News – 1st November, 2006

Art and politics – part eight

As I am writing this article on the night of the 50th anniversary of
the ’56 Hungarian Revolution, there are barricades and street
fights in Budapest. There are large crowds of protesters gathering
at several key points of the capital.

They are armed with stones, metal bars and Molotov cocktails, facing a
mighty police force – thousands of policemen in riot gear, armed with
truncheons, tear gas and shotguns – shooting rubber bullets and
sometimes real ammunition at the flag-waving, hooded throngs of angry
youth, who demand the immediate resignation of the Prime Minister and
possibly his government also. Of all things, I despise violence the most,
and watching these events unfold makes me nauseous.

The government’s concept of commemorating the last fallen Hungarian

uprising – throughout the past centuries we certainly have had a glorious
series of those – was based on heavy numerological symbolism. The
“official” ’56 memorial (a 56-degree-wedge-shaped arrangement of 1956
tall columns of hard steel) was unveiled exactly at 19:56. On October 23,
fifty-six kings and foreign heads of state came to pay respect to the
heroes of the ’56 revolution. After they participated at several
celebrations organized by the government – from which common citizens
were all but banned – they had to be sneaked out of the city in haste, on
bumpy back-roads, because the anti-government protesters blocked
Budapest’s main thoroughfares and traffic routes. Cars were burning;
water cannons were shooting bursts of water dyed blue to make protesters
easily identifiable wherever they may show up later. Clouds of several
vicious brands of tear gas covered the bridges and avenues; wounded
people lay on the pavement; badly beaten handcuffed protesters were
thrown into police cars. Peaceful passers-by – including a Jesuit and
some elderly gentlemen and women – were casually kicked and beaten by
helmeted, unidentifiable policemen, right in front of TV cameras. Earlier
in the day protesters managed to hijack an old, Soviet made T34 tank,
one of the props at the government organized celebration. Young
protesters paraded with it until the tank ran out of gas. The movie -like,
media savvy scene got an instant spot on CNN’s Breaking News. (Some
more videos on Youtube: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The events of the past year or so clearly show that there are serious
problems with the young Hungarian democracy. One of the main causes
for the malfunctioning of the system is that there was virtually no
accounting for the past. The heinous crimes committed against the
Hungarian people during the half-century-long Bolshevik dictatorship
were unceremoniously swept under the carpet. There were no serious
discussions about the dark decades; no real conclusions were drawn after
the change of the regime. The ill-gained wealth and newly acquired
power of some of the main players of the ancient, bloody regime is still
an irritating factor in the eyes of millions of disenfranchised citizens who
fared much worse than they had hoped at the arrival of political freedom
15 chaotic years ago.

The very epitome of former prominent party apparatchiks making a

material and political fortune, mostly on the merits of strong ties to the
past, is Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, once a fierce Communist
youth leader and now a very wealthy businessman by Hungarian
standards. He is a well-spoken, tall, thin, nerdy-looking man in his early
40s with the aura of a teacher’s pet. His government and decision -making
circle of friends and “former” business partners is heavily spiked with
people of similarly tainted pasts and hard-to-explain formidable gains
in wealth.

The governing Socialist Party (a straight successor and inheritor of the

assets, the information bank and the well-oiled, country-wide network of
hundreds of thousands of experienced and obedient activists of the late
dictator János Kádár’s party) and their liberal coalition partner, the
Alliance of Free Democrats, blundered up the state budget royally during
their last term in office. They borrowed so much money in the past f our
years that paying the interest on the mountainous debt alone precludes
economic growth. Most Hungarians are losing faith that they will ever
enjoy a Western European life standard.

One keeps on wondering if all those “internationally acknowledged

financial and economical specialists” whom the ruling parties employ in
the government have a clue of their own doings. Looking at the very
results of their four plus years of feverish activity, one cannot escape the
thought that these supposedly knowledgeable “international experts”,
these smooth talking managers of the country finances and economy, are
all but either dilettantes; or, they are prevented from above from doing
anything worthwhile in their fields.

As the PM himself admitted in a speech at a party gathering, the

socialist–liberal coalition won the parliamentary elections last spring
with falsified reports on the real state of the budget and the economy. At
the beginning of their second term, they proceeded to lay plans on how to
introduce harsh taxation in order to reduce the deficit. Most of the burden
of repaying the government's extravagant loans falls on small businesses
and on the common citizens once again. The planners clothed the
obviously unpopular idea – of further taxing an already overtaxed and
grossly underpaid population – in the vague outlines of so-called
“reforms”. In order to fulfill the deficit -cutting expectations of the EU,
they are now obliged to quickly fix the hole they themselves have ever so
skillfully cut in the nation’s pocket during their first four years in power.

At around the time of finalizing these plans, the Prime Minister gave
a secret speech at a closed meeting of his party’s leaders in May. In this
now world-famous, desperate speech, Gyurcsány acknowledged that they
have lied to the people throughout their rule and tricked with economic
statistics in order to win the elections and stay in power.

The secret speech somehow made it to the media a few months later –
timed to influence the forthcoming municipal elections. The revelation of
blatant government lies and the manipulation of economic data, along
with the speech’s foul language and rude style strongly reminiscent of
old Communist verbal manners, provided the last spark needed to set off
massive public unrest all over the country. As a direct result, the ruling
party suffered a disastrous defeat at the municipal elections.

In older democracies, a country’s prominent leader would instantly

resign if such a speech were to come to light, especially if his own
indiscretions led to such an overwhelming loss of an election. In 21st
century Hungary – “a country of no consequences”, as the popular
definition goes – the Prime Minister does not feel obliged to resign
amidst such credibility-destroying scandal, but stubbornly stays in
power. Instead of resigning, he has, in fact, declared himself to be the
only politician capable of bringing up the country’s finances to European
Union standards.

After confessing in his infamous secret speech that “we lied morning,
noon and night” (sounding like the refrain of an anti-gospel or a reggae
song), Ferenc Gyurcsány has the nerve to play the role of Messiah, the
only possible redeemer of a long-suffering nation. Most probably, he has
the backing of Tony Blair’s England, of Russia, and of the banks, as well
as the blessing of the US. Alone, with no such backing, no sane politician
would dare to do acrobatics of this magnitude.

After confessing his lies and his falsification of important numbers, after
going back radically on his election promises by introducing heavy
taxation instead of tax cuts and more bureaucracy instead of easing the
rules, and after calling Hungary “this fucking country” in his scandalous
speech, the Prime Minister should not be so surprised that the sizeable
nationalist opposition (about 50 % of voters) is up in arms now and ready
to take to the streets. Many of those who do not participate in the
demonstration and remained neutral in the political brawl are feeling
insulted by the Prime Minister’s careless choice of words.

After the authorities barred the common citizens from most government -
organized ’56 celebrations and after the heavy-handed police actions on
the very night of the revolution’s 50th anniversary, it seems the atrocities
will keep on escalating, perhaps even driving the country into the
collapse of democracy and further economic deterioration.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no peaceful solution to solve the

current, steadily growing social, political and economic crisis. The
opposing political sides are too remote in their demands to reach any
lasting agreement. Hungary is historically cursed with untalented
politicians who led the country into lost wars and centuries -long misery.
This new generation of politicians is not better then their predecessors
were. Why would they be? Submerged throughout their entire adult life
in political conspiracies, having little or no real knowledge of the
average citizens’ problems, they are unable to see themselves in context,
and they have no credible, wise advisors at hand.

Most of the intellectuals who could have advised both the politicians and
the citizens objectively and impartially were totally discredited in the
past years, in a never-ending series of agent scandals. More and more
formerly top secret documents are becoming available for public
scrutiny, perpetually proving that a large percentage of the country’s
leading artists, writers, journalists and thinkers were snitches, all kinds
of agents of the fallen dictatorship’s feared and loathed secret police,
resulting in a serious loss of popular credibility for all intellectuals.
Besides the similarly discredited churches and politicians, there is
nobody the people can look up to; they see nobody trustworthy in the
higher echelons of society.

In the upcoming parts of my series on the relationship of art and politics,

I am going attempt to detail a few of the most shocking agent scandals of
the past years involving Hungary’s intelligentsia, our v enerable Brahmin
cast.

(To be continued)

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