Orban's divisie rhetoric and tricks explained - it won't work anymore

Seeing through Fidesz's right wing deception: the trick the Republicans, the Conservatices, Le Pen and now Orban employs

Hungary is descending further and further into the abyss under Orban. Economically only the EU subsidies keep the country afloat. Recently to keep his campaigning - entirely based on artificial fear from migration - Orban's government even stopped feeding those who apply for a refugee permit. This procedure can last for days. They try to tell people to leave before an official decision has been made, thereby basically cancelling out their application. As inhumane and evil as it can get.

Luckily, more and more people are starting to understand the communication strategy of Orban's Fidesz. And besides communication there is nothing that keeps them afloat. Orban gets support basically for reiterating every week a nice, romantic, nationalist fairy tale to his voters.
I describe here this strategy, give some examples, and tell you how to avoid falling for it.

This fairy tale is based on the schematics that there is always a new challenge or threat to Hungary. The evil person, the source of the threat is always portrayed by Fidesz as someone who is or can legitimately challenge Orban's rule, or who points out real faults with it. Such institutions and people get depicted as the evil ones and Fidesz as the saviors. Fidesz repeates its lies so often at every possible time that after a period people start discussing non-existent issues. They forget that the issue doesn't exist and start behaving as if it would.

For example Fidesz started talking of 'the liberals'. There is and never was a unified camp either in politics or among voters in Hungary that could have been identified meaningfully as such. But they repeated this lie often enough and it stuck. Now many journalists and opposition people debate as if they would be liberals and the issue would be to show that Fidesz is wrong about liberals, or that liberals and right and Fidesz is wrong.

But more and more people see it now that the correct solution is simply to point out that Fidesz is lying in the first place. There are no liberals. The problem they are talking about doesn't exist. And hence, they are just bullshitting very expensively at the voters' money instead of working.

There is a simple method to counter the effects of this rhetoric. Every time Orban, Le Pen, the Brexiters, Republicans, or people saying they are 'conservative' or 'liberal' state that there is a problem and they are the only ones who can solve it do one thing. Calmly ask yourself: is that a real problem? When Orban says that he is the only one looking at the nation's interest is that true? No. I'm against Orban and I look at it. So his claim is false. Our values and goals are the same. Where is the difference? In the facts: namely, the facts Orban wants to build his case on are non-existent. Plainly said, they are lies. This is how easy it is.

Another example: there is no threat of gay people in the world or threat of 'genders' or 'feminism'. Does any sane people disagree with the following 3 claims?
1 Gay people should be left alone to live their lives as everyone else.
2 People with all kinds of genders should be left alone to live their lives as everyone else.
3 In areas where women are disadvantages simply because they are women - in some jobs in their pay, in some legal procedures, in some stereotypes and educational institutions - they should be treated as equals.

No one disagrees with these things. This is what sane gay activists, gender activists, and feminists ask for. Since every normal grown up understands these things and agrees on this, there is no threat.
So, where is the issue? The issue is with the likes of Jordan Peterson lying that there are bigger threats (to freedom of speech, gosh), Trump railing against women because some are protesting against him, and so on. The problem is with the hate mongers who get hung up on non-issues, like how someone experiences their gender.

Call these liars out, and just move on. Don't give them attention, time, energy. Let's keep building a normal world, work, spend quality time with our families. Not everything is politics. Folks like Orban and his Fidesz would like us to believe everything is. Politics is in how we behave in our families, what we think of food, art, literature, fun, gender, etc. That is not true. Politics has nothing to do in most of these places. But sensationalist and populist politicians gain power by pretending that there is. I don't blame people who are tired and confused by the world for getting duped. It happens to all of us. Just make sure you turn away and don't vote for these people. Take a break, enjoy your life, build you community, talk with your neighbour and vote for sensible people, not sensationalists.

On Akiko Hashimoto's 'The Long Defeat'

Akiko Hashimoto's book offers a very good overview of Japanese attempts both of politicians and civilians to understand their role in the second world war, and since then.
Hashimoto covers the main political debates between pacifists, nationalists, and reconciliationists, as she divides the calls her groupings of the main approaches. These distinctions are someties oversimplified, but there are plenty of details and careful references, so anyone can strike out and make up their own mind about the issues discussed.

 

The last 30 pages of the book are in many respects the most interesting since Hashimoto reflects briefly on the post 2000 events up to 2014. It is too bad that she doesn't deal on more pages with the effects of Chinese and South-Korean nationalism, and the hatred against Japan stoked by Chinese and Korean (both North and South) governments. This is a phenomenon we have seen more of recently, and is used as a tool by the Chinese and Koreans to direct away attention from internal politics and economic problems, and their own issues with authoritarianism and human rights issues; and of course China uses this as an excuse for its own aggressive military expansion. These factors are becoming more and more important as China and both Koreas grow stronger, and turn many of the earlier fears of nationalist Japanese politicians into actual threats that Japan has to take seriously.

Of course these factors also complicate the picture of how Japan should relate to its own WWII role and validate that it should simply move on. Enough apologies have been offered, restitutions have been paid, and since WWII Japan is more peaceful and democratic than the large majority of its vocal critics, including China, the Koreas, and the US. Chinese and South-Korean politicians are utterly reluctant to admit the strenght of the Japanese peace-movements, the fact that their militaries are stronger or as strong as the Japanese, or that they are employing authoritarian, dictatoric means against their own citizens, as well as that they also have a violent history going back millenias. Until they use the conflicts with Japan for domestic political purposes in this way, the apology-politics should stop, the topic should be dropped, and a more forward looking vision crafted for Japan. Of course the horrible war crimes perpetrated by Japanese soldiers, leaders and sometimes even civilians have to be openly remembered. But they do not constitute the whole history of Japan, nor are they the only and main thing about the country around which its identity should be constructed.

This is perhaps my biggest point of disagreement with Hashimoto, who never challenges whether the relationship to Japan to its WWII role should be a central topic these days, and whether it should really be so important to the nation's identity (if there is such a thing at all). Surely there is more to Japan's history the tragic and guilty war years between, say roughly 1929-1945, and there is definitely more to it more than 70 years down the line. Since then Japan has been supporting other countries in their economic build-up, been a peaceful country, and evolved into a major welfare state conscious of the rights, interests, and wellbeing of its citizens. This cannot be said of the US which waged many wars and where the social network - which was always weak - hasn't developed properly, or China where an authoritarian regime is keeping its people cut off from the internet, occupied tibet, the north-eastern territories, and is punishing by torture, prisoning and force any serious organized dissent. The maniac focus on the issue of Japan's WWII role just seems to serve political interests of nationalist politicians in Japan, and the Chinese, Korean, Russian, and US military and political dilpomacy.

Akiko Hashimoto, The Long Defeat. 2015. New York: Oxford University Press.

Politics and public opinion

It is a very interesting myth that was around for a long-long time in Central- and Eastern-Europe that it is somehow the duty of artists, university teachers, and others in white-collar jobs to take responsibility for voicing their criticism against unjust, unfair and bad government action.
In itself there isn't anything wrong with such a view, but it does look a bit dated and exclusive. The other problem with it is that a lot of people just pushed aside the burden of getting information about political and public issues, waving their hands towards the intellectuals who are supposed to be responsible for shaping the public debate.
At the moment sadly no one else but the government has the resources to really determine what the public thinks and talks about - except of course if one thinks for oneself, or is willing to read blogs, internet magazines, and foreign newspapers, news sources.
Nevertheless there are a few promising young analysts who often advance smart and insightful criticism against the government. Zoltan Cegledi is such a person, and his latest post on his site is also a nice proof of this. (Although I disagree with the complaints about food in schools. Food is healthier now, and the kids eating way too much sugar, fat and salt so far will have to get used to it in their own interest.)

How the Hungarian government promotes itself and how it hides behind voters

The current Hungarian government is, frankly put, not worth a sack of poop. The government spends about 65 billion Hungarian Forints (roughly £155 million) on the state TV channels (M1, M2, Duna, M4). The interesting bit is that M1 has been transformed recently into a news channel. Well, guess who the news cover now 24/7? Yepp, it's the government all the way down baby, nothing else.

The other fun thing currently in vogue in Hungarian politics is to say: 'Well, the voters gave us 2/3rds majority, so whatever I do, it is what the people want me to do!' A bit of corruption: 'The people want me to do this.' A bit of lying: 'That's what the voters gave me license to do.' Being cruel towards refugees: 'Hey, it's the voters, not me!'
This is the main line taken by the PM and other prominent members of the government, and this is how they defend themselves from any criticism. When they are fairly confident that they can manipulate people the way they want they hold what they call a 'national consultation'. This consists of every registered voter receiving a leaflet with a number of question organized thematically. We can send this back to a government office. The whole process is secretive, there is no transparency, no one overseeing how the incoming replies are evaluated. The questions are of course put so that they prime people towards the answers which suit the governments main line. This is also done out of tax money of course.
In the last such 'consultation' people had the chance to answer questions about immigrants. (The leaflet did not really ask anyone about refugees or asylum seekers.) The questions all stank, but of course there are enough devotees and silly folks to send in a lot of opinions in line with the governments opinion. About 1,1 million people - allegedly - sent in such replies. This is less than 20% of the voting population. But ever since then whatever disgusting thing the government does at the borders, they justify it by this vote.

In the light of the above described I have two practical suggestions. I would be happy if either of them would get accepted.
1) Let's ask people whether they are happy that the government spends their tax money on promoting themselves. Of course at least 20% of the voters aren't happy with this. Accordingly, they should offer the option to pay back my shares from taxes (a few thousand Forints per year) which goes towards supporting the state TV (and radio) channels. Or
2) Let the voters decide what the government should use their money for. I would be super happy if my money would go either towards the proper nutritious and healthy feeding of poor children, or towards financing research at higher ed institutions, or towards creating a welcoming and effective settlement programme for refugees. I also wouldn't mind if my money would be divided between these three goals. But I do mind it being taken away for propaganda purposes and for presenting facts in a tendentious way.