Miklós Haraszti – Jeffrey C. Goldfarb's Deliberately Considered http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com Informed reflection on the events of the day Sat, 14 Aug 2021 16:22:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 Hungarian Alert for Central Europe http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2012/01/hungarian-alert-for-central-europe/ http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2012/01/hungarian-alert-for-central-europe/#comments Fri, 13 Jan 2012 21:52:54 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=10976

Who would have thought that twenty-two years after the fall of communism in Hungary that György Konrád, the respected writer and one of the most famous Central European dissidents, would have to sign yet another open letter defending fundamental rules of democracy in his home country? And that the letter would be a strong accusation addressed to that young man with soot black hair whose hard-shell speech in 1989, at the symbolic funeral of the martyrs of the ’56 revolution, electrified Budapest – one Viktor Orbán?

The New Year’s appeal of Hungarian intellectuals including former key figures of the opposition such as Konrád and Miklós Haraszti is a democratic alert not only for Hungary. It echoes the dissident appeals of the old days. It does not attack Orbán’s regime for its ideological content, but rather for its form. Liberal democracy is, first and foremost, a set of rules, written down so that the game remains fair for whoever might be sitting at the table. That was the essence of the democratic opposition’s struggle in Eastern Europe – to overthrow the red dictatorship, because it is a dictatorship.

On the other hand, the anti-Communist opposition, of which Orbán is a descendent, wanted to overthrow the red dictatorship because it was red. Following this logic, one can treat human rights in an instrumental fashion. One can perceive torture as justified or not – for example justified in the case of Pinochet, and vicious in the case of Castro. One can also believe that authoritarianism can be built in the name of a just cause. If you disagree with this judgment, you should listen carefully to what the Hungarian democratic dissidents . . .

Read more: Hungarian Alert for Central Europe

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Who would have thought that twenty-two years after the fall of communism in Hungary that György Konrád, the respected writer and one of the most famous Central European dissidents, would have to sign yet another open letter defending fundamental rules of democracy in his home country? And that the letter would be a strong accusation addressed to that young man with soot black hair whose hard-shell speech in 1989, at the symbolic funeral of the martyrs of the ’56 revolution, electrified Budapest – one Viktor Orbán?

The New Year’s appeal of Hungarian intellectuals including former key figures of the opposition such as Konrád and Miklós Haraszti is a democratic alert not only for Hungary. It echoes the dissident appeals of the old days. It does not attack Orbán’s regime for its ideological content, but rather for its form. Liberal democracy is, first and foremost, a set of rules, written down so that the game remains fair for whoever might be sitting at the table. That was the essence of the democratic opposition’s struggle in Eastern Europe – to overthrow the red dictatorship, because it is a dictatorship.

On the other hand, the anti-Communist opposition, of which Orbán is a descendent, wanted to overthrow the red dictatorship because it was red. Following this logic, one can treat human rights in an instrumental fashion. One can perceive torture as justified or not – for example justified in the case of Pinochet, and vicious in the case of Castro. One can also believe that authoritarianism can be built in the name of a just cause. If you disagree with this judgment, you should listen carefully to what the Hungarian democratic dissidents have to say.

Their letter is above all a dry summary of the legislative and institutional changes pushed through by Orbán’s government. It is a rather terrifying read, as it illustrates how in the very heart of Europe, using a series of small, barely visible steps, it is possible to introduce and entrench in a democratic system a conservative autocracy. Orbán gave the old idea of a “salami tactics” – cutting the opposition down, slice by slice – a new meaning. Today the main opposition party is declared a “criminal organization.” It is still hard to believe that we are talking not about some banana republic, but about one of the pillars of the Visegrad Group.

Some fifteen years ago the word “Visegrad” still had some meaning. Thanks to people such as Václav Havel “Central Europe” became a trademark – a recognized label of quality, of which the Baltic or Balkan nations dreamed. These two notions, Visegrad and Central Europe, stood for stability and the success of “democracy’s third wave.” Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary were the A-students of the East European academy (Slovakia’s time came later). Is there still anything that those three have in common? Never since 1989 were their political scenes as different as they are today.

This is not to say that Poland (as well as Czech Republic and, perhaps especially, Slovakia) should not treat the developments in Hungary as a threat. The example of our “bratanki”(a traditional Polish nickname for the Hungarians, implying a strong historical bond, despite cultural and ethnic differences), moving ever farther away, plunging into the turbid waters of the region’s history (Orbán is not ashamed of the parallels with Admiral Miklós Horthy), shows how fragile the democracy of our nations still is. The constant talk of a growing threat of authoritarianism as well as – let us utter this word without hesitation – fascism, is quite disheartening.

As the authors of the open letter sadly note, and as was reviewed by Kultura Liberalna in yesterday’s post here, the authoritarian deviation in Hungary has already passed a critical point and is largely irreversible. Even if the coming elections would bring a victory of the opposition, FIDESZ and its project for Hungary is already firmly anchored. The question “What happens after Orbán?” is therefore mostly an inquiry about how to dismantle an autocracy through democratic methods, when that autocracy had already undermined the foundations of the republic.

At Kultura Liberalna we asked sardonically if it is not high time to kick Hungary out of the European Union. This is not a mere provocation. The Hungarian dissidents acknowledge that in its present shape their country would not meet the “Copenhagen criteria” and thus could not count on being accepted in the EU. If we were supposed to bring in moral strength and the experience of a struggle for democracy into Europe, then it could be a good idea to react sharply, when someone is wiping his shoes on liberal democracy, even if that someone is an old friend.

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New Year’s Message Sent by Former Hungarian Political Dissidents, Budapest, 2nd of January, 2012 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2012/01/new-year%e2%80%99s-message-sent-by-former-hungarian-political-dissidents-budapest-2nd-of-january-2012/ http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2012/01/new-year%e2%80%99s-message-sent-by-former-hungarian-political-dissidents-budapest-2nd-of-january-2012/#comments Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:36:30 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=10707

Minutes ago I received this open letter from prominent critical Hungarian intellectuals via Andras Bozoki (author of an earlier post on the transition from democracy, who will present an update in the coming days). The message speaks for itself, warning of a looming European political crisis. -Jeff

The decline of democracy – the rise of dictatorship

The undersigned, participants of the erstwhile human rights and democracy movement that opposed the one-party communist regime in the 1970s and 1980s, believe that the Hungarian society is not only the victim of the current economic crisis, but also the victim of its own government. The present government has snatched the democratic political tools from the hands of those who could use these tools to ameliorate their predicament. While chanting empty patriotic slogans, the government behaves in a most unpatriotic way by reducing its citizens to inactivity and impotence.

The constitutional system of Hungary has also sunk into a critical situation. As of the 1st of January 2012, the new constitution of Hungary along with several fundamental laws came into force. Viktor Orbán’s government is intent on destroying the democratic rule of law, removing checks and balances, and pursuing a systematic policy of closing autonomous institutions, including those of civil society, with the potential to criticise its omnipotence. Never since the regime change of 1989 when communist dictatorship was crushed has there been such an intense concentration of power in the region as in present-day Hungary.

Institutions with the authority to hold government activity in check have met a similar fate: Fidesz continuously deprives such institutions of their autonomy, blackmails them for survival, discharges professional management, takes unlawful decisions and moulds these institutions so that they can no longer control and correct government activity but, in sharp contrast to their original function, they serve to augment unbridled autocracy. With the removal of the checks and balances, the whole state has become subservient to the government, or rather to the prime minister. The Parliament and the president obediently comply with the dictates of the cabinet. By having their staff radically reshuffled and implementing laws curtailing their competence, the Chief . . .

Read more: New Year’s Message Sent by Former Hungarian Political Dissidents, Budapest, 2nd of January, 2012

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Minutes ago I received this open letter from prominent critical Hungarian intellectuals via Andras Bozoki (author of an earlier post on the transition from democracy, who will present an update in the coming days). The message speaks for itself, warning of a looming European political crisis. -Jeff

The decline of democracy – the rise of dictatorship

The undersigned, participants of the erstwhile human rights and democracy movement that opposed the one-party communist regime in the 1970s and 1980s, believe that the Hungarian society is not only the victim of the current economic crisis, but also the victim of its own government. The present government has snatched the democratic political tools from the hands of those who could use these tools to ameliorate their predicament. While chanting empty patriotic slogans, the government behaves in a most unpatriotic way by reducing its citizens to inactivity and impotence.

The constitutional system of Hungary has also sunk into a critical situation. As of the 1st of January 2012, the new constitution of Hungary along with several fundamental laws came into force. Viktor Orbán’s government is intent on destroying the democratic rule of law, removing checks and balances, and pursuing a systematic policy of closing autonomous institutions, including those of civil society, with the potential to criticise its omnipotence. Never since the regime change of 1989 when communist dictatorship was crushed has there been such an intense concentration of power in the region as in present-day Hungary.

Institutions with the authority to hold government activity in check have met a similar fate: Fidesz continuously deprives such institutions of their autonomy, blackmails them for survival, discharges professional management, takes unlawful decisions and moulds these institutions so that they can no longer control and correct government activity but, in sharp contrast to their original function, they serve to augment unbridled autocracy. With the removal of the checks and balances, the whole state has become subservient to the government, or rather to the prime minister. The Parliament and the president obediently comply with the dictates of the cabinet. By having their staff radically reshuffled and implementing laws curtailing their competence, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, the Court of Justice and the Constitution Court act as the lengthened arms of the government. While local councils have lost the better part of their clout, semi-autonomous institutions such as the Court of Auditors, the Hungarian Press Agency, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the National Cultural Fund may well be regarded today as quasi government agencies. Arbitration committees, including the now defunct National Conciliation Council, have been disbanded.

1. Legislative power

Fidesz created a system that put an end to genuine debates in and outside the Parliament, and by excluding stakeholders the Parliament became a virtual one-party powerhouse. It was stripped of even a semblance of lawful parliamentary protocol. By means of modifying house rules, Fidesz now has the exclusive right to turn any bill into law and make decisions about any issue concerning parliamentary protocol, thus rendering the existence of opposition parties a mere formality. Bills are rushed through legislation with no debate worthy of mention.

2. Executive power

Since a considerable proportion of proposals and amendments are submitted by individual members of Parliament who make no effort to seek consensus and often ignore relevant ministries, professional and accountable governance ceased to exist. This is a telling sign of the way power-sharing has become but a facade, with ministries and ministers having lost teeth. The president who is supposed to act independently of government and political parties, thereby being a living symbol of constitutional order, is a man who promptly signs any document pushed on his desk, and by disregarding the constitutional role bestowed on him, he is no more than a puppet of the executive power.

3. Jurisdiction

Numerous changes in legislation have been made that testify the direct political intentions to ignore democratic rules of law.

  • The Constitutional Court, the ultimate institution to safeguard legality, has been gradually turned into a weightless body. The number of judges has been increased with members known to be loyal to the ruling parties (including a former minister and a member of Parliament, both being Fidesz party members). The scope of the Court has been narrowed, partly by depriving it of arbitration on economic issues.
  • Established as part of the judiciary reform, the National Judiciary Office (NJO) is under direct political influence. Instead of being an independent professional body, the chairperson of NJO, who happens to be the wife of a Fidesz member of the European Parliament, has the exclusive right to appoint, delegate and promote judges, as well as to determine which court deals with which case. The chair of NJO has been elected for nine years by a two-third parliamentary majority, and short of a qualified majority in the future, the chair may remain in her post indefinitely.
  • While retirement age has been raised across the board, a sigificant proportion of leading judges has been forced into retirement. The judiciary has thus become existentially dependent.
  • The Chief Prosecutor, who has the exlusive right to decide which case may be forwarded to the Court of Justice and which court should hear it, is a politician of the ruling party.
  • In the future, suspects and the accused may be deprived of the opportunity to consult their solicitors.

This new system marks the end of independent jurisdiction in Hungary.

4. The media

Fidesz intends to place the entire media under its control and regulation, hindering any form of an impartial, analytical and critical judgment of its policy. With this in mind,

  • Originally destined to be an impartial forum, the public media has been forced to serve the goverment parties. Instead of professionalism, the only criterion for its continued existence is political loyalty.
  • News service has been centralised: the same news is broadcast in every channel.
  • Recently established and authorised with unprecedented power, the National Media and Telecommunication Agency, led by its chairman, a Fidesz loyalist, may exercise wide-ranging regulatory and sanctioning rights.
  • Radio frequencies and television broadcasting rights are conferred in an arbitrary fashion.
  • Independent press may be levied enormous fines, thus urging it to exercise self-censure. Destined to lose state-sponsored advertisers as well as private ones scared of retaliation, disobedient newspapers even run the risk of going bankrupt.

5. Election law

Democracy is posited on the condition that anyone may be voted out of office through peaceful measures. The new election law significantly restricts the opportunity to satisfy the will of citizens and realise a democratic change in the power structure. Instead of seeking consensus and a harmonisation of interests, Fidesz is intent on destroying rival political forces with the purpose of perpetuating its own power.

  • Motivated by political considerations, the new election law redrafted constituencies, thus creating a system which favours candidates of the ruling parties. Undeserving of constitutional democracies, no independent body has the right to veto the new distribution of constituencies.
  • Fidesz has taken the unprecedented step to ensure that all the votes from the compensatory list go to the winning party; ignoring the will of the electorate, this clause will distort the final outcome of the election.
  • The new single-round system will force the rivalling opposition parties into a coalition.

Fidesz does its best to criminalise its rivals: 21years after the regime change a new law has been passed in which the Hungarian Socialist Party, a democratic party of the Hungarian Parliament, has been deemed guilty as being the legal successor of the former communist party.

In Hungary, liberal democracy as interpreted in the West has come to an end, the autonomy of power centres has become a formality. The government is thoroughly antidemocratic by according no respect to the sanctity of private property, eliminating local councils, and pushing all channels of social mobility, public and higher education under its political control. It seems obvious that the aim of the present government is to overhaul the entire society and, with recourse to threats and blackmail, to create a country rendered incapable and cowardly to defy its dictatorial rule. Under such conditions, Hungary would have stood no chance in 2004 to join the European Union, the community of the Western democracies. Regretfully, Hungary can only expect further isolation, impoverishment and hopelessness in the future.

However, instead of searching for an alternative to replace this constitutional dictatorship, we had better consider ways in which we can get rid of it within the bounds of legality. The question is whether there is any chance at all to break out and reinstate the rule of law under the legal constraints imposed by Fidesz.

The advocates of democracy and the rule of law within and outside Hungary must not acquiesce in having the government of a member state of the European Union crush these universal values. Nor should the European Union just sit back and watch as it is being held hostage by an outdated, provincial tyrant. It is in the interest of both Hungary and the European Union to make a stand against the prime minister of Hungary. The leaders of the European Union are right in their decision to tighten intergration, but this step should be taken not only to combat the financial crisis but also to challenge political crises and risks. The European Union may disintegrate not only for economic reasons but for reasons of pursuing disparate and antidemocratic policies as well.

As we regard ourselves simultaneously as Hungarian and European citizens, we wish to avoid a clash of identities. We reject any political command that we give up our „dual citizenship”. If choose we need, our choice will be between the values of democracy and dictatorship – just as we did at the time of communist dictatorship. We are aware that the idea of a common Europe was born as an economic project, but this project is no more than wishful thinking unless its value system is accounted for and enforced, and lack thereof gets punished.

We are convinced that Hungary can become a country where the rule of law is reinstated. However, we must not forget that Fidesz, busy building a one-party dictatorship at an ever-growing speed, will never surrender unless compelled by the political representatives of Hungarian democrats, in compliance with the legal norms of democracy on which the European Union is founded.

The dictatorial rule has already reached a point of no return; under the present circumstances our country is unlikely to be able to find its way back to the rule of law. However, a debate along these lines is not timely when democratic forces are faced with the daunting task of uniting forces – in and outside the Parliament, with one another. We cannot afford the luxury of learning the lesson after a lost election.

Unity for the time being – and for a long time hence – implies obtaining mass support. The size of this support will determine the means available for the reinstatement of democracy and the rule of law. Beyond raising its voice against the economic adventurism pursued by Orbán, Europe and the whole world will offer help for Hungarian democracy only after unity has been achieved with mass support to back it up.

Europe is at a crossroads too. Hungary is a sad example of what may happen wherever there is a concentration of crisis tendencies, aggravated by attempts to resolve problems caused by an economic and social crisis with authoritarian means and a policy of nationalistic isolation. Instead of prosperity and stability, such a policy can only lead to suppression, conflict and turmoil. The desperate situation of present-day Hungary should be a warning for all of us: if Europe is prepared to help Hungary, it will also help itself.

Attila Ara-Kovács, journalist

György Dalos, writer

Gábor Demszky, former Mayor of Budapest

Miklós Haraszti, former OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, former MP

Róza Hodosán, former MP

Gábor Iványi, pastor, former MP

János Kenedi, historian

György Konrád, writer

Bálint Magyar, former Minister of Education

Imre Mécs, former MP

Sándor Radnóti, philosopher

László Rajk, architect, former MP

Sándor Szilágyi, writer on photography

Forwarded by László Rajk

H-1061 Budapest, Paulay Ede u. 19.

Phone, facsimile: +36 1 351 9543

www.iprotest.hu

www.rajk.hu

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