The consistency problem

Regular readers of these entries will be aware that I regard consistency of action as a key area of political legitimation and where a particular actor is seen as inconsistent, as not abiding by his/her stated principles, the result is to discredit whatever he/she does. No one ever promised that consistency would be easy and, indeed, most cultures will construct escape hatches to allow for human error, change, vis maior or other circumstances that would otherwise result in stagnation or stasis. All the same, when a particular collectivity perceives the actions and attitudes of another as inconsistent – and subjective perception is central in this connection – then a sense of injustice will very likely follow and the arguments of the inconsistent party will be rejected.

Applying this principle to the foreign responses to the Fidesz-KDNP government in Hungary, there are several areas of inconsistency that have had unintended consequences. The government in general and the prime minister, Viktor Orbán  in particular, have been subjected to a flood of criticism in the Western media (see also the blog entry for the 25 April). Most of these take the form of concern over democracy and, for what it is worth, reflect the views of the heavily defeated Hungarian opposition in their epistemology.

This, of course, immediately brings into question the objectivity and journalistic neutrality on the basis of which these reports are formulated. If one looks at the structure of these articles, then it rapidly becomes clear that there is very little attempt to assess Hungarian developments either from the perspective of the government or of non-opposition opinion. Thus I have yet to see an article that tries to assess the entirety of the Fidesz coalition’s reform programme in a holistic manner. True, I haven’t seen every article written on Hungary, but those that I have broadly follow a similar structure and the reform process is not a part of that.

Where these critiques, which are all too often little more polemics, lose their persuasiveness for the Hungarian majority that continues to support the government, despite an economically pretty painful year, is in the (perceived) inconsistency that the Western media is ready to condemn the Fidesz government for things that have yet to happen (e.g. the furore over the media law), but treated its left-wing predecessor with kid gloves.

Gyurcsány’s lying speech was dismissed with a mildly amused shake of the head and no article (that came my way) ever sought to see that from that moment on, in 2006, the Gyurcsány government had lost its legitimacy in Hungary. As a result it was forced to look for support abroad, which it received and for which it paid the price in deference to Western wishes and the neglect of the national interest. This further eroded its legitimacy at home, but by then that no longer mattered.

Note too that this legitimacy imbalance – weak at home, stronger abroad – has tended to accelerate an analogous process in the left-wing intelligentsia which senses that its views have limited resonance at home, but play well abroad. In the annals of political theory all the same, the reliance of the Gyurcsány government and its supporting intellectual penumbra on external legitimacy is most unusual in a democracy, albeit in the non-democratic Soviet-type systems, this was the norm. Maybe it was this structural resemblance to the Soviet period that stuck in the craw in Hungarian opinion; the two-thirds majority received by the Fidesz-KDNP coalition did not happen by chance.

The key moment, to my mind, in the process of establishing inconsistency was not the lying speech, however, but the events of the 23 October 2006. This was the 50th anniversary of the 1956 revolution and the Fidesz commemoration, which was legal and peaceful, and was dispersed with great brutality at the Gyurcsány government’s behest. Without question, this constituted a serious violation of democratic principles and human rights. Yet, and this is where the inconsistency becomes blatant, neither the Western media nor Hungary’s EU partners were much bothered by this violation; indeed, they continued to give the Gyurcsány government their support.

For much of Hungarian opinion, this was and remains unforgivable, it has contributed to a palpable Euroscepticism (much to my personal regret) and it undoubtedly played a role in the radicalisation that gave Jobbik not quite one-fifth of the vote in the 2010. But this assessment did not appear to play a role in the thinking of the Western media, hence its steadily diminishing acceptance in Hungary. In effect, the question in the minds of people is: where were you after the 23 October 2006 with your concern for the violations of democracy and human rights? The concerns that are raised now are correspondingly less cogent precisely because of the silence before 2010.

There is a second inconsistency, however, that also demands scrutiny. The condemnations of the Fidesz government by the Western media are customarily based on the principles adopted by the EU and the supposition that the aforesaid government is in breach of these. In reality no hard evidence, of a kind that would stand up in a court of law, is ever adduced, the charges remain at the level of generalities. The debate on the Hungarian constitution in the European Parliament illustrated this vividly (see the blog entry for 13 June).

Nevertheless the reference to these EU principles is a recurring topos in the Western media (e.g. the leaders in Le Monde, 17 July and in the FinancialTimes, 4 August, the latter by subscription only). So, at the same time, is the reliance on the principle of member state national interest as something that can override EU interests. In other words, the universality of EU principles, of solidarity towards one’s EU partners and concern with their domestic developments goes only so far. There is, therefore, a radical disjunction at the heart of the EU (again, to my personal regret). Either EU principles apply with equal force to all or each member state can pursue the national interest as it sees fit – the latter seems to be gathering strength. But if that is, indeed, the case, then Western condemnations of the Fidesz government’s alleged breaches of democratic principles – and these are only unsubstantiated allegations – fall into the gap.

It would be interesting to examine the motives of the Western media in their repeated upbraiding of the Fidesz government. My guess is that, as ever in human affairs, these motives are mixed. First, the West likes to upbraid. It’s a simple matter of exercising discursive power. People who have power like to push other, weaker actors around. Never underestimate this feature of human behaviour. But obviously there is more to it than the Western media revelling in their superior discursive power.

Some of the explanation, at a guess, is a certain sense of unease or guilt that as Germany or France or the UK stress their national interest ever harder regardless of the concerns of other EU member states (e.g. Nord Stream), there is still a certain implicit sense that thereby these states are not playing fair by their Central European EU partners. What better way to suppress one’s guilty conscience than finding a scapegoat? That after all is what a scapegoat is for, to bear the collective burden. And the scapegoat of the year is – Hungary!

In many ways, Hungary is an ideal candidate. A centre-right government in a small country not only had the temerity to win a two-thirds majority, but is actually implementing a far-reaching reform programme. This is intolerable ideological insolence in the eyes of the left-leaning media. Besides, the aforementioned penumbra is forever rushing to the aforementioned Western journalists with ever more terrifying tales of Orbán’s alleged depredations. And here, of course, the far greater discursive power of the West as against that of Hungary really does begin to count.

What these Western scapegoaters wholly fail to understand is that the more they criticise Fidesz and Orbán and the more they vent their guilt driven frustrations, the more they strengthen support on the part of Hungarian society for the government and at the same time weaken the already feeble links between Hungarian opinion and the left-wing intellectuals, their primary source of information. It adds up to a well established mechanism, to a functioning social and cultural institution, and regrettably one that does no favours to the reputation of the West in Hungary. Hungarian readers will know the word kurucosodás, a turning inwards, a rejection of the outside world. There is little doubt in my mind that this phenomenon is on the rise. Again, I regret this personally.

Yet another inconsistency is to be found in the Western media’s differential treatment of Fidesz and the left-wing opposition. If the former, seemingly, can do nothing right, the left can do no wrong. Last month the left-environmentalist party, the LMP, floated an idea (here is the link, in Hungarian) that is so bizarre politically that journalists should have jumped on the story with a will. In brief, the LMP suggested a tactical electoral alliance with the socialists and with Jobbik, yes, Jobbik, the party that the left denounces with some justification as fascist, racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic.

The purpose of the proposed alliance was that the three opposition parties would form an electoral alliance in 2014, to the extent of supporting one another’s candidates, thereby acquire a two-thirds majority in the new parliament and reverse the Fidesz reforms. Quite apart from being a measure of the left’s desperation, this proposal, which was rapidly rejected by both the socialists and Jobbik, completely delegitimates those who put it forward.

I would have thought that this initiative would have tickled the palates of the Western media which seemingly love its obsession with Hungary, but no, the event passed them by. This is hardly surprising, the Western media can scarcely be expected to criticise their political allies, even when these allies, the LMP, do something that they would find utterly scandalous at home. If that’s not a double standard, I don’t know what is.

There is one final point that can be identified in this context. Upon what does a democratic government’s legitimacy rest, the society in which it was elected or its external critics? The answer is self-evident, apodictic even, yet none of the Western critics of Hungary seems be aware of it. The Fidesz-KDNP government is accountable to the voters of Hungary and not to foreign journalists. Indeed, the self-same foreign journalists would be appalled if their governments were to be made accountable to, say, the Hungarian media. They would regard that proposition as extreme ideological insolence, with quite some justification. Which only goes to prove that consistency is hard taskmaster.

Sch.Gy