Protest against Orban's policies regarding asylum seekers in Budapest, Hungary, September 30, 2016. Vadim Ghirda / Press Association. All rights reserved.
The Hungarian government failed to achieve a referendum result on Sunday. While voters overwhelmingly supported opposing any mandatory European Union quotas for accepting relocated asylum seekers, the ballot was invalid due to low voter turnout.
referendum postscript
" The Hungarian referendum is invalid, only
about 40 percent has bothered to vote. The prime minister seems to have gone
stark raving mad as he is announcing victory. ‘Opposition’ leaders who did
nothing and ‘public intellectuals’ who not even dared whisper a critical word
during these awful months, are coming out of their woodshed and are also
claiming a resounding triumph. Theirs.
This is nothing of the sort. The
majority of Hungarians may be conservative and suspicious of foreigners,
especially if they are dark-skinned and dressed funny. But most Hungarians are
not fascists. They have found this racist campaign disgusting. Mr Orbán’s
charismatic days are over. He may still win elections, but his way henceforth
is all downhill. He is not any longer the leader of his nation, only a more or
less successful, lying politician like the rest.
But very few people think of
Aleppo where there is no electricity and running water, where the population is
bleeding and starving, where most buildings have been bombed to smithereens by
Russian and American flying fortresses, by the Assad government, the Islamic
State and everybody else. And if they try to flee, they will be held up at our
borders as terrorist suspects, like before. Let us think of them rather than of
ourselves."
( Monday, October 3, 2016. – G. M. Tamás)
LeftEast (LE): On October 2 in Hungary there is a referendum on
the European migrant quotas. What work does this referendum do on the level of
the Hungarian nation-state? How do you see the relationship of the referendum
to processes on the international stage?
G. M. Tamás (Tamás): The October 2
referendum is important, first of all, because of the campaign that preceded
it: such a gigantic wave of racist state propaganda has never been seen in
Europe since the end of the second world war. It is everywhere: from giant
billboards to new elementary school textbooks, from the internet to hundreds of
thousands of personal phone calls civil servants were forced to make to mobilise
for the ‘no’ vote.
The outcome in terms of opinion is
not in doubt, the ‘no’s’ will probably be over 80 per cent; but in order to
have the required quorum, beyond brain-washing, large-scale vote-rigging is
expected, as the ‘opposition’ parties failed to avail themselves of the right
to send observers to the electoral commissions which will count the ballot.
Intimidation, threats, slander, conspiracy theories, racial stereotypes,
downright lies are being spread by the government propaganda machine on a scale
never seen before. Downright lies are being
spread by the government propaganda machine on a scale never seen before. Even the official far right (the Jobbik party) is shocked. All
this is having an effect: I have heard on the train a village labourer talking
to some old ladies about the Jewish plot led by the aged billionaire and
philanthropist George Soros, supposed to bring Arabs to Europe to avenge
themselves on Christendom and offering them $20,000 a head to attack Hungary
and other white countries.
So the main import is the change in
the political climate – towards xenophobia and racism – and the acceptance of
dictatorial and authoritarian measures and practices by an exhausted,
frightened and puzzled population.
The
adroit government propaganda does not do anything else, just shifts the blame
for the general dissatisfaction with the disastrous results of ‘transition’ or
‘régime change’ after 1989, with the ravages of de-industrialisation, with the
galloping inequality and with the collapse of the welfare systems to ‘the
foreigner’, in this case to the European Union.
The
amalgam of the rule of the market, of social and cultural decay, corruption,
poverty and uncertainty together with the rhetoric of human rights,
constitutionalism, minority rights, pluralism and toleration, the empty
‘European’ platitudes and pseudo-cosmopolitan proclivities of the vanishing
liberal élites (‘pseudo’ because Budapest liberals are exhibiting symptoms of
nationalist hostility towards Orthodox nations such as the Russians, Greeks,
Romanians and Serbs) have combined to form a formidable target for this
ethnicist and authoritarian discourse.
Massive
purges in state institutions (including higher education, the arts, research
and so on) have made the intelligentsia extremely vulnerable and little
inclined to resistance and protest.
Large
parts of civil society, among others trade unions and churches, have abandoned
their critical stance, more and more opposition figures are in the habit of
announcing their support for the Orbán régime, maybe with a few formal caveats.
The most popular opposition party is of the extreme right, now outdistanced in
xenophobia, homophobia, sexism and racism by the notionally ‘moderate’
government and thus losing its influence. Nevertheless, the likely Orbán
triumph at the referendum (I am writing this a day before the actual voting) in
all probability will mean the peak of right-wing ideological hegemony – which
of course might mean the strengthening of police methods and the further undermining
of legality, accountability and transparency, in the absence of real opposition
and of free media, not to speak of the rampant corruption that goes hand in
hand with the replacement of a professional and politically neutral public
administration with the incompetent and rapacious oligarchic groups which are
already in control of local government.
At the
same time, the Hungarian state is careful to have good relations with
transnational corporations… so it is a model pupil of western neoliberalism.
At the
same time, the Hungarian state is careful to have good relations with
transnational corporations, keeps the deficit and the debt low, has introduced
the single tax, has practically suppressed almost every kind of social
assistance (except to some carefully selected sectors of the middle class), so
it is a model pupil of western neoliberalism – against which its leaders are
wont to thunder on state television.
As long
as this régime presents no challenge to the economic and the military system
influenced by the western powers (and it does not), it is quite safe. After
all, its anti-Islamic hate campaign – in the absence of any Muslim minority and
with zero immigration – is not so dissimilar from what we hear from ever more
influential western political forces and leading politicians, albeit it sounds
much more radical. It is rare for western politicians to agree in public with
Oriana Fallaci and Thilo Sarrazin – popularised here by the state press and
state media – but many agree with them in
petto. Nevertheless, it would appear that the popularity of the ethnicist
régime has peaked and now what we’ll see is a slow and ugly dissolution. As it
is going to be concomitant with a similar dissolution of the European Union
(and much else), Orbán’s approaching local defeat (not in electoral terms, but
in terms of hegemony) may not be noticed at all.
LE: Regarding the launch of the campaign period for the 2018
election year in Hungary, you and other commentators have pointed to the
significance of 1) the lack of major opposition press and 2) the accommodation opposition parties and
politicians are making to the Orbán regime. Can you tell us more ?
Tamás: It is true that the
opposition media are extremely weak, especially the still dominant television
and radio (private stations have been robbed of advertising revenue as
businesses don’t dare to be associated with the ‘foreign-hearted’,
‘unpatriotic’ Left – which is, in fact, centre-right – and then were bought up
by right-wing oligarchs close to or simply created by the government).
Opposition talk – with the exception
of a small number of near-invisible micro-parties – is ever softer and more
‘patriotic’ or stops altogether. The printed
press and the internet are somewhat freer but similar tactics have begun to
deplete their numbers, too. Similarly, some opposition parties had been either
intimidated or partially bought, former Socialist and Green politicians are
given plush diplomatic jobs, people close to the opposition parties have cozy
deals with shady half-state agencies and state-instigated business ventures and
investments. Opposition talk – with the exception of a small number of
near-invisible micro-parties – is ever softer and more ‘patriotic’ or stops
altogether.
Leaders of NGOs and of social
movements are busy announcing that they are not of the Left, that they want
only technical and professional improvements in some areas, and so on. Fear
also plays a part as purges in the cultural and academic realm, scandalous
appointments of far right militants and ignoramuses in leading positions, plus
the mass firing of civil servants (especially in the provinces) are threatening
the job security of the middle class.
Foreign support for various
institutions of civil society, especially for human rights groups are under
constant attack by the state and the right-wing media and by officials
including ministers. ‘Soros-financed NGOs’ are a prime target. All this is is
quite similar to the Putin and Erdogan régimes but without arrests and
assassinations. Intellectuals are cowed. More people protested openly in
Hungary in 1977 and 1979 (that is, under a system called by everybody, even by
itself, a dictatorship) against the arrest of Václav Havel than against the persecution
of the refugees at our borders in 2015 and 2016 – although this is as much of a
contravention of international rights covenants and treaties as that case was,
only the victims are more numerous now. Another part is genuine fear of the unknown personified by the Muslim migrant, by the terror threat.
Even such left liberal world
celebrities as the writer György Konrád have announced their support for Mr
Orbán’s barbed-wire fence at the Hungarian frontier. But fear and bribery would
not be sufficient there. And Mr Konrád is neither a coward, nor is he corrupt.
He is a brave and honest person. But like him, more and more people, formerly
in opposition, are convinced that the régime is right. Part of this is, of
course, conformism: some people like to be of one mind with what they perceive
as their community. The pressure of public opinion is enormous. Another
part is genuine fear of the unknown personified by the Muslim migrant, by the
terror threat, and the old European fear of the Orient strengthened by the 1989
identification of liberty with ‘the West’. Westernising late liberalism was not
universalist and authentic enough to be able to offer intellectual and moral
weapons against the new wave of racism and ethnicism. And the proper Left is
too weak. It should be said that figures of the small independent Left were
very economical with Zivilcourage,
too. There is a general shift to the right, independent of Mr Orbán and his
crew and which will survive him politically.
LE: You have coined the term post-fascism, referring to a degradation of
the idea of universal citizenship within the present crisis of global
capitalism. Can you address how this term applies to Hungary, and what are its
wider repercussions regarding present-day European and global politics?
Tamás: It refers to Hungary, too, where – like in other places –
citizenship is clearly a privilege, no ‘birthright’. I wrote that essay in
2000, and it has been proved right, alas, by the refugee and immigation crisis
in the clearest fashion.
Citizenship
– even in the stunted form of a permitted presence and minimum chance of
survival in a given territory, at a given point of inhabited social space – is
denied to masses whose salvation is only this. Racial, ethnic, denominational
(religious) and gender discrimination is worse everywhere than it was in 2000. When
Jeremy Corbyn still affirms his belief in such a banal principle as the free
movement of persons within Europe, even after England’s departure from the EU,
he is criticised by The Guardian as a
naïve tyro who doesn’t get it, yet. Jeremy
Corbyn… is criticised by The Guardian as a naïve tyro who doesn’t
get it. The inequality between rich and poor
states, between states and stateless populations and between established and
marginal groups within nation-states is a classical cause of and reason for
war. This is not the ‘European civil war’ of the past (to wit, between socialism
and capitalism or, if you wish, between communism and ‘European civilisation’,
to quote Goebbels), it is the terminal decay of the modern international state
system where there is no unifying common enemy for ‘liberal capitalism’ as was
the case from 1945 to 1989. True citizenship (that is, full rights, civic
‘empowerment’) is sold not by states but by capitalist corporations.
Citizenship-as-privilege will probably end as no citizenship for anybody. Political subjecthood is becoming blurred, vague, unfathomable.
Silly tags such as ‘populism’ and such won’t do it justice, the parallel
disintegration of the political state and of civil society, foretold by Marx,
will end in regressive matrices, with many revivals of archaic forms.
The
quasi-universal onslaught on women’s freedoms and dignity, the hatred of female
sexuality from India to the Islamic world to Poland is a case in point. When
you hear the Pope being called a communist (and, of course, in the pay of the
Jews) you can realise the extent of the chaos. And all this can, and will,
coexist peacefully with neoliberal global capitalism, as the concept of
post-fascism allows.
LE: Regarding Hungary's right-wing government and its treatment
of migration, commentators tend to refer alternately to "Hungarian
government" and "Hungarians". How do you see the relationship
between "Hungarians" and the regime in the present context?
Tamás: No nation can be identified with a system of government.
Governments are institutions ruled by certain ideas and, historically,
identical with them. The majority of Germans once made their peace with Nazism,
and Germany today is the model country of an authentic liberalism, albeit on
the defensive. Political subjecthood is becoming blurred, vague, unfathomable. Silly tags such as ‘populism’ and such won’t do it justice.
The
majority of Hungarians today do support Mr Orbán’s semi-dictatorial,
authoritarian, chauvinist, ethnicist and sexist régime based on clear-cut class
politics favouring the middle strata, although that majority is yellowing at
the edges. Mr Orbán will remain Mr Orbán, but the Hungarians will change.
Post-fascism is no fatality, as no government and no state ideology is eternal.
The question is only how long will it last.
Our thanks go to the author and to Mary Taylor and Agnes Gagyi of LeftEast, for permission to cross-publish their interview.
