In Response to Lewy Re: Hungary's Turn to the Nationalist Right

LEWY -  I have read the article and, unfortunately, I have no abilities in Hungarian nor have I been able to find anything other than very short excerpts of Orban’s speech in English, which leaves me unable to directly compare author Professor Gati of Johns Hopkins’ take to what Orban actually said.  However, I am reasonably familiar with Orban and his political party, the massively-popular Fidesz, as well as with Hungary’s second-most popular political party, the nationalist Jobbik.  Having lived in Austria, which even today retains very, very strong links with its former Imperial partner, helps as well. 

First, the article confirms my central point that only the particular sort of globalist-progressive democracy is ideologically acceptable to the U.S. and the EU, with USG being the driving force behind this ideological movement.  Note that the author sets forth quite clearly that so long as Orban followed the advice of the EU and the U.S. Embassy and was praised by the New York Times, he was legitimate; now that he has rejected those, he is not, despite the fact that he represents the democratically-elected will of over two-thirds of the Hungarian people.  When USG/EU ideologues use the word “democracy” it does not mean votes or elections, but the adherence to the current international system, which I like to describe in Walter Russel Mead-ian terms as Hamiltonian-Wilsonianism on steroids.

The article itself is quite laughable on its face. From the 7^th Grade Journalism class clever headline to ridiculous appeals to authority such as the Professor’s snark that “[i]f an American undergraduate had submitted such a long-winded and pretentious paper for an introductory course on international relations, his grade would have been an “F.”  I seriously doubt, given the rampant dishonesty of the professoriate, especially those employed at private diploma mills, that the professor has given anyone an “F” ever, but to presume to grade based on knowing what is best for Hungarians more than their elected leader is ridiculous.

On the subject matter at hand, I think it’s obvious to everyone outside the ideological bubble what has happened here.  In the eurphoria following the collapse of Communism and the re-birth of a real Hungarian nation, there was a lot of appreciation there for the support of the U.S. and the EU and membership in the EU was seen as a recognition that they had left the Second World behind and had re-taken their rightful place in the mainstream of Europe.

However, as the years passed and the Hungarians became more aware of what the ideological component of the EU means in practice, for them at the street-level, opposition has arisen. As they have witnessed other EU powers and the U.S. strongly financially and politically support those Hungarians in the minority (that is, those who support neither Fidesz nor Jobbik and are broadly supportive of the EU project, including its ideological dimension) and insist they have a seat at decision-making tables in the name of civil society involvement, they have soured on much of the project.

Key—absolutely key—to this growing divide between ordinary Hungarians, their elected leaders and the U.S./EU and its supported civil-society groups is the issue of the gypsies.  Or the “Roma” as our new leaders insist on calling them.  I could pile superlatives for hours and still would not reach the level of contempt Hungarians have for gypsies.  And for good reason; just their abuse and exploitation of children alone places them well-outside the norms of civilized conduct.

As Orban stated in his speech, what he means by “illiberal” as opposed to liberal democracy is that Hungary wishes to “build a workfare society ... which is willing to bear the odium to declare that it is not liberal in character. . . .while of course respecting the values of Christianity, freedom and human rights, once again make the Hungarian community competitive."  And, most significantly:  "The Hungarian nation is not a mere pile of individuals but a community which needs to be organized, strengthened and built.”

In other words, Hungary is not EU Administrative Region Nineteen, but a nation of, by and for the Hungarian people, as a nation, and the U.S. and EU’s insistance that Roma/gypsies be treated as part of that nation on the basis of citizenship and passport-holding offends their sense of who they are, who controls their destiny and where they are going.

Orban is right in observing that the globalist-progessive version of liberal democracy sees people are nothing more than piles of individuals.  California is California if it is filled with 50 million European-Americans or 50 million Mexican-Americans; there cannot and will not be any suggestion otherwise. Same with Sweden, Norway, the UK and, yes, Hungary.

No doubt there are other reasons for his judgment, such as the sacrifice of fellow Orthodox Serbs in the interests of largely-criminal Muslim Albanians in Kosovo, the fellow-feeling with the “stonger horse” Russia in the larger conflict, but I think that is the key.

This is the use of nationalism:  to protect one’s people, language, culture from replacement or disappearance by demands that those things are mere knick-knacks on the nation’s shelf and that all other things and people have an equal demand to a place at the national table and an equal say in the affairs of the nation-state.  Because a particular form of nationalism—the national socialism of Germany during a specific time period—involved as a necessary adjunct hatred for those others to the point of killing them no more discredits the value of nationalism than doctors who think they have the duty and right to euthenize terminally ill patients discredits the value of medicine.  Like many concepts, nationalism is fraught with danger, but this fact does not say anything about its necessity.  Violence itself is the ultimate danger, yet the police man carries a gun, and with good reason.

Russians reject post-nationalism in the case of Russia, Jews reject it in the case of Israel, Japan rejects it in the case of Japan, the Muslim world writ-large rejects it in the case of the Ummah, and Hungary is no different in that regard.