Book review|Viktor Orbán’s regime is already so strong that it may be difficult to fix it. The work has been done with EU money.
Nonfiction book
Katalin Miklóssy: Decay of democracy – Hungary on the road to the future? Oak. 239 pp.
Desolatebut alert. That’s how I feel after reading Professor Katalin Miklóssyn Decay of democracy – Hungary on the road to the future?
Viktor Orbán in the twenty-year reign of the Fidesz party led by him, Hungary’s democracy has been hollowed out.
Public cultural institutions and schools have been made to adapt to Fidesz’s values and interpretation of history. Almost the entire media is subjected to praising Orbán, vilifying opponents and spreading conspiracy theories. The top of the judiciary is occupied by Fidesz sympathizers, cold-blooded local judges are pressured and fired.
According to Miklóssy, the most important thing is this: Fidesz is striving for a new era that will last for decades. The all-consuming system is based on a harmonized culture and world of values. The values are conservative and intolerant, centered on home, religion and country.
Hungarian expert, researcher Katalin Miklossy.
The system guided by strict politics and brazen trickery. When it looked like something might threaten Fidesz’s power, the party changed the constitution. For example, the electoral system is rigged to support the ruling party.
If pro-democracy forces still managed to oust Fidesz from power, restoring a functioning democracy would not be easy.
Miklóssy explains: The Hungarian machinery is already occupied by Fidesz. At the very least, it would be difficult to replace pro-Fidesz journalists and judges without breaking the rules of democracy again.
And how would the country’s new leadership be able to wrest power from the oligarchs raised by Fidesz? Companies of both Hungarian and foreign owners have been rudely steered into their hands.
Miklóssy, head of the discipline of Eastern European studies at the University of Helsinki, has studied Hungary for a long time. A deep view is conveyed with concise explanations in 200 pages. Those who know their stuff don’t need to brag.
I only missed a deeper analysis of the role of foreign companies, especially German car manufacturers, in Hungary.
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The transformation of the media into the government’s mouthpiece helped.
Book manages to describe Hungarian everyday life through examples. In Orbán’s state, the company can only pay overtime after three years. Public hospitals are dirty disease centers where you have to bring your own towels and nightgowns. Private pension funds have been absorbed to cover government expenditures.
How do Hungarians agree to all this?
Miklóssy tells how the nation has been “boiled like a frog”, i.e. changes have been made little by little. They were not taken seriously enough at first. The transformation of the media into the government’s mouthpiece helped.
Other reasons can be gleaned from the book: Hungary has a history of centralized, strong power. The countryside is conservative. Fidesz rewards regions and people who support it and punishes those who oppose it. Other politicians do not convince, because they too had their own sins when they were in power.
In the book, the finger of blame is pointed at the slow-moving EU, which with a light wink allowed Hungary to develop its illiberal, hybrid system of democracy and authoritarianism for years. By the time the EU got tougher, Fidesz had already cemented its system into the structures of the state and economy.
At the same time, Orbán used EU money to pay off his supporters. So the EU has financed the erosion of Hungary’s democracy.
Right now, Hungary is the chairman of the EU. It is telling that Orbán went to work first and, to the embarrassment of the rest of the EU, visited Russia and China. Trumpites also admire modern Hungary.
Miklóssy breaks it down possible futures. Basically, Fidesz has stayed in power through money and corruption. Maybe Fidesz will fall if the money runs out and the discontent smoldering under the surface rages. Perhaps some surprising event will start a revolution, as has happened in Hungary before.
Or maybe Orbán will prove to be the harbinger of a new era for the EU, and other countries will follow suit. That is Orbán’s goal.
The back cover hints that the book also tells how democracy can be weakened in Finland as well. That’s not what the work does, which disappointed me. It is up to the enlightened reader to think about the similarities and danger points.
That’s my awakening. Is it a mess at home?
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