Hungary Ten Years Later

...Few Hungarians would acknowledge any of this...

...Its leader, Istvan Csurka, a talented writer, entertained Jean-Marie Le Pen of France's far Right National Front...

...Because firms reported high outputs, the statisticians worked with unreliable information...

...They tend to be famously pessimistic, and are given to nostalgia...

...By far the most popular newspaper, Nepszabadsag, is not a supporter of the government...

...Without exception they repudiate whatever the opposition suggests...

...There is little disagreement among the major parties on such issues as integration into Europe and the virtues of free enterprise...

...During the interwar years anti-Semites, including some prominent Hungarian priests, opined that to be a Hungarian patriot was to be an anti-Semite...

...Naturally, the less fortunate face the greater risks, while the well-placed, talented and ambitious can reap the benefits of the new situation...

...IN the 10 YEARS of contemporary Hungarian democracy, there have been exceptional changes, resulting in a gradual polarization of political life...

...Yet such a choice was never on the agenda...

...The obvious, and thoroughly unsatisfactory, answer is that approximately one third of the population is better off, sometimes spectacularly so...

...Now the ex-liberals appear to view themselves as the only true defenders of the nation's interests...

...it has branches of industry—mostly foreign owned—that are capable of competing in Western markets...

...President Arpád Göncz, whose term has a year left, was backed by the SzDSz and the Socialists but is not affiliated with any party...

...Demagogues exi st and they try their best, but so far they have had little success...

...Some changes have been for the better, some for the worse, depending to a large extent on one's perspective...

...Are the Hungarians better off now than they were in the best years of the late Communist regime of Jânos Kádár...

...And the role of Hungarians in helping the Germans to exterminate their Jewish fellow citizens is wellknown...

...One minister has talked about "the Jewish question...

...Although there were periods when Jews were encouraged to assimilate and were allowed to flourish, at other times they suffered...

...There was no consistent effort by the Communist regimes to repair the destruction and the city lost much, but not all, of its charm...

...A meaningful comparison with the past is almost impossible, however...

...The essays published in them, and in the daily papers, are often interesting, hard-hitting and intelligent...

...The last third was badly hurt by the collapse of an economy that attempted to take care of everyone, even if poorly...

...The very choice of name tells a great deal about its ideological progenitors and commitments...

...They have transformed themselves into Western style social democrats...

...Absolutely everything is easily available, from the newest computer games to kiwi fruit from New Zealand...

...It has attracted by far the largest amount of foreign investment per capita...

...A thousand years of history contain people and developments patriots can be proud of, such as Hungarian liberalism...

...FiDeSz was originally Leftist...

...It has long roots in Hungarian history...

...The standard of living is much lower here, as it is in the other Eastern European nations...

...The main opposition force is the Socialist Party, now the largest and, according to recent polls, most popular in the country...

...People here saw the Western European capitalist countries as rich and unrealistically assumed that once economic freedom was introduced, Hungary would soon become something like Austria...

...The SzDSz, a coalition partner of the Socialists in the previous government, no longer appeals to more than 6 to 7 per cent of the voters...

...Their strongest coalition partner is the Smallholders Party, a Rightist, nationalist, peasant group...

...We are witnessing a curious spectacle: the international union of those who hate foreigners...

...In two or three years, one hopes, Hungary will join the EU...

...FiDeSz has not only lost ground but the Socialists would win easily if elections were held tomorrow...

...Today there are new shopping centers as well as stylish coffeehouses and restaurants that are often full of well-dressed customers...

...It cannot be said that Jews are being discriminated against in any aspect of economic or political life...

...These show that Hungary has caught up with pre-1989 standards, but clearly the Communist era numbers were overstated...

...But in the next election, in 2002, the Socialists would need the support of the SzDSz to have any hope of forming a government...

...Prime Minister Victor Orban's government treats the Socialists and liberals not as a legitimate opposition, but as personal enemies to be denounced and destroyed if possible...

...At the same time, licenses are denied to prestigious Western organizations or underrepresented minorities, such as the gypsies...

...Membership will not solve all of its problems, and may actually exacerbate some...

...Rather ironically, because the economic and social policies of the two blocs barely differ, they battle over symbols...

...Csurka also quickly expressed his solidarity with Jörg Haider of Austria's Right-wing Freedom Party after his inclusion in the government there provoked a sharply negative reaction from other members of the European Union...

...But that history contains shameful episodes, too, and the nationalist Right wants to make heroes out of villains...

...Remarkably, politicians do not discuss these questions...

...In a market economy the opportunities are impressive, yet so are the risks...

...After all, some of Haider's appeal in Austria comes from his opposition to Hungarian guest workers...

...They do not hesitate to disregard the elementary rules of democracy when they can get away with it...

...The young politicians (and most of the FiDeSz leaders never held a job before they became ministers) arrogantly perceive politics as a zero sum game...

...For instance, should the crown of Saint Stephen, Hungary's first king, be kept in the National Museum (where it really belongs) or in the Parliament, since it somehow denotes Hungarian nationhood...

...Whether the Haider controversy helped or hurt the Rightists here is debatable...

...On the one hand, Csurka can point to the strength of a worldwide movement, but on the other, the strong European reaction to Haider makes it less likely that FiDeSz, an advocate of EU membership, could openly ally itself with the MIEP...

...Associating the Socialist leadership with the Kâdâr regime has hardly damaged them: According to a recent poll, Kâdâr is considered the best leader of the century...

...Anti-Semitic rhetoric, however, can be regarded as a litmus test of political decency, and on that score there is much to be deplored...

...Its leadership is made up of reformed Communists, the majority of whom played significant roles in the Radar regime...

...Consequently, the government controls national television and gives out radio licenses to its partners—as well as to the MIEP, which in fact consistently supports it...

...The homeless have become visible, and you often encounter individuals who subsist by going through the garbage cans of others...

...Many who make comparisons want to show that the entire transformation was a great mistake, that people lived better under "socialism" than they do under capitalism...

...The young politicians saw an opening on the Right and cleverly understood that this would enable them to come to power...

...It is an amusing paradox that the most selfconscious internationalists in today's world are the extreme nationalists...

...Other tactics employed are equally transparent...

...In the long run, the imposition of European norms in politics, economics and environmental protection is bound to make Hungary a more attractive country...

...Apparently though, the smaller the policy differences, the more venomous is the tone of political discourse...

...For example, the law requires that the government and the opposition each have the same number of representatives in the organizations that supervise the media...

...As for the present government's attempts to bring about integration into Europe, help business and continue luring foreign capital, they are no different from those of the Socialists...

...Still, it would be an error to overemphasize the strength of anti-Semitism here...

...They will remember how little they had to pay in the past for rent, but not how miserable their apartments were, how gray the cities they lived in...

...Just as in the past, the foreign visitor is amazed to learn how low the average income of this group is and wonders how people can have a seemingly decent middle class life on such earnings...

...An adviser to the Prime Minister—a historian of the 20th century, who should know better—has asked, in effect, why such a big deal is made about the murder of the Jews in World War II, since that was not among the belligerents' War aims...

...In an extraordinary political act it moved to the Right and assumed the mantle of Hungarian nationalism...

...A third is how to restore the prestige of Hungarian science and scholarship...

...The seemingly objective Gross Domestic Product figures do not help much either...

...It is attempting to rehabilitate politicians of the World War II era who collaborated with the Nazis and were responsible for atrocities...

...The dominant one among them is the Alliance of Young Democrats (FiDeSz...

...A plaque placed in the Museum of Military History memorializes the Hungarian Gendarmes, an organization whose record, mutatis mutandis, can be compared to that of the SS...

...Some of their leaders have grown mustaches, making them look like stereotypical Hungarian gentlemen of the 19th century...

...For example, 15 or 20 years ago it was almost impossible to get a new telephone installed...

...The current coalition government, installed after the Socialists narrowly lost control of the National Assembly in 1998, is composed of parties that describe themselves as Center Right...

...Whenever there is a fight over Hungary's past, the issue of anti-Semitism inevitably arises...

...Now you can have one in a matter of days, but telephone service, considering salaries, is expensive...

...The economy as it stood was bound to stagnate and decline...

...Hungarian politics is stable, threatened neither by the extreme Left nor the extreme Right...

...When they were in power they carried out policies that would have pleased Margaret Thatcher...

...Moreover, that economy produced much that was flimsy, second-rate and often downright useless...

...Like its counterparts elsewhere, it is anti-Semitic, antiglobalist, antimodern, antiforeign and, in the Hungarian case, irredentist...

...One is how to help those hurt in the last decade, including the large, dreadfully poor, totally unintegrated gypsy minority...

...That the primary television and radio stations are in their hands seems to have done the governing parties little good...

...Their anti-inflationary programs hurt the poor, but probably were the basis of Hungary's economic upswing...

...But World War II, and the gloomy decades that followed, did great damage...

...Hungary's 10 million inhabitants can read almost as many journals of opinion as we do in the United States...

...The bitterly anti-Hungarian Romanian extreme Rightists and Csurka's followers have much in common and they know it...

...Another third is getting by as it did under Kádár...

...Laszlo Kover, the number two FiDeSz figure, has described the opposition as traitors for their participation in the Kâdâr regime...

...Nor do they seem relevant to the life of the average person...

...Nevertheless, it will be a very welcome development...

...Most observers, in my opinion correctly, attribute this entirely to opportunism...

...Representatives of the Orban government, whose slogan appears to be "No Enemies On the Right," tend to make disturbing statements...

...The extreme Right is relatively weak (as compared with other European countries, East or West), attracting no more than 5 per cent of the electorate...

...Although this does not do anything for the millions who can't afford to buy a kiwi, it does contribute to the well-being of some...

...it enjoys a respectable 4 to 5 per cent economic growth rate...

...The old regime provided security and limited potential for getting rich...

...Back then it possessed a rich and optimistic citizenry (disproportionately Jewish) that financed the construction of buildings rivaling those of Vienna in their magnificence...

...In fact, because it included the lovely hills of Buda and shared the majestic Danube, Budapest may have been more attractive than the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...

...Civilized Europe has made it clear that governments incorporating elements who claim kinship with the fascist era are not acceptable...

...Peter Kenez a longtime NL contributor, is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the director of its program in Budapest...

...Hungary is not Russia, where the prospect of pogroms is remote but nonetheless real...

...Since 1990, many buildings have been renovated, at least in the heart of the city...

...At present, thanks to the desire to avoid taxation, a substantial segment of the economy does not appear in the statistics...

...Most significantly, the government constantly colludes with Csurka's MIEP, whose propaganda speaks of a Jewish plan to reduce Hungary's population in order to move Jews here from the presumably doomed State of Israel...

...FiDeSz insists that the opposition, whose ranks formally include the extreme Right, field common candidates, knowing full well that the Socialists and the MIEP could never agree...

...What had been done in the 1960s and '70s could not be developed further...

...In addition, since politics and economics were intertwined, after the fall of the Soviet Union it was unthinkable to retain a state-controlled economy...

...Another is how to rebuild the collapsing agricultural sector, which in communist days did spectacularly well...

...The Party of Hungarian Truth and Life (MIEP), rather disturbingly, took its name from the World War II fascist Party of Hungarian Life...

...He and his colleagues claim that they alone stand for the defense of national interests...

...The press (but not TV and radio) is open to a wide variety of opinion...

...Instead, the country today is confronted by serious problems...

...At one point it added to its name "Magyar Polgari Part" (Hungarian Civic Party), implying that it is the opposite of Socialist...

...The electorate is evidently disgusted by their uncivil approach...

...On the contrary, the bitterly hostile climate they have engendered has had a negative effect...

...In Buda and even in some of the nicer suburbs of Pest, villas are springing up...

...Local governments controlled by the ruling coalition's parties receive support from the public purse, the rest do not...

...The casual visitor is likely to be impressed and think he is somewhere hardly different from Western Europe...

...Even the FiDeSz and Smallholders' Party have prominent Jewish members, and Jews occupy respected positions in the country's cultural and economic life...

...The options available to Hungary are arguably so limited that it does not much matter which party is in office...

...The two strongest formations responsible for negotiating Communism out of existence, the Forum, a moderately nationalist Center Right party, and the Federation of Free Democrats (SzDSz), a Europe-oriented, liberal party embracing most of the prominent opponents to the Communist regime, have both lost most of their followers...

...Of the former Communist bloc countries, though, Hungary benefited most from the transformations of the last decade (with the possible exception of Slovenia, a special case...

...In Hungarian "polgar" has the connotation of "bourgeois...

...That, of course, is not quite true...

...This internationalism creates curious alliances...

...First of all, the old system ultimately proved unreformable...