Ágnes Heller
Tim Wilkinson
Ágnes Heller/The Hungarian Quarterly
Eurozine
The Hungarian Quarterly
The Hungarian Quarterly 193 (2009)
2009-04-07
Twenty years on
"When in opposition, they do not comport themselves as the opposition to a democratically elected government. When they become the governing party, they pursue the same paternalistic, populist political game." Agnes Heller's damning indictment of Hungarian politicians twenty years after 1989.
The story of the last twenty years, of the period since the "change of regime"
introducing a genuinely democratic system of government, is a novel one for
Hungary. Yet, it is a very old story. God freed the Israelites from bondage in
Egypt in order that they should thenceforth have no other God but Him: they
must obey the law, so that they should no longer be enslaved to a despot. There was much rejoicing among the people to begin with. But when things did
not go as smoothly as they had imagined, they immediately longed to be back
with the fleshpots of Egypt and started worshipping the golden calf. That, in a
nutshell, is also what has happened to Hungary over the last twenty years.
/XML/infobox/eurohistoriesbox.htmThose who have directly known servitude and oppression, and for whom
freedom is the greatest value and gift, have not ceased rejoicing to this day.
I myself am of that camp. Regime change, as far as I was concerned, was a miracle
that one hoped for but did not expect to see, and a miracle it has remained. What-
ever has happened since will not alter that. As János Vajda might have written in
"Twenty Years On," his poem of 1876: whatever the woman he apostrophised may
have done over the past twenty years, she was still the woman he had given his
love to for ever. All I can hope -- to stay with János Vajda -- is that we too shall be
able to produce an equally fine tale under the title of "Thirty Years On".
That hope is more than an empty longing. A skeleton of democratic
institutions has been present virtually from the very start, and these
institutions constantly offer themselves for adjustment and correction. Over
these twenty years, Hungary has become a member state of the European
Union, and in so doing it has almost got others to forget completely (as we
ourselves, sad to say, have forgotten) that we fought on the wrong side in
both world wars. I might even say that this time, for once, the country has
joined the winning side. What is missing is a democratic spirit, a zest for
enterprise, bravery and patriotism -- scarce commodities. And not among the
political classes but among citizens at large, among the elderly as among
the young. If I were to start enumerating causes, the list would be endless,
especially when I know that others would cite different causes and blame other
political figures. It therefore seems more advisable to describe circumstances
and details.
Prior to the change of regime, most people in Hungary, if called on to think of a happy country with a democratic political system, would have
thought of our happy and prosperous neighbour, Austria. Not primarily as a
model of democracy, but as prosperous. If Hungary had managed to break
free in 1956, maybe we too might be living in comparable prosperity. But living
conditions would have improved even if we had jumped out of the Soviet camp
in 1989 on our own, or if the Soviet Union had not imploded. Since that was
not how things panned out, no western state has had any political stake
in Hungary's prosperity. The country has stayed relatively poverty-stricken,
inheriting the state debts that had been racked up during the last decade or
more of the Kádár era; concurrently, the standard of living of a substantial
segment of the population sank well below what it had been previously. Hardly
surprising, then, that those losing out longed for the fleshpots of Egypt;
ominous sign though it was, the socialist victory in the general election of 1994
was understandable. What it also signalled was the weakness of the
democratic mentality, a devaluation of freedom. Could that landslide success
be put down as a vote for the Hungarian Socialist Party itself, even a vote for
the legacy of János Kádár?
The politicians showed that they had no experience in playing democratic
politics. They had no chance or time to learn either, and hence they carried
on doing what they knew already, or had learned. When in opposition (all due
respect to the exceptions) they do not comport themselves as the opposition
to a democratically elected government but as the opposition to a party
dictatorship. As if they alone were carrying the flag of honesty against the
dishonest. When, on the other hand, they become the governing party (and
here it is hard to think of a significant exception) regardless of age they pursue
the same paternalistic, populist political game.
A democratic politician needs certain diplomatic skills. He needs flexible
contacts with all the players who stand for democratic consensus. Very few
politicians in Eastern Europe, it seems, have acquired that ability. Furthermore
it is expected of a population schooled in democracy that it shall show respect
for those in high office, whoever may occupy these posts. That capacity --
indeed, the disposition -- is not developing but, over the last fifteen years, it has
been deteriorating.
Extremist antidemocratic and racist forces and political bodies are on the
rise. The right wing often accepts their support, and even more often exploits
the disregard for democratic norms for its own ends. The left wing often feels
more secure, protected by legalistic formalities, than by mobilising public
opinion. Party-political point-scoring in parliament (which is decisive, of
course) is rigidly contrasted with political point-scoring in the streets.
It is a widely repeated quip that success in politics depends on
communication. The media shape public opinion by taking slogans from the
vocabulary of mass democracies and parrot them, thinking that this makes
democrats too. A democratic mentality, however, only arises in democratic
actions, while the success of the communication process depends of the
receptiveness of those at the receiving end.
Ideals are also in doubt. The left wing operates with its traditional bric-ŕ-brac.
Under other conditions, some of these ideals might even be productive. One such,
for instance, is the social democratic idea of the welfare state; alas, a precondition
for a functioning welfare state policy is a pre-existing degree of prosperity. For Hungary right now that can only be a dream. The right also enlists old ideologies without giving them new meaning. The worst of these is, perhaps, the idea of patriotism,
even though symbolic politicising plays only a very small role here. Being a good
citizen makes a person a good patriot. But the biggest problem of all is that neither
the older nor the younger generation places much value on personal freedom.
There are serious problems with the younger generation not just in Hungary but
in almost all the EU member states. It seems almost as if the modern
democracies of Europe -- unlike the USA -- have been unable to bring their young
people up to value freedom or to practise democracy. In Hungary, to compound
the problem, the older generation has a short memory. They seem to have
forgotten the security police, the informers, the almost routine resort to
hypocrisy, sneakiness and outright lies. Instead, nostalgia grows merely for that
household plot that supplemented collective farm wages and for the days of full
employment. Some draw sustenance from the ideology of the pre-war Horthy
times, a period few have personally experienced, and are happy to feed this to
others, unrolling a map of Greater Hungary and cursing all of Hungary's
neighbours. There are now young people who never lived under any other
political system than the present one; no wonder they can only see the darker sides of capitalism and the liberties it entails. The movements and parties that
carried out the change of regime are also partly to blame for this. Freedom -- the
right to personal freedom, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and freedom
of speech -- was taken so much for granted as an indisputable value that nobody
noticed that not everyone necessarily agreed. We of the democratic Hungarian
intelligentsia have to admit that we, too, were partly responsible for everything
that happened in the heady changeover years, and what is happening now.
We have been unable to communicate our image and knowledge of the new
world that we had entered. Maybe we have been so preoccupied with the
political agenda of the day that we failed to consider the broader aspects and
interconnections of our new world. Do people really understand, if only a
minority, the rules and opportunities of the world in which we now live? If we
say capitalism, they understand: privatisation, loss of jobs, and foreign capital.
What do people know about the market? Do they know, for instance, what is
really meant by a self-regulating market, state regulation and state intervention?
What do they know about democracy? In most cases it amounts to thinking
there is an unnecessary parliament, bickering parties, corrupt politicians, lying,
power-mad, extremely well-paid idlers, or worse. That is an unfair characterization even of the current Hungarian parties and politicians and their, sadly, all
too weak performance. And when asked what can be done about the situation,
the answer usually given is: nothing. Only bluster, whinge and blaming others.
Hungary's populace is less ready to utilise the opportunities that it has.
Neither those that came with the change of regime, nor those that resulted from
accession to the European Union. Proportionately many fewer young Hungarians
than the young of other Eastern European countries are willing to take on the
challenge of working abroad; those who do tend to be those with higher
qualifications, precisely those who are most needed in Hungary. Many are
disinclined to move any distance to try their luck somewhere else, even within
Hungary itself, preferring to scrape by on unemployment benefits.
Mobility exists where there was no socialist paternalism. It is time we woke
up to the fact that the final years of the Kádár era left their mark on the
Hungarian character. Has the "best barracks" in the socialist camp proved to
be the "worst barracks" following 1989? How are we going to finally free
ourselves of the legacy of the Kádár years?
Only if we manage to throw off that burden shall we be able to write a more
cheerful "thirty years on" report. The politicians do not have the luxury of electing
another people for themselves, but does the Hungarian people elect those who are
best for themselves? It is not a question of who started this or that: we should not
be so childish as to carry on such quarrelling till we drop from old age. It will only
be through the efforts of all those who play a part in politics, electors and elected
alike, that Hungary will be freed from this burden. A fresh page needs to be turned
-- for everyone, all at once.