Nationalizing... teaching books

Nothing extraordinary or unexpected, just business as usual.

The Hungarian Parliament will vote on (and undoubtedly approve) the complete natinalization of school books. The draft is very clear in stating that private actors will be taken out from the drafting, production or distribution of school teaching material.

This fits very well into the education policy of this governent, which has been built around the nationalization and ’gleichschaltung’ of all schools, meaning a wide-reaching uniformisation of tuition programmes and materials. 

Hungary to Turkey: how dare you criticize our glorious democracy?!

A short glimpse into the mind and logics of the people running Hungary today.

There’s a long history of the current Hungarian Government using diplomatic channels to protest reports in foreign media that paint an unfavorable picture of it. In fact they even have an under-secretary whose only task is to monitor foreign media voices (including blogs) and react to them.

Recently, Hungary’s ambassador to Austria protested publicly against an Austrian art exhibition centered on anti-Roma sentiments in Hungary, for showing Hungary in a bad light.

In another case, PM Viktor Orban himself got active condemning a ‘children’s news’ piece on German state TV’s, which was critical about freedom of press in Hungary and the weakening of the constitutional court. Mr. Orban said (do spot the hidden beauties):

‘I feel sorry for German kids, being subjected to brain-washing. A thing like that would be unthinkable in Hungary. If it happened here, everyone would be fired.’

And now the unthinkable has happened; a publication of a think tank belonging to the Turkish Foreign Ministry came up with the following sentence:

‘As it stands, it is impossible to characterize Hungary as pluralist, much less as democratic in the usual sense of the word; at the time of this writing, the Hungarian government, supported by a large proportion of the population, is clearly on an authoritarian track, already displaying clearly illiberal tendencies.’

The Hungarian Foreign ministry reacted promptly by calling-in the Turkish ambassador in Budapest for a talk. There the Hungarian side put out that this analysis does not fit at all into the context of continually improving Hungarian-Turkish relationships. Also they demanded explanation how such an opinion could be published.

This blogger is happy to report that the ambassador distanced himself from that analysis, emphasizing that the views appearing in the publication are not those of the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

“Dear employees, we advise you to demonstrate for the government”

Yet again, a true gem. 

CBA is a household name in Hungary; it is a huge food retail chain with the largest network of stores. Also, it is known that the persons behind the company have been early and ardent supporters of Fidesz and Viktor Orban.

Orban’s government has not been unthankful; with a number of measures it ensured CBA's swift growth and weakened its competitors. To name just one issue from a long list, the punitive sectoral special tax on retail companies was designed so as to exclude CBA and instead hit the likes of Auchan, Tesco and Spar.  

But CBA knows money is not the only way it can support the government. And hence a cute little letter, published today by Hungarian media, was sent to all CBA store managers for dissemination to all employees.

In essence it called for participation on the October 23rd ‘peace march’, periodical grand demonstrations designed to show the mass support behind the government to the world.

The letter, signed by the owners of CBA and sent to store managers reads like this (admittedly my humble English cannot nearly deliver the sheer beauty of the Hungarian original, but I'll give it a try) :

‘László Baldauf and Vilmost Lázár {the owners of CBA} have an appeal of private nature to make to the members of our alliance system, the members of the grand, supportive CBA-family.   

On October 23rd we commemorate the heros and martirs of the 1956 revolution. However this celebration also presents a good opportunity to show the support for our national government. Affirmation and sticking-together is important, given that only by uniting we are able to limit and counter the ugly jiggery-pokery of postcommunist, liberal thugs who are again and again traitors to our country, serving the interests of multinationals, thereby sacrificing the Hungarian peoples’ well-being and development.

All who care for our nation’s strengthening and systematic and even development are called upon to come and participate together on the peace march and then listen to the Prime Minister’s {capital letters in the original] speech.  It is important that all of us, national-minded true patriots support our Hungarian politician of greatest format, our nation’s prime minister, Viktor Orban.

[Information on timing and route of peace march]

We ask upon the store managers to inform all employees on this letter and its important contents.’

By the way, there’s a continuous dispute among Hungarian intellectuals whether there is dictatorship in Hungary or not. The overwhelming majority is of the opinion, that there’s no (not yet a) dictatorship. 

Interim elections ‚irregularities‘

Once again a priceless little chain of events that is more telling than a thousand pages of analysis.

The southern Hungarian town of Baja is otherwise not terribly spectacular (save for the fish soup made there, that is well known throughout the country),  but it now got its 15 minutes under the sun due to a recent interim election for parliament, which has taken place due to the local MP’s decease. Being just half a year ahead of national elections, the voting attracted nationwide interest and major efforts on the parties’ behalf (NB classical polls are not so reliable in Hungary as opposition supporters are known to often shy away from outing themselves) .

Fidesz won the vote tightly before the democratic opposition’s contestant. However the opposition pointed to irregularities and showed video tapes that seemed to prove multiple-voting and organized transport of certain voters to the voting stations. Charmingly, Fidesz seems to have outsourced this fine task to its Roma allies ‘Lungo Drom’ (a nationwide Roma organization). Apparently, after all those ambiguities about the role and worth of Roma in Hungarian society, Fidesz has found a use for them!

Anyhow, the opposition went before court, which ruled the election be repeated.

Fidesz was quick to interpret the court’s ruling saying no cheating had been identified. Being asked about the irregularities, and whether there would be consequences within Fidesz, the press was told by the head of Fidesz’ parliamentary group to ‘do their campaigning for the opposition elsewhere’.

He added that they would change the electoral law such that the practices in question would not be illegal anymore at the national elections in 2014. He referred to Western European examples naming e.g. Germany and the UK as countries which inspire the said change of law.   

Cherry-picking from the news of the last couple of days

Hungary is such a great place because there's just not a single day without some memorable news, idea, or comment - mostly, though by far not only, from within the conglomerate that rules the country today.

To prove the point, here comes a selection from the last three days' harvest.

- László Kövér, Speaker of the Parliament and a major figure in Fidesz (we had him already here) said that it would be much better to rule by decree. In his view, the current way of governing that is bound by laws is, erm, outdated. And it had been created after the systemic change in 1990 out of fear of dictatorship, which fear is by today obsolete.

(Now tell me, could Kafka, Vonnegut or Monty Python have gotten up with anything like this? By the way, this is the same reasoning they employed when they destroyed the Constitutional Court. Then they said the Court had been important in times when the rule of law was unstable, but now it is firm so... the Court can be done away with. And everyone knew they were crushing the Court in order to be able to pass retroactive laws.) 

- Ethics. Ethics is very important for the government. So important that it has been introduced as a mandatory subject in lower education. Complete, of course, with detailed mandatory curriculum and a uniform teaching book to be used in all schools across the country. And that has delicacies such as: "Hungarians are one of Europe's most open-minded, welcoming and friendly nations, hower the many adopted nations teared the country apart"

- The famous Pető Institute has financial difficulties so severe that it is near bankruptcy. The institute is the center of educating specialists who treat children with various disabilities with the Pető method. At the same time, the state is building expensive football stadiums en masse. See, PM Orbán likes football. And he doesn't like gay things such as inclusive therapy. Or humanities.

- Quite in the above spirit, Lajos Kósa, also a senior Fidesz politician, said in a school's yearstart celebration: "good children, when beaten, tend to perform" The audience stood up and left. (I'm joking, of course the audience did nothing, except clap-clap)

- And, PM Orbán's daughter got married. The lucky winner is the son of a local Fidesz nobility, and got elected into the management of the regime's favourite company (producing a stunning 99% winning ratio in the public procurements they competed for. Basically they biuld everything in today's Hungary).
Notably, the roads on which the pair would drive on the day of the wedding, were repaired with great haste by the authorities.

...and, as said, this is the harvest of three short days, in contemporary Hungary.
    

Nationalizing… cigarettes retail sale

There are few better examples to demonstrate the actual workings of Hungary under Orban than the recent case of cigarettes retail sale's nationalization.

It happened in April 2013 that the government surprisingly announced that the retail sale of cigarettes shall be restricted to a low number of specialized shops across the country. All other existing sellers (small shops, supermarkets, gas stations etc) shall be forbidden to sell cigarettes as from July 1. The number of new authorized shops was kept so small that they would have effective monopolies in their surroundings.

The move was explained with the need to curb young peoples’ access to cigarette and with providing work and living for ordinary Hungarian people (as opposed to international retailer groups).

In a matter of weeks, the owners of these new concessions were selected in what was allegedly a fair and open process.

However, more and more cases emerged in the press which suggested that the new concession winners were attached to the governing Fidesz party in one way or another. Among them were many friends and relatives of Fidesz MPs and local representatives, but also people like the chief editor of the national news agency. In some places, the two concession winners were the (Fidesz) mayor and his wife. Most of the winners had never had any retail activities so far.

Parallel it became evident that most existing small shop owners failed to win a concession and were facing closure given cigarettes was their anchor product. The press found out that several of them were approached by the new winners offering ‘cooperation’ in the operation of the new shops.

Evidence mounted that a few government-friendly families have secured vast numbers of concessions. One of the largest winners turned out to be a company named Continental Tobacco, with close ties to Janos Lazar, head of the prime minister’s office and a powerful figure in Fidesz. Later it became known that Continental in fact wrote large parts of the new law’s text.

So the emerging impression was that this entire operation was effectively an expropriation of existing shop owners and others sellers of cigs, and a redirection of related incomes to Fidesz’ entourage.


As a matter of fact, the fixed price margin for cigs was immediately raised from 3% to 10%, thereby providing very respectable incomes to the new shop owners.

Media’s attention turned to the competition process which decided who would win the concessions. They filed information requests to the respective ministry in order to receive insight into the competition documents and scoring of the applications; requests that could not be declined under the existing law.

Fidesz’ two-thirds parliamentary majority reacted quickly by changing the respective information law retroactively and introducing into it the concept of ‘abusive information request’ as a punishable offense.

Additionally, the minister decided to immediately send back to the applicants their applications so they would not have to be shown to media. The press then got hold of some sent-back unsuccessful applications, only to find that those hadn’t ever been opened.

In the meantime, more and more rumors hit the press on how local Fidesz groups were influencing who would win the concessions. One local Fidesz representative claimed that in his city, it was the (Fidesz) mayor and the local Fidesz townhall faction which handpicked the winners. The claim was rejected by Fidesz however then voice recordings emerged which proved just that. Of course, there were no consequences for the involved, except the ‘traitor’ had to leave Fidesz and a campaign was started against him in local media citing alleged corruption cases of his.

Several notions were filed to the state prosecutor but the office (headed by a former Fidesz MP) decided the tapes did not necessitate an investigation as there were no signs of any wrongdoing. One action they did take however, in starting an investigation into whether personality rights of the mayor and Fidesz representatives had been violated by recording their dialogue in which they decided on the concession winners.

There are some more fine details to this story allowing glimpses into the workings of today’s Hungary:

- The conditions of the competition for concessions required that anyone competing would wiave any right to legal action against the decision.

-  Some 1400 out of 3200 total municipalities in Hungary remained without a cigs shop, meaning it is simply not possible to buy cigs in these villages today. The reason is that there were no applications from these, partly because the law placed strict requirements on the new shops necessitating often costly investments which many could not finance. The government reacted quickly: existing retailers of all kinds in these rural areas received official letters telling them they have been ‘appointed’ to sell cigs in their villages and urging them to file a respective application.

- When the press got full of stories of existing shop owners who’d lose their living, PM Orban himself got active and stated that 'the state must ensure the continued livings of these people'. Soon an official state aid program was announced. Later it came out that the eligibility criteria were so that less than a quarter of existing owners could participate.

- The government made sure the new status quo could not be changed easily by a future government. The contracts signed with the winners stipulate that if the concessions were to be revoked, or further sellers be allowed into the sector, then the government would have to pay enourmous fees to the concession owners.

- As regards state and Fidesz-friendly media, they were largely silent for much off the time. When the topic became too apparent, they ran a campaign claiming that the concession winners were close to the opposition Socialist party. Seriously. They presented two winners as evidence; however the alleged affiliation to the Socialists turned out to be false in both cases.  Also they claimed that the cigs producer Phillip Morris was behind the ‘organized campaign’ against the new law, along with the obligatory ‘foreign forces want to weaken the government because it protects national interests’ punchline.

- And… rumor has it that alcohol’s next.

On the perfectly lawful method of preventing opposition demonstrations

Nothing really new, just a continuation of a well-functioning method.

Different government entities have reserved virtually all places suitable for gatherings on March 15, a national holiday in Hungary and traditionally an opportunity for opposition forces to show themselves.

This means that, as in prior year, there will be quite simply no place for opposition parties to gather and demonstrate.

Legally the method works perfectly well, as - understandably - there can be only one demonstration at a time in a given location.

Also, as the public has learned last year, the law does not foresee that there is an actual gathering/demonstration/whatever held at the reserved site.

End of story.

'Gypsies should not exist' - waves

After a short period of contemplation, governing Fidesz threw its weight behind Zsolt Bayer, who quite simply called for the extermination of Roma in a newspaper article.

Even Bayer's publisher, a well-known oligarch, and an ally of PM Orban, withdrew the initial lukewarm apology and called upon his readers to unite behind Bayer. He called the protests against Bayer's remarks 'an attempt to create rifts in right-wing unity'.

Yesterday then produced a true piece of art, as a handful of demonstrators gathered before Fidesz party HQ to protest their stance. There they were greeted by a molino hung onto the HQ's walls, carrying the following message:

'Do not side with the killers. Do not listen to Ron Werber'

The first sentence refers to the deadly dispute which had served as an apropos to Bayer's article, and in which the attackers were allegedly Roma.

The second is a reference to the Socialist party's campaign consultant, who helped them win the 2002 elections and has now been hired again by the socialists. As in 2002, his appearance has massively angered right-wing voters, as he is, supposedly, of Jewish origin.



PM Viktor Orbán remained, tellingly, silent all along. This prompted some observers to lament whether Bayer's remarks could be part of a greater strategy of Fidesz to lure the voters of far-right Jobbik.

'Gypsies should not exist' - reactions

{For the original claims, click here}

Of course, everyone looked to the governing party Fidesz of which Zsolt Bayer is a (prominent) member.

A minister, Mr. Navracsics's words were interpreted as a call for ousting Zsolt Bayer from the party. He called Bayer's statements grave and unacceptable and added: 'people who call groups of humans animals have no place in a community'. 

However his view remained in minority in his party, apparently. 

Fidesz' spokesperson produced yet another true gem by saying: ' Mr Bayer wrote the article as a journalist {i.e. not as a Fidesz member}. Fidesz understands society's emotions in connection with certain recent crimes, given that in short time two sportsmen have been killed in knife attacks, but public figures should not be writing or speaking in a hot-tempered way'.

She added that society may form an opinion on a journalist's articles, but she would not find it appropriate for Fidesz to do so.

Finally she warned against putting Bayer's remarks in the same bracket as MP Gyöngyösi's ones, who had famously called for a list of MPs and government members with Jewish origins. 

Máté Kocsis, head of communication in Fidesz, called the protests against Bayer's remarks 'a circus' and said he understands Bayer's feelings, it's merely his style he's not okay with.

Pro-gov media anchor: 'gypsies should not exist'

Introducing Zsolt Bayer, a journalist and proud holder of the governing Fidesz party's membership badge nr. 5 (meaning he's a founding father).



He has been a key organiser of the 'peace marches', giant demonstrations in support of Viktor Orbán's government (for which he received an award just days ago from... the government).

As the iron fist of the fidesz-controlled media, he's stirred controversy quite a number of times in recent years, e.g. when he accused jews of 'blowing their nose into the nation's swimming pool' or when, as a reaction to criticism against Orbán, he expressed his regret that not all left-leaning people were dug into the earth in the woods of Orgovány (that's where after WW1 far-right paramilitary units murdered high numbers of allegedly left-leaning citizens).

Now he used an argument-turned-fatal among youngsters to share his views about Hungary's Roma population.

“A significant part of the Gypsy population are unfit for coexistence. They are unable to live among humans. These Gypsies are animals, and they act like animals. They want to mate/rut whenever they see someone and with whoever they see. If they meet resistance, they kill. They defecate wherever and whenever they feel like it. If they feel obstructed, they kill. They want to get whatever they come across. If they do not get it immediately, they take it and they kill. These Gypsies are incapable of all human communication. Their animal skulls emit inarticulate sounds, and all they understand of this miserable world of theirs is violence. [...] Those animals must not exist. In any sense. This is what has to be solved immediately and by any means!”

This gentleman has a well-known excellent relationship, based on mutual respect, with the prime minister of Hungary, Mr. Viktor Orbán.