1. How did Fidesz, the party which stood up against the ‘yes-man’ parties that roamed the corridors of power, the same parties that were essentially Mamelukes, and which shook their fists at the West, winking instead at the East, parties that played to the choirs of Kádár’s people, that rejected the civic ethos, that understood ever less of the modern world, escaping instead into Kuruc-based visions, that simply eschewed all concepts for an etatist, parasitical, Machiavellian approach and that made decisions in the shadows, fleeing the public at every turn….
turn into a party
which shakes its fists at the West, winks instead at the East, plays to the choirs of Kádár’s people, rejects the civic ethos, understands ever less of the modern world, escaping instead into Kuruc-based visions, eschews all concepts for an etatist, parasitical, Machiavellian approach and that makes decisions in the shadows, fleeing the public at every turn?
2. How much criticism would the youthful Mr. Orbán and the early Fidesz hurl in the direction of today’s Mr. Orbán and today’s Fidesz?
3. How did Fidesz, which once understood the voice and language of the young middle class and which managed to win them over, the party which marched with them in the streets, which convinced them of the importance of political activism, which used them to raise itself to power…
turn into a Fidesz which…
doesn’t at all understand and can no longer project the voice of the young middle class, and which is slowly losing them or is turning into a party that is pushing them into political passivity; into a tired party against which this same young middle class now takes to the streets?
Orange Fog / Credit: jarr1520 (Flickr)
In 2010, on the eve of the birth of Fideszland, I wrote the following in the Mandiner blog:
In our brightest dreams, the future has started at long last. And so has the construction of a Hungary based on the values of freedom, civic participation, and based on the pride that is attached to these traditions — a nation-building project that has so often been stalled — and one where the government empowers individual and community-based initiatives. In our nightmares, the liberal-conservative political party of the late nineties morphs into the unity party of the “Kádár era” and becomes dull and grey, tied together by a tricolour-ribbon. It’s obvious in which vision we put our faith.”
Even today, it is clear into which of these two alternatives I continue to put my faith.
Gellért Rajcsányi
Translated from Hungarian by Christopher Adam
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Mr. Rajcsányi is assistant editor of the conservative Mandiner.hu news site.