
1984, Hungarian Edition  - yk
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/17/1984-hungarian-edition/
======
friendly_chap
For the folks who are interested, as a Hungarian I can give you a small report
based on first hand experience.

The current Fidesz government is simply a Mafia. They are the sons and
grandsons of the communists who killed hundreds of thousands of Hungarians.
Sándor Pintér[1], Minister of the Interior of Hungary is the biggest godfather
in the country currently. They kill rivals, or send them into prison.

Hungarians have the fewest rights in this country. They intentionally
positively discriminate the Roma population to spark a civil war. Divide and
conquer.

There is also an ongoing international propaganda about how "antisemitic" are
we. Nothing is further than the truth, there are 0 jewish people beaten per
year. But this will be a good excuse to further decrease our liberty.

A bill is going to pass (in a couple of weeks) which will allow foreigners to
buy unlimited amounts of land without any control exposed on the process. This
will result in the poor Hungarians losing land to wealthy people. If the bill
passes (it will), Hungary will cease to exists in decades.

The Jobbik and a couple of true politicans fight against these issues, they
want to preserve the Hungarian nation. That's why you see a propaganda about
them, framing them as evil, fascist, hateful people. Because the Jobbik and
the defense of the homeland interferes with the bussiness of the Mafia
government.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1ndor_Pint%C3%A9r](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1ndor_Pint%C3%A9r)

A Hungarian

Edit: a little bonus, worthless anecdote, probably I am crazy and fascist
because I find it disturbing:

The Fidesz announced that to prevent minors from smoking they will move the
selling of tobacco products to certain specialized shops.

Poor dumb masses were like "ohh, not a stupid idea, young people smoking is
bad hmmkay". Then, came the news, that the government decides who can run
these shops. Of course all the winners were Fidesz friends (parts of the
Mafia).

Then first they raised the price of tobacco products, to provide bigger
margins to these shops because "this is their only source of income".

Then they allowed to sell other products, like chips, ice cream, whatever,
they allowed such a wide range these products combined make up 40% of shop
sales.

So basically, with this move, the Fidesz took the right to run shops from the
common people and gave it to the Mafia members.

Well played!

This is how the Hungarian middle class is being erased.

And this is just a recent story! There is more to come I am sure.

~~~
levosmetalo
> Hungarians have the fewest rights in this country. They intentionally
> positively discriminate the Roma population to spark a civil war. Divide and
> conquer.

So, government is positively discriminating Roma population now just to try to
fix the problem that Roma population was systematically discriminated for
decades (centuries), and they can't possibly go out of mud on their own. It's
sad that some Hungarians see that as a problem.

> There is also an ongoing international propaganda about how "antisemitic"
> are we. Nothing is further than the truth, there are 0 jewish people beaten
> per year. But this will be a good excuse to further decrease our liberty.

No Jews, no racism, isn't it? Maybe there are 0 beaten Jewish people per year
now, but only because there were 0 Jewish people left in Hungary after the
WW2, where democratically elected Hungarian government got rid of them.

I don't say that your government isn't corrupt, but whenever I hear talks
about "preserving the nation", "Roma and Jews has more right in my country
than me" and similar claims, my nazi detector starts to alert.

EDIT: s/discriminated/systematically discriminated/

~~~
Vivtek
Not to attack your larger argument, but the Hungarian Jews were not entirely
exterminated, although an attempt was certainly made. My wife's father's
family is ethnically Jewish, some of them survived the concentration camps,
and they stayed in Budapest after the war. There is a synagogue in Budapest.
So tone down your own rhetoric a little, if you would.

~~~
levosmetalo
Well, the Hungarian government in the past certainly did its best to the
cause. Just take a look at the numbers here
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Hungar...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Hungary)

The fact that Hungary wasn't punished nearly as much as Germany for their
crimes in ww2 doesn't help either.

~~~
Vivtek
Sure, because punishment of nations always helps.

You're still wrong when you say there are no Jews here.

------
morsch
Overall, the development of politics in Hungary over the past few years has
been disturbing. Right wing populists with fascist tendencies have been voted
into power, large rallies of uniformed believers in the streets of Budapest,
overt and unapologetic antisemitism, overt and violent threats against other
minorities, pointless nationalist posturing towards neighbouring countries.

~~~
friendly_chap
>> Right wing populists with fascist tendencies

They are patriots. They are being called fascist because they want to stop the
current practice of paying 2000$ for Roma families for raising children, while
Hungarian families get 1/20 of that for the same task, all this while the
average Hungarian works for 400$ a month.

Don't believe everything what you see on TV. Go figure.

A Hungarian

~~~
arkitaip
This is the most ridiculous framing of Hungary's problems with racism and
extremism [1][2][3][4][5] I've read in a long time.

[1]
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/hungary-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/05/hungary-
right-political-abyss)

[2] [http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/16/hungary-rule-law-under-
th...](http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/16/hungary-rule-law-under-threat)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik)

[4]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/hungary/100...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/hungary/10037188/Inside-
the-far-Right-stronghold-where-Hungarian-Jews-fear-for-the-future.html)

[5] [http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id-
moe/09566.pdf](http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id-moe/09566.pdf)

~~~
friendly_chap
What is your point exactly? I can call your post ridicolous and link 4-5 links
too but I will still lack a point!

~~~
friendly_chap
To the two sibling comments:

In those links, please tell me, what proves that the Jobbik is a fascist
party? Also, I am not a person sympathizing with Jobbik, I am first and
foremost a Hungarian, who lives here.

If people are murdering my family, no amount of your links will prove that
they are alive and well. It's that simple.

~~~
icebraining
_If people are murdering my family, no amount of your links will prove that
they are alive and well. It 's that simple._

But you were the one claiming they aren't anti-semitic, so why should we
believe it in face of the reported incidents?

~~~
friendly_chap
Why should a party be anti-semitic? Do I sleep better if the guys in Israel
have a bad time? No. I wish them the best. On the other hand, if a country (be
it Israel or any other) threatens my country why can't I speak up?

~~~
icebraining
The incidents I read weren't related to Israel, so I'm not sure why are you
bringing it up.

~~~
phaer
Because he is anti-semite, in their modern form they say "...but israel!"
whenever you criticize them or even question their ideology. There's a strong
myth about liberals/jews being responsible for the devastating economic
policies of the government in hungary.

Fun fact: Most Jobbik members and sympathizers are describing themselfs as
apolitical hungarians who are "just patriotic".

------
Vivtek
Just a note, for anybody jumping on the Oh My God Hungary bandwagon: the
people who passed this law and the people who are vocal antisemites and anti-
Roma are not the same people.

Fidesz is likely to lose the next election; they've really been overstepping
their power. But it's a small country. As long as nobody outside supports
them, they'll move on.

What you read in Western European media is Eurocorporates being sure that if
Hungary should ever endanger the profit they extract from the Hungarian poor
(which is essentially everybody), they'll be sure to be knocking on the door
with military force in the name of democracy. I think we know whose playbook
_that_ came from.

Source: I'm an American living in Budapest.

Racism is a convenient way to marginalize those who see inequity. They so very
much want to understand why they don't have the money they see on TV. The
answer is simple, as it always has been to the Eurogentile: the Jews took it!
The Gypsies took it! It's never "The Swiss banks took it by giving you loans
in a foreign currency knowing that the forint would slump", and God forbid it
should ever be "Two years' worth of the Hungarian GDP was stolen and deposited
in Swiss (and Cayman, etc.) banks by the old regime when it became obvious the
handwriting was on the wall."

This is the first I'd heard of this ridiculous law. There's a reason it's a
problem when one well-disciplined party gets a supermajority so they can pass
whatever the hell law they like. I hope the door strikes them soundly on the
ass as they leave next year.

~~~
Vivtek
Addendum to this, by the way, after talking it over with my wife (who is
herself Hungarian):

Hungary is a small country. There are 10 million people here, and for five
hundred years they've been subjects of one or another foreign king - until the
90's (I count the USSR as a foreign king for the purposes of this post).

In short, they're a country governed by rank amateurs.

Orbán in particular is an odd duck, as well as the Fidesz party. They're a
student protest movement who abruptly found themselves in control of a whole
sovereign nation. As such, they have a lot of ideas about how to fix things -
most of which are harebrained.

In the last election, Fidesz obtained a supermajority of Parliament, meaning
that whatever Orbán says, becomes law. And here's the thing: Orbán says _a
lot_. And Fidesz says, "Hyuck, hyuck, sure, let's write it down and pass it!"

Then the other 10 million Hungarians try to figure out how to pay for it, what
kind of procedure might be involved, how to make decisions fairly - all in the
sure and certain knowledge that those clowns in Fidesz are going to change it
all next month anyway.

It's easy to look at something like this surveillance law and think "OMG!
Hungary will be 1984!" \- but no. First, nobody even knows who would be in
charge of the surveillance. Who will pay for the program. What procedure will
be followed. It'll be yet another clusterfuck of massive proportions.

Case in point from two months ago: Fidesz suddenly decided that tobacco sales
would require a permit, and that there would be a fixed number of permits,
effective immediately. Since the corner tobacconist is a staple of the retail
distribution system here, this immediately put a large number of long-term
family businesses at risk.

So they sued. It came out that Spar automatically got permits - and Orbán
openly said, "Sure, I've got financial interests in Spar, so it's natural
we'll trust them." But Fidesz swore that other than that political
considerations would not determine who got permits.

Until somebody got recordings of some local Fidesz mayor determining who would
be given permits, based on their Fidesz loyalty, and people sued to see the
procedure. No, Fidesz said, that's confidential. Well, but procedure can't be
confidential by law. So Fidesz wrote a new law retroactively declaring
confidentiality for that class of procedure.

They still have to win an election in 2014, and right now people would be
perfectly happy to stew them up and eat them whole. The only stick they've got
is maintaining that if people don't vote Fidesz that Jobbik will win - and we
all know what fascists they are! That, or the Socialists will win - and we all
know how corrupt they were!

Point being, people see through this shit and mostly just get on with their
lives, because it's all Keystone Kops anyway. Short of closing the borders,
Orbán can't actually impose a dictatorship, and if he actually tried to do it,
what real force would he have? The military isn't going to back him up. He's
already pissed off the police by calling their union clowns (remember the cops
dressing as clowns in protest a couple of years ago? No? Maybe because that
doesn't fit with the budding-fascism story line?)

In short, it's chaos. Interesting times indeed! But it's not the Third Reich,
and it's not going to be. Racism is a real problem, that's true. The only
thing that would fix that would be economic prosperity - and honestly, Orbán
has been doing pretty well resisting Union demands for austerity, so I'll give
him that much.

Discount the gloom-and-doom. It's just more theater.

~~~
friendly_chap
> if people don't vote Fidesz that Jobbik will win - and we all know what
> fascists they are!

Sure, they are born evil people. They would sacrifice their own children just
to kill others - anyone who differs in skin color.

Am I right?

There were multiple cases of Jobbik supporters rallying in Roma populated
cities, for various reasons. Nobody got hurt. Nobody will. How fascist are
them then exactly?

~~~
Vivtek
Jobbik has some good principles. I like the idea of a little pride in Hungary.
But the Roma are part of Hungary that you need to have some pride in. You're
not Magyars freely riding across the plains any more, if indeed you ever were.

The Roma are not your problem, man, no matter how many knife attacks there are
- and I know there are. But there aren't as many as you think, and there are
plenty of violent attacks in the other direction, like people burning Roma
houses down with the Roma still in them.

As to your point of Jobbik rallies in Roma cities - yeah, that's true as far
as official rallies go. I do quite clearly remember a strongly Jobbik
demonstration over near the Tisza last year that was not exactly sunshine and
butterflies, though. Hatred does not pay.

And if you think the taxes going to support Roma kids are sapping your
economic strength - there are a few ethnic Magyarok who stole 100 trillion
forint from you thirty years ago and still have it. You could stack every Roma
baby in the world end to end and they wouldn't be as tall as that. Those guys
are your enemy, and _they are Magyar_ , not Roma.

Jobbik is misguided, but I don't think they're _fundamentally_ misguided.
Their nationalistic principles show promise, like I say. Somebody has to start
keeping the money in-country, and they'd be likely to work on that if they can
get their heads out of their asses long enough.

Add to that the fact that Jobbik will have to be part of a coalition if they
do gain more representation in Parliament (there's no danger whatsoever of a
Jobbik supermajority!), and that would temper them a little and let them learn
about government, and I think there's hope for the future.

Hungary has only been newly independent for twenty years. They've got time to
make a few mistakes before everybody has any right to throw up their hands and
say they can't be trusted.

 _All that said_ , yeah - your topmost point about the rhetoric used to paint
the Jobbik as a threat is 100% dead on. They're all just Nazis reborn! Look at
the laws Hungary is passing! Oh, wait, that's another party? Oh, well, all
Hungarians are the same anyway.

~~~
friendly_chap
Thank you for taking the time to write these replies, I appreciate it. I agree
on certain points, but I still hold my opinion of that you were tricked by the
media which demonized the Jobbik.

I personally know multiple politicians who are members of the Jobbik. None of
them want to burn Romas. None of them even blame them, they blame the
government.

~~~
Vivtek
I'll give you that, I know a few Jobbik myself and they're exactly as you
describe. And I also remember the party official who discovered last year that
he himself was ethnically Jewish and was forced out.

But fair's fair, I haven't personally been at any such demonstrations - but
I'll bet you haven't been at any knife fights, either.

As to the media - after 25 years of marriage to a Hungarian, and now a year
living in Budapest, my Hungarian still sucks. I can keep up my end of a
conversation if I've had enough sleep and I can read text fine, but I usually
have to ask my wife what any given news story is about. Most of my exposure to
current events consists of her watching the news while I'm finishing up one
job or another on the laptop. So I'm not 100% up to speed on detail.

The media here honestly seems less slanted than in the States, but that is a
really vaguely anecdotal judgement. It would be nice if a study were actually
possible, but such is the nature of media that it isn't, really.

~~~
Vivtek
Also: they may personally believe that Roma are not the problem - but is that
the rhetoric they use to sway voters? Even subtly? Because you started out
trying to justify the Jobbik by citing knife attacks, and got widely slapped
down for using local rhetoric in a global forum - that's a good sign that your
local rhetoric is a lot more slanted than you think. And what you say ends up
being what you believe.

~~~
friendly_chap
I don't think I ever mentioned anything about knife fights on this forum. I
also use no local rhetoric. I just wrote what I see on the country side. If
you think it is a rhetoric to trick voters into voting then I am glad - you
must be very far away from the problems these voters experience, and that's
fine.

You live in Budapest you say. That's an entirely different place then the rest
of the country.

The amount of poverty and suffering people endure in the country side is
almost unimaginable. Unfortunately I can imagine it because I grew up in it.

PS:

I have been at knife fights unfortunately. That can happen when you want to
drink an orange juice in a pub here.

PS2:

How do you like the Hungarian language? I am a natural language geek. What do
you think how does it sound? Any thoughts appreciated.

------
bliker
This trend is also notable in Slovakia. Similar attitude toward Roma minority
and sparks of shocking nationalism[1]. This is combined with nonfunctional
judicial system and one party rule[2](recent poll).

It is fucking scary.

[1]
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/03/slo...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2013/03/slovakia)

[2] [https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-
prn1/10134...](https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-
prn1/1013458_10200495223117924_530936534_n.jpg)

------
chiph
There doesn't seem to be any upside to this, long-term.

Don't sign the consent: You get fired.

Sign the consent: In the short-term you get to keep your job, but you and your
spouse get spied upon and you potentially lose your job one day anyway. And
probably face criminal proceedings because you did something someone else
didn't like.

~~~
tome
[EDIT: Ignore me, I was talking nonsense, sorry chiph]

~~~
chiph
Don't think so..

 _Now that the law has passed, potential targets of surveillance must sign a
“consent” form. If the targets have spouses, the spouses must sign consent
forms, too. And if the targets or their spouses don’t consent to this
surveillance, the targets lose their jobs. In short, this “consent” is not
optional and the whole family is fair game for surveillance._

------
nakedrobot2
I would LOVE for all politicians to be spied on in this way, I think it is
perfect. It is the only way to keep power in check.

~~~
tokenizer
Who watches them? Are the watchers watched? By whom?

------
ekianjo
Krugman telling us it's bad for people in power to be under public scrutiny.
Oh, Sweet conflict of interest.

~~~
icebraining
"Public" scrutiny? Where's the public part?

~~~
ekianjo
Allright, you are right, but some scrutiny is better than none at all.

------
programminggeek
I'm not sure if anyone else clicked through to the article expecting a tirade
on the evils of Hungarian notation. Needless to day, I was disappointed.

