Hungary: a Janus-faced country

I'm well into my 98th year. I left the country of my birth, Hungary, just before the Second World war, because, like Bela Bartok, I felt that the - then only still mildly reactionary policies of Goemboes and the indecision of Horthy in accepting advice from Bethlen, would drive the country into tragedy. It was driven and the word tragedy is insufficient to describe the depths to which the country sank during the forties...

After the war, Hungary experienced the most vicious pseudo-communist dictatorship and, after its lethargic demise, another corrupt and incompetent "pseudo-social democratic" regime, with four years of "Orban-ery", which was also so incompetent that even "Gyurcsany-ism" could twice defeat it in free and fair elections.

Now, after another free and fair election, Orban has returned, this time with powers that inevitably will repeat the fatal indecision of the last Horthy years. Even after a few months he already shows shades of autocracy, like some Heads of nominally "democratic" states further East. He will profess to clear up the Augian Stable he inherited, but for all his considerable intellectual and charismatic gifts, by giving himself absolute power to run the country single-handed, and also by not resolutely distancing himself from the extreme rightwing vote that helped him to power, he will recreate the Goemboes era, with its reliance on the fatuous belief that the disaster of Trianon can be assuaged by jingoistic, chauvinistic sloganizing, a return to a personality cult based on the adoration of Horthy and so-called "Christian virtues", and the pretended uniqueness of the country, supposedly superior to all its neighbours.

Hungary will remain a nominally parliamentary democracy.

In the meantime, tourists with dollars and Euros will continue to flock to Hungary and enjoy the beauty of Budapest, the healing waters of Heviz, the smart coffee shops and many other delights. Behind the majestic boulevards, FIDESZ voters will continue to need two jobs to survive, and the age-old Hungarian disease of looking for scapegoats to hate will fester at an ever increasing pace. The few Jews left after 460,000 of them had been shipped to Auschwitz by their compatriots in 1944, the Roma, liberalism, and European cosmopolitism will serve well as ammunition.

I still love the memory of my happy childhood, my education, my artistic development at the Liszt Ferencz Music Academy, the smells and tastes of the food, the brilliance of the art, music, literature and science, and the beauty of the language and landscape. Yet, apart from occasional bouts of homesickness, I am relieved never having to see again the brutal cock-feathered Gendarmery, or read the vicious antisemitic outbursts of a Bayer Zsolt under the cloak of journalism - the publication of which now seems to be tolerated, or watch demonstrations on the Heroes' Square by large crowds greeting visiting SS veteran "brothers in arms".

There is still a brave, talented and progressive elite in Hungary,that hopefully will one day offer true statesmanship to that wonderful but Janus-faced country.