungary for the next twenty years. They are certain that Fidesz is unbeatable because the party communicates better, because all the state institutions are in party hands, and because the new electoral system is designed to keep them in power. By contrast, the opposition is fractured and lacks a charismatic leader. So why bother to do anything?

This defeatist attitude may be misplaced, especially since almost half of the electorate at the moment either doesn’t know or doesn’t divulge its political preferences. The various social groups that have been injured in one way or the other by the “renewal” measures of the Orbán government are numerous: civil servants, teachers, doctors, judges, university professors, artists, writers, and people receiving the minimum wage. One could go on and on. At the moment all these people are shaking in their boots, fearing for their jobs. They are afraid to go out to demonstrate. Surely, hidden cameras will reveal their identity. Fear has returned to the country.

But there might be a tipping point when all the grievances converge and serious opposition to the government breaks out. Who could have said on October 21, 1956 that in two days there would be an open rebellion against the Rákosi regime in Budapest? Or two weeks ago who would have thought that there would be street fights between young Turks and the police? Most likely nothing that drastic will happen in Hungary, but the possibility of a broad common front cannot be ruled out. Therefore, the opposition must be ready for such an occurrence. Moreover, the democratic parties have to come to some kind of an agreement concerning their attitudes toward “the accomplishments” of the Orbán government. Of course, I’m using the word “accomplishments” ironically.

What I mean is: can there be some kind of compromise between Fidesz and its democratic opposition? Because if not, says one school of thought on the subject, the present political division will only be perpetuated. Others are convinced that there is no way any kind of compromise is possible: Orbán’s autocratic rule cannot be “balanced” by those who believe in liberal democracy. Oil and water don’t mix.

Let me go back a bit to history and linguistics. I use the word “compromise” for “kiegyezés.” Indeed, when we talk about the historical “kiegyezés” of 1867 between Austria and Hungary in English we use the word “compromise.” The Compromise of 1867. However, the German word for the same event is “Ausgleich,” which means not so much compromise as “settlement.” Austria and Hungary settled their differences. So, according to a number of politicians, including Gordon Bajnai, the opposition must sit down with the politicians of Fidesz and settle their differences.

A settlement in the offing? 

Bajnai, in an interview with Die Zeit, envisages an electoral outcome in 2014 in which the united opposition achieves a modest victory which “would be an opportunity for a kind of national agreement for fair negotiations.” He wants “to cross party lines to reach a consensus” and has no intention of turning everything back to the pre-Orbán period. After watching Viktor Orbán up close and personal ever since 1998, I would like to see just one occasion when he was ready to come to a “national agreement.” We all remember when in 2002 Péter Medgyessy, then apparently on the advice of Ferenc Gyurcsány, tried to extend a hand to Viktor Orbán. He called this approach “filling the trenches” or “burying the hatchet” in English. He got nowhere. He was only rebuffed.

The latest attempt at “appeasement” (at least this is what I call it) on the part of Gordon Bajnai is asking for forgiveness for the referendum of 2004 when the Fidesz-supported idea of giving citizenship to Hungarian nationals living in the neighboring countries was rejected with the active support of the government parties. Since then the Orbán government’s super-majority voted for citizenship, which includes voting rights. Bajnai feels that this right cannot be revoked. Thus, the citizens of Hungary must live with perhaps a million extra votes of people who have no real stake in the outcome of the election and don’t have to bear its consequences. That is a very large number when only about four million people vote at national elections.

Bajnai, in the hope of extra votes from the other side, is giving in on many other issues as well. For example, he made special mention of the Day of Unity (in other words, the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Trianon) where he talked about three-fourths of the territories and two-thirds of its population Hungary lost. Of course, these numbers are correct, but failing to point out that the majority of this two-thirds were not Hungarians was a mistake. Talking about Trianon as a “tragedy” is again only adding oil to fire. He is hoping to come to an understanding on “the trauma of the Soviet occupation” and “the trauma of the Holocaust.” No wonder that the headline in HVG declared: “Bajnai compared Trianon to the Holocaust.” I don’t think that the loss of territories and the loss of lives can cause the same trauma. The last sentence of Bajnai’s communiqué stated that “we will have to close the period that meant the silence and abuse of Trianon.” That to me means that he promises the Hungarian nationalists that Trianon will remain a topic of debate. Keeping Trianon alive will also stoke the self-pity that is so injurious to the Hungarian psyche and that should be discouraged.

But that’s not all. Gordon Bajnai said the following about anti-Semitism and the Orbán government in Berlin the other day. “There are many problems with the government but one cannot claim that it has anything to do with antisemitism and racism.” One doesn’t have to go that far in seeking “national consensus” or “settlement” with Viktor Orbán and his followers. After all, Orbán’s attitude towards both is far from unequivocal.

That is the Bajnai approach, which in my opinion is utterly mistaken. Devoted Orbán followers will not vote for the democratic opposition because Bajnai supports the voting rights of Hungarians in the neighboring countries. It is also unlikely that a devoted supporter of Fidesz will be terribly impressed with  all that mea culpa on the issue of Trianon. But the voters of the democratic opposition may lose trust in him.

In the next few days I will outline some other ideas about what the opposition should do concerning the Orbán government and its supporters.