Hungary: The Arrogance of Ignorance

Victor Orban speaking at the Peace Rally in Budapest, 2021. 
Gabor Gasztonyi photo 2021

 

It's finally in the air.  The Orban government will not outlast the election in 2026.  His daughter and son-in-law have taken up residence in New York for fear of prosecution under a new government.  Orban is becoming more and more ridiculous in his behaviour, and his lies have taken on a monstrous tone of arrogance, promoting simple solutions to complex problems, in an attempt to swindle his people.  But in reality, they are not his people as he despises everyday Hungarians in favour of his friends and family, who he has enriched for nearly two decades.   His simple slogans are failing, and as Hungarian pocketbooks and grocery carts are feeling the horror of double-digit inflation, the people are finally catching on—they don’t believe it any more.  They see constant images of the wealth of the Orban family and its newly built private castle, replete with massive buildings, libraries, endless gardens and exotic animals, including zebras.  Victor says it is being constructed by his 90 year old father and he has nothing to do with it.  What a splendid inheritance.  Most Hungarians will accept a lot of lies, and they will accept a lot of corruption, but not when it starts to hit their stomachs and they begin to feel hungry and abused.  There is no looking back now.  Orban must go.

 

Peter Magyar, the new man on the block who has walked the entire country, literally, has gathered a sizable majority and is often ten to fifteen percentage points ahead in the polls.  Orban is sensing his time is over, and the lies are not working.  The country is falling apart financially, and scandals such as the head of the Hungarian National Bank, Matolcy, running off with billions of dollars as his parting gift to the country of his birth. 

Fascism is based on the promotion of ignorance.   Orban has succeeded in turning Hungary into a country where all lies are believed and all corruption is seen as normal. This is the ultimate arrogance. Still, as in all societies, it does not work indefinitely.   His outright audacity and gall tax the limits of reasonable people.  Orban's ignorance has developed  a call to action in the people, as the smell of arrogance is palpable in the air.  It acts as a salve and wipes fear away, in a rising cloud of confidence and a sense of knowing what is finally and morally right.  We hope for the sake of the world that the people of the United States finally come to that realisation themselves.  I know they will.  Criminals cannot run the world indefinitely.