MEP Gyöngyösi: Lay the foundations of conservatism in Hungary

Every day, hundreds of media outlets report that Hungary has a right-wing government, and millions of people refer to Fidesz’ rule like that.  Quite wrongly! What is called “the right” in Hungary has no more to do with the original than grandma’s lemon tiramisu with the original Italian cake. (I apologize to the fans of the grandma version).

If you want to know why, we need to go back to the early 20th century. Just as the other Central European regions, Hungary had a delayed development of the middle class, and the process has never been completed, unfortunately. After the collapse of feudalism, a large part of the Hungarian society, let’s admit, never found its place in the new world.

Consequently, the right-conservative and the left-liberal thoughts showed up in a unique form from the beginning, with hardly any similarities to their western originals.

Hungarian liberalism ab ovo appeared as an inclusion body within an urban environment, and was infected with left-wing and even socialist ideas right from the start (no matter how strange that may sound to someone from the other parts of the world). In stark contrast with the original ideas of liberalism, it mostly wanted to copy the conditions of some western countries, regardless how realistic a goal it was.  What is typically called liberalism in Hungary is nothing but mere provincialism. The only ideological excitement Hungarian liberalism may offer to philosophers and historians is its marriage with the left, the connective tissue of which was their shared high-browed disdain for the Hungarian nation. In fact, Hungarian liberals and leftists disdain the nation to this day, due to their elitism and internationalism, respectively.

However, we don’t get much consolation from what has been named in Hungary as the right or conservatism, including the governing party Fidesz. 

This unique Hungarian “right” is not right at all. Perhaps it could be more accurately described as the common frustration of the people who were mentally unable to leave feudalism behind; a feeling which they try to vent by waving flags and having delirious dreams of the past. The “traditional Hungarian right” is actually the left which is painted with national colours and, just like the communists, tries to reach out to the lowest layers of the society. It has no other message than whatever is going on in Hungary is good as it is, and whatever happens in other places is bad. What Fidesz represents, and what is called “the right” in Hungary today, is not based on civic development or the middle class drive for learning and diligence. It is nothing but the self-justification and victim mentality of the former serfs, richly sprinkled with some egalitarian and leftist economic ideas (not to mention the anti-Semitic tropes)…

After all, what has conservative politics to do with Fidesz’ communist-inspired price caps, propaganda slogans designed for semi-illiterates or its increasingly anti-business and anti-middle class measures? Trying to answer this question, many Fidesz politicians would perhaps tell me that “the national flags are still waving”, conveniently forgetting how high the national banners were flying in Ceaușescu’s Romania, but it was a communist dictatorship nonetheless.

In 2023, we can state with complete certainty that the  ideologies defining Hungarian politics for a hundred years, i.e., left-liberalism and right-conservatism, have been utterly compromised.

Neither of them is able to address current issues, and neither can do anything but point fingers backwards. Neither wishes to face up to its mistakes. In fact, they make them virtues. They are incapable of anything other than rattling their swords along the completely artificial and pointless national vs. cosmopolitan fault line, while trying to win the sympathy of the masses through demagogic socialist promises. All normal people love their homeland and culture. To act against this, especially the way the Hungarian “left” does it, is stupid. To turn it into a political product, as the Fidesz universe does it, is compromising our nation and history.

What do we, Jobbik – Conservatives want? We want to build the real right in Hungary. We want an ideological community that does not equate patriotism with baseless chest-beating, but with how people enrich their society through learning and working.

We do not intend to represent the people who live on welfare, hold their hands out for benefits or see no other way to get a higher salary than the government raising the minimum wage. We want to represent the members of the hard-working middle class who are willing to start a business, create value through their work and ready to make things better for themselves. We believe in social responsibility and people’s need for self-organization; regardless if it is a political organization, a local patriotic society or a cultural association. We don’t want to rely on propaganda to make politics. Instead, we want to engage with people, talk and even debate with them, and we want to encourage them to do their best for their immediate environment or the progress of our nation.

We wish to do so by living rather than just preserving the Hungarian culture, by considering our faith to be the foundation for intellectual and spiritual growth instead of just pretending to have faith, because we believe that culture and faith are the connective tissues that hold a growing society together.

Our goal is not to represent everyone. Our goal is to reach out to the people willing to create, and organize them into a political community. This is what I and my party consider as the real right.

Disclaimer: the sole liability for the opinions stated rests with the author(s). These opinions do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Parliament.

• also interesting – MEP Gyöngyösi: Orbán’s foreign policy, or the snake eating its own tail