As far as the proverbial man in the street is concerned, there is very little that separates the extreme right from the extreme left.
The results are the same: Power concentrated in the hands of a small circle of political leaders, suppression of human rights and academic freedom, political prisoners, torture, absence of a free press, no free speech, no freedom of assembly, rule by decree, corruption and politically-appointed judges presiding over show trials.
That is not say that there are no differences. There clearly are. The left tends to find its suppressive roots in an all-embracing ideology or – in some cases—a religion which claims to offer solutions to all of mankind’s problems. You need only embrace it.
The far right, on the other hand, is generally based on a belief that one nation or group of people are superior to all the others, and the inferior people should be treated accordingly. These are the ultra-nationalists.
Both groups are adept at conjuring up external threats to justify repression which is really aimed at controlling internal dissent. In modern history we can point to Hitler and the Jews, Stalin and capitalist West, McCarthy and the “Reds under the beds.”
In more contemporary times, several countries stand out as examples of paranoid nationalism grabbing the levers of power. A glaring recent example is Hungary.
In the twentieth century Hungary suffered mightily from both fascism and communism. After World War I there was the short-lived Red Terror of Bela Kun before the country was subjected to the White Terror. Then during World War Two it allied itself with Hitler and after the war it was under the Soviet thumb until 1989.
One of Hungary’s more illustrious countrymen is the billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros. He fled German-occupied Hungary during World War II, and eventually made his way to America where his financial wizardry netted him billions—most of which he has given away to liberal causes around the world.
His biggest single donation– $880 million—was in 1991 to establish the Central European University in his home town of Budapest. Its purpose was to produce a new generation of politicians, lawyers, journalists and civil servants who were so steeped in Western liberal values and democratic traditions that Hungary would never again veer towards the extreme right or left.
Unfortunately, Soros failed to take account of one Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary from 1998 to 2003 and then again from 2010 until sometime in the future. The leader of the National Conservative Fidesz Party has summed up his political philosophy with the words “illiberal democracy.”
He has expanded on it further by rejecting the liberal emphasis on the rights of the individual. In his view, the state is the means of organizing, invigorating, or even constructing the national community. In his view, countries such as Russia, China andTurkey are models to be admired and emulated.
Too many world leaders “illiberal democracy” is a complete contradiction in terms. How, they ask, can you have a democracy in which liberal institutions such as freedom of the press and the judiciary are suppressed?
And Orban is suppressing them. He forced the early retirement of most of Hungary’s judges and replaced them with his hand-picked political cronies. He has also forced all media outlets to register with the government. If they print or broadcast something which the government doesn’t like than their licenses can be revoked. On top of that, he has passed legislation making it almost impossible for the Hungarian parliament to amend or repeal laws passed by his Fidesz Party.
Orban’s most visible stand has been over the issue of accepting—or rather rejecting– any EU-directed refugees. Razor wire fences have been strung along the border and any refugee who manages to climb through is chased down by dogs. He has become a talisman for the EU’s anti-refugee lobby.
Not surprisingly, one of Orban’s strongest critics is George Soros. It is also no surprise that the Central European University has become an intellectual incubator for the anti-Orban camp. Demagogues hate dissent, so Orban decided to shut it down.
Of course, he couldn’t just throw out all the students and staff and lock the doors. He had to find a legal ploy. As one was not easily to hand, he created one. The Central European University is based in Budapest but funded from America. Orban this past week pushed a law through parliament banning foreign-based universities from operating in Hungary unless they had a campus in their home country. Surprise, surprise, the CEU was the only such university in Hungary.
But knowing George Soros, this fight is far from over.
Soros should be receiving support from EU institutions. Hungary joined the European Union in May 2004 as part of EU expansion into Eastern Europe to protect the nascent democracies that sprung up in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
The EU is a democratic club. And like most clubs it has rules which when you sign up to and agree to abide with when you join. These rules are embodied in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and so far it would seem that Hungary is either in breach of or—at the very least—on the verge of breaching rules involving personal integrity, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, equality before the law, religious diversity and the right to a fair trial.
So far the European Commission, parliament and council have done little more than utter complaining noises. The fate of the Central European University could tip them over the edge and into the murky waters of issuing sanctions against one of its own members.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”
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13 Comments
What if the power concentrates in the hands of the wealthy, but the institutions are on the face of it democratic?
“Hungary joined the European Union in May 2004 as part of EU expansion into Eastern Europe”: any European country can apply for EU membership, even Turkey has done so and there have been ructions in the Ukraine. The former editor of the former Liberal Democrat News, a Brent councillor and parliamentary candidate in1992, warned us that Hungarian politicians can be arrogant. David Steel commented that their proposals for an electoral system were much more complicated than ours but did not describe them in detail.
On Judges I recall a speaker at the Hungarian embassy in London saying that the former communist government in Hungary had appointed lots of women judges, but as a feminist herself, this was not good news because the communists put their political party above the judiciary. She said that after 1989 there was an increasing number of men, replacing communist judges had been of low quality.
The presence of the Alliance of Free Democrats in the coalition government had been reassuring to us, perhaps unwisely, and a different generation was sympathetic to the flood of refugees who had fled after Kruschev’s repression in 1956 at a time when others were obsessed with the Suez crisis and the consequent “ill health” suffered by Antony Eden / Lord Avon.
The EUS problem is Brexit, along with Russia & the threat of separatist movements in Spain, Belgium, Italy etc.
How many different battles can The EU institutions fight at once ?
I think in that case Glenn, we aren’t talking about ideologies, but ruthless self interest backed up by whatever methods that can be bought and that’s where we’re headed now.
hmm German occupied Hungary in WW2. Not really. Hungary was PART of the AXIS.
Clive, no-one can completely contain Hungarian history in one sentence, it defies summary.
Hungary was (under the non-Nazi dictator Horthy) a cooperating part of the Axis to 1944, when Horthy tried to secretly sue for peace with the Allies. Hitler found out, deposed Horthy and occupied Hungary using German troops.
So you’re both right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_World_War_II#German_occupation_of_Hungary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Margarethe
While I support the EU, there is something naive and overly idealistic about the way that it has expanded. The assumption would appear to have been that by granting entry to the EU, ex- Eastern Bloc countries could all be converted to liberal democracies. It assumes too much and indicates an insufficient understanding of what makes a democracy work. Rather they have to a greater or lesser degree reverted to the forms they had during the short lived independancies in the interwar period. National traits are not so easily removed. It is an interesting study. They now have a problem, which may get worse.
@ nom de plume I think you sum up the situation very well, although the same perhaps could have been said about Spain and Portugal after their change from dictatorships, and their situation seems to have turned out differently. I’m not quite so sure about the record of the Czech and Slovak republics and the Baltic states.
Thank you Matt, you saved me having to write a clarification
It is absolutely worth defending the CEU in Hungary, which has attracted worldwide support. There is a liberal alternative in Hungary but it is increasingly oppressed. The CEU has helped spread liberal values in Hungary for over 20 years.
Graham, Spain and Portugal have different political histories. The move towards liberalization started before the EU and in multiple steps, not always forwards. The Czechs and Slovaks have returned to democrocies, with, in the case of Slovakia, a bit of far right, nationalist nonsense thrown in (SNS).
An aversion to AGAIN happens. Hungary was under hardline communism until the revolution when the communists withdrew, then the Warsaw Pact countries re-entered with tanks and brutality in 1956. Some of this was caused by the successful international diplomacy which ended the rule of Austria in 1955 by USA, USSR, UK and France, giving hope to Austria’s neighbours and a frontier with a democracy for Hungary across which many Hungarian refugees fled. After 1956 communists in Hungary were reputedly ruling with a lighter touch lest there should be what they would have called a counter-revolution. Western perceptions are dominated by the dramatic demolition of the Berlin Wall, but Hungarian ministers took wire-cutters to the Iron Curtain before that to allow East German tourists out, via Austria to West Germany.
Hungary was also considered to have small businesses which made Hungary slightly more suitable for a western economy. After the execution of the Caesescus in Romania ethnic Hungarian leaving Romania transitted Hungary but did not tend to stay, perceiving Hungary as a country which had been under communism and therefore unattractive. We should remember that there was a 15 year gap between 1989 and 2004 during which the direction of travel for central European countries was uncertain. Enlargement of the EU was delayed by the presence in government in Slovakia of the SNS in coalition with Mr. Meciar. In the former Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel set an example of good government. Although a smoker “he was always available when needed” in a crisis. Domestic opinion tended to reflect economic outcomes. His death robbed his country of an international statesman awarded many prizes.
The scapegoating of minorities is cynical in some cases, but I think Tom over-rationalises it. Hitler and Himmler, for example, did not light on a fantastic wheeze for diverting anger that might have been directed against their government. They both had a deep-seated fear and hatred of Jews. Stalin had some reason to fear external power blocs and to want to mobilise his people against them: the cynicism lay mostly in his repeated discoveries of internal enemies and “traitors”, many of them potential rivals.