This entry is mostly intended for foreign enquirers. Its purpose is to flash some light on the background of the new hungarian media act, and the international hysteria around it, from a hungarian's point of view.
I'd like give a short and totally subjective historical retrospection, so that you may better understand my point.
Lets go back to the 80's, when there were demonstrations in Budapest against the soviet occupation. The communist authority broke up all these, the protesters were always beaten, they risked their entire future and career by participating on these gatherings. No one could be sure, that the communist era is coming to an end in few years. Among others, a law student called Viktor Orbán also
attended. Of course the media remained silent in those years, people outside the capital could not be informed about anything. The machinery of communist censorship worked. Ms Ildikó Lendvai was one of the head censors on that department in those years.
At the same time, the KISZ (Alliance of Young Communist) was the offical youth organisation of the communist state. The KISZ had an incredibly huge monetary asset, that simply disappeared after the communist era. Its leader was Ferenc Gyurcsány on the end of the 80's.
I will come back to these names later.
The first freely elected government of Hungary after the soviet occupation was right-conservative. They won the election in 1990 with a significant majority. I was 19 in that time, I didn't care too much about politics. Then -as market economy slowly unfolded - among others the price of fuel raised steeply. And then suddenly some taxi drivers -just like at the sweep of a magic wand- decided to turn their cars across the streets all over the country, to protest against the gas prices. People didn't understand too much of it, it seemed funny at the beginning, but later on when we heard from the news, how much harm they cause to the economy with this so called 'cabbie-blockade', people began to stand against it. The goverment behaved more or less as a lame duck, they were absolutely inexperienced, didn't want to deploy police force, to be one of the first measure of a young democracy's first government. We didn't know for years, that this was actually a attempted coup. In the recent years more and more proofs and documents turn up, implying that it was organized by the opposite parties, namely liberals and communist (who renamed themselves to socialists in the meantime). They have never been afraid of being unconstitutional as long as they didn't have to lend their names to the acts. Then the cabbies got bored, and went home. So the commies and the liberals had to wait 4 years to begin with the looting.
Then 1994 arrived, and the socialists won the elections. Although they had absolute majority, they went into coalition with the liberals, the ones who promised earlier to never go into a coalition with the socialists. I also voted on them, I admit. I'm probably not an independent source, but basically I've had a left-liberal attitude - until the middle of the 90's. Well, it was a sobering period for me: I never thought that a freely elected government may ever perform so many nasty things they've done then. To the end of their period their social restrictions turned the country into a poorhouse. Besides other measures they obliged each tax payer, to join a so called private pension fund, that also received a part of their superannuation tax. Mandatory, in the name of the 'liberal economy', this is nonsense. This measure proved to be catastrophic for the budget, for long years to come.
Then 1998 arrived, and the right wing party called Fidesz won. They've put the country more or less right: both economically and morally. Guess what was the name of their PM ? He was Viktor Orbán.
Then 2002 arrived, and the socialists hired a coony spin doctor: Ron Werber from Israel. They were extremely badmouthed way before the campaign, the (foreign owned) commercial media helped them, in turn they allowed later these TV stations to postpone (or maybe omit ?) paying their taxes. The tittytainment-fed dumb people voted on them, so they won. Again, they went into coalition with the liberals, it almost seemed to be prescribed. Their PM was a economist, an old commie. He wasn't a mean guy, although neither his hands were completely clean. To be euphemistic, his hairstyle was not the only thing he differed from Einstein. Somewhat later it turned out that he was an state security agent in the communist era, but this prequel didn't really bothered the once-so-proudly-anticommunist liberals, so they remained in the government (ie. at the swag). Trying to earn some popularity they quickly spent the wealth that the previous government recovered, mostly for social issues. So the economy headed into collapsing again. The buzzword was attracting the foreign investors to Hungary. In order to do this, they were able to spend countless hundreds of million HUFs as state subvention money to
carpetbaggers (alleged foreign investors with an own capital of few million HUF), who usually ran off with the cash. The PM had to go, so a fellow party member couped him. Guess what was the name of this nice and honest guy ? He was Ferenc Gyurcsány. We left his thread at the end of the 80's, remember ? In the meantime he lived the life of the compromisedly righteous ex-commie upper crust: turned his policitical relations into business benefits, and became a billionaire. By business I dont't mean some constructive, sweating activity, building the economy, adding value, or anything like that. These guys were rather tricksters: usually privatized some formerly state-owned property or company for a song. Then usually leased out the property back to the state, and paid the costs of privatization from the incomings. So our 'hero' longed back to politics, and became the new PM of the socialists in an instant, in 2004. The upcoming 6 years we can call a run amok.
In the spring of 2006 the commies along with their then-BFF's liberals won the elections again. It was an obvious cheat: besides the emerged manipulations with the votes, prior to the elections the commies boldfacedly lied to the people and the EU as well concerning the state of economy. Even Mr. Gyurcsány has acknowledged it in his infamous speech, which he told in a private gathering in front of his socialist comrades. Fortunately someone made a tape recording of it, and leaked out to radio stations in the autumn of 2006.
People were shocked. Even the peaceful demostrations that followed this were brutally repressed. The commies and liberals deployed everything to save their power, they returned to their roots concerning their approach to democracy: rubber projectiles shot at head-altitude straight in the eye, steel baton, carcinogenic tear gas, cavalry attack, newly purchased israeli water cannons (from EU money, that was solely intended for infrastructural development). There were rumors that some of the policemen didn't even spoke hungarian. The Fidesz still did not want to go unsconstitutional. As a result, the commies could fully work out their 3rd period. In the meantime they proved to be concerned in so many dirty business affairs, that people had enough of them, and send them to hell in 2010, by giving Fidesz a more than 2/3 authorization for governance.
As it recently turned out, there are some global business groups with some
not-quite-legal investment interests, who enjoyed strong (and quite-illegal) support by the previous left-liberal government, causing serious economical harms to the country in the past. Now, Mr. Orbán's conservative government regulated these groups (including the private pension funds that disemboweled the hungarian budget in the last decade), trying to resettle the national economy this way, among others. Not surprisingly this groups possess some excellent media relationship worldwide, that they can exploit anytime if they feel their business interests wounded.
OK, and now we arrived to the roots of this worldwide hysteria about the media law. I don't want to waste too much words on its obviously salutary aspects like protecting children from violent, sexually explicite, and other harmful content, prohibiting commercials directly targeted to minors, limiting tobacco and medicine advertisements, as well as the length and sound volume of commercials.
The most neuralgic point seems to be that the media will be obliged to tell the truth. Remember, how the commies won in 2002 ? The popular media broadcasted shows, that made fun of discrediting the government. That wouldn't have been a problem, if they would have done to both sides as well. The left-liberals however overwhelmingly dominated the media, which in turn lied as boldfacedly as possible about the right-conservatives. Dumb people are ideal voters for the left-liberals. They believe a lot, if it is wrapped into fun, beer, vulgarity and sausage. They believe that Mr. Orbán is a dictator, the one who was beaten by the commies' police in the 80's because he stood off for their belief in democracy. They also believe that Mr. Gyurcsány, the ex-commie billionaire is not an insincere villain, but a democrat from the beginning, if they hear it enough times.
Now the commies and liberals resort to their old methods: they know they couldn't make a successful coup, having an even smaller inland supportting base than they had in 1990. On the other hand, if the media law kicks in, it won't allow the old methods, so the commies couldn't even repeat the 2002 trick, even with such a qualified shit-stirrer, as Mr Werber. This is a trap situation: in 2014 every party has to be measured by their true achievements, in which the so called socialists and liberals have never performed very well. They were always good at augmenting their own private wealth, and introducing social restrictions on the people at the same time. They know however, that the above mentioned not-quite-legal business interests mean strong allies for them. In a battle, in which they consider their own country their enemies. Looking at all the whining articles in the global media the time seems to be arrived for them to leverage this alliance against us.
And now a little laughter to the end. Yesterday I read the
punchline: a socialist politician called upon the constitutional court to reject the media law, because it implies censorship in the media. Guess what is the name of this justice-champion: yes, she is Ms Ildikó Lendvai, the censor of the long ago passed communism.
