Janos Sugar on Wed, 30 Jul 2014 18:22:32 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> illiberal state |
Viktor Orban's illiberal worldGideon Rachman | Jul 30 07:50
http://blogs.ft.com/the-world/2014/07/viktor-orbans-illiberal-world/ Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, has just cemented his reputation as the problem child of the European Union with a speech in which he argued that "liberal democratic societies cannot remain globally competitive". All EU countries are meant to subscribe to a set of values that could broadly be described as liberal and democratic. But Mr Orban suggested that the Hungarian government is now looking elsewhere for inspiration - citing China, Russia, Turkey and Singapore as potential role models. Mr Orban's speech - which was delivered to an audience of ethnic Hungarian leaders, meeting in neighbouring Romania - will exacerbate fears in Brussels that democracy in Hungary is at risk. To be fair to the Hungarian prime minister, he sought to make a distinction between liberalism and democracy, arguing that while Hungary will continue to respect "freedom and democracy", it should reject liberalism's stress on individual rights - "The Hungarian nation is not a mere pile of individuals", he asserted. Nonetheless, some of the countries that Mr Orban cited - such as Russia, China and Turkey - are hardly encouraging models those who cherish democratic rights. On the contrary, they are all noted for - to varying degrees - intimidating the press, interfering with the judiciary and harassing NGOs. These are all things that the Hungarian government is also regularly accused of. Mr Orban's defenders furiously deny that press freedom or an independent judiciary are under attack in Hungary. But the prime minister's choice of role models is certainly suggestive. Hungary's peculiar path under Viktor Orban also has implications beyond its borders. The EU has just agreed on serious new sanctions against Russia. But Mr Orban clearly has some sympathy with President Putin's political style. Hungary has also recently strengthened economic ties with Russia. And Mr Orban has also complained about the treatment of theHungarian minority in Ukraine (as well as elsewhere) - which is a little off-message, at a time when the EU is trying to
support Ukraine against Russian aggression. The Hungarian prime minister also regularly flirts with the idea that Hungary may one day regain some of the territories that it lost after the first world war. At a time when the EU faces so many other problems, it has often been easier for Brussels to ignore Viktor Orban. But the Hungarian prime minister looks like a problem who is not going to go away. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org