Hungary irritates not only democratic-minded people but also curiosity-driven scholars. It forces Francis Fukuyama to ask "
Do Institutions Really Matter?" It appears as a paradox to those who seek comfort in conventional wisdom. Hungary is famous as the most liberal state in the Soviet bloc; and its ruling party, led by the same Orban Viktor, who is currently the Prime Minister, was a driving force behind its turn to liberal democracy more than 20 years ago. Now the same person and the same party are, paradoxically, turning their back to the liberal democratic values they fought for under communism and their country to something similar to the one they fought against. Charles Gati has a
very good piece describing the new-turning-to-old Hungary under Fidesz.
How do we explain this Hungarian paradox? Gati has insightful hints:
A recent poll reflects the country’s socialist frame of mind and its persistent nostalgia for a paternalistic welfare state: 57 percent of Hungarians believe they lived better before 1989, under János Kádár’s Communist regime. In truth, some did, but most did not. Nevertheless, the majority claims to long for Kádár’s “goulash communism.” What they really want, I suspect, is to return to a time when Hungary was the envy of its neighbors, when it was freer and more prosperous (on borrowed money and Soviet subsidies) than any other Communist country. Hungary was, in the idiom of the day, the happiest barrack in the Soviet camp.
and
The current Hungarian domestic scene is best summed up by what Václav Havel said about Russia in 2009. His words apply to the illiberal, managed democracy that Hungary has come to be:
Everything seems to follow the rules of democracy. There are parliaments, there are elections, and there are political parties. But there are also highly worrisome and unnaturally close ties between elected officials, the judiciary, the police, and the secret services.
I was reminded of this observation when a friend came to say goodbye just before I checked out of Hotel Buda Mercure. To my astonishment, he removed the battery from his cell phone. He said that this way “they”—the authorities—might not know where he is or what he says. On three other occasions friends changed the subject on the phone when I wanted to discuss a political issue: “Nem telefon téma (Not a topic for the phone)”, they said. I remember that phrase from the 1980s. More than two decades after the collapse of communism here, fear—not pervasive, not insidious, not omnipresent, but fear all the same—has made a return appearance.
More than any other Eastern European countries, Hungary, along with Russia and Serbia, has something of its communist past to feel so nostalgic and proud of. The current economic crisis makes the contrast even more stark. The Fidesz policies are possible because people long for that past.
When I came to Hungary in 1986, only three years before the collapse of its communist regime, I felt like arriving to paradise. Social peace and relative prosperity characterized my perceived paradise. When I heard about the intellectuals debating whether crisis was the apt term to describe the country's situation, I admired their foresight. And when they debated whether the country needed a change of the socialist model (modellvaltas) or a change of the socialist regime (rendszervaltas), my admiration of their foresight was even more strengthened. In any event, I frequently heard Hungarians telling stories about the shortage of consumer goods and personal freedom in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union with a sense of pride that their country represented the opposite.
Had Hungary's intellectuals not had the foresight--probably driven by nationalism rather than pure intellect--of seeing the ultimate defect of socialist economy and let their country experience a similar fate that Poland and Vietnam and China had experienced, the likes of Orban Viktor might not have a chance to rule it now.
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