I’m 43. I’m bursting with ideas, plans and energy, but I’m not doing what I would like to do: I’m kept busy by everything else that I need to do. My generation is spending most of its time breaking down the walls erected by Viktor Orbán so that we could finally see the problems that should not be concealed by the state propaganda, but exposed to all instead. The current Prime Minister of Hungary has fortified his system since 2010, a system in which everything that is still independent has been left so solely because for communication purposes, it is good to have some counter-examples. The occupation of the state is now complete. The most important public functions are fulfilled by party members and relatives, while public investment tenders, funded by the government mostly from EU money, are granted to the government, party members and their relatives. Just as the aforesaid circles of the society did well in land, gambling and tobacco concessions, the public media is one hundred percent on the government’s side, and the bulk of the commercial and local media are also in the hands of Orbán's personal milieus.

In Hungary there is no such area where the relationship with Viktor Orbán would not count. Hungary as such is currently about Viktor Orbán. He is the protagonist of this story, which he has written, directed and performed for the benefit of us all. He has baptised his work, the state superstructure System of National Cooperation, and he has defined its political system as illiberal democracy. His main points of reference for that are authoritarian, violent heads of state such as Erdogan and Putin. In Hungary, a man of Syrian descent was sentenced to 10 years of prison on charges of terrorism because he had protested against the harsh conditions that evolved on the Hungarian border last summer. During the court proceedings, fundamental pieces of evidence were simply disregarded. There is a military group along the Hungarian border that gives a free hand – after a few weeks of training – to youth with a propensity for violence to satisfy their natural sadistic inclinations on refugees. Due to the government’s several-year-long anti-migration campaign, the Hungarian society has become xenophobic on an unprecedented scale. Meanwhile, at least one third of the Hungarian population lives in persistent poverty, and 200,000 children lack adequate nutrition. Meanwhile, a US-affiliated university is shut down in Hungary simply because its founder is George Soros, who is under attack by the public media because of his Jewish background. Meanwhile, Hungary has signed a contract with Russia, classified for decades, about the construction of a nuclear power station; the utilization of the tremendous amount of money invested is uncontrollable, and the country is committing international-level corruption.

Hungary's three highest ranking public dignitaries (the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Parliament) used to share the same dormitory room back in the times of the political changeover. They have built their political career together; they have never tried their hands at anything, except party politics. They have mounted a party that is unwaveringly supported by one third of the eligible voters. But their political success should serve as a deterrent. They have amended the Constitution so that God would be designated as the most important point of orientation, but they have scrapped the clause about the State’s obligation to provide shelter for those in need. The electoral law has been transformed in order to redraw the electoral districts so as to have as few presumably left-wing voters per constituency as possible, and they have introduced “the winner takes all” principle. Thanks to the latter, Viktor Orbán's party, the Fidesz gained 66% of the parliamentary seats in 2014 with an electoral support of 45%, meaning that by carrying less than 50% of the votes, it secured a two-thirds, i.e. “constitutional” majority in the Parliament. Viktor Orbán has had a stadium constructed in his favourite village, where he had spent his childhood: that is, a stadium holding 5,000 spectators in a village with 1,000 inhabitants at the most.

The stadium cost multiple times as much as the new 40,000-person Juventus stadium in Turin, and the surplus was pocketed by entrepreneurial circles close to the Prime Minister. Orbán’s village pal, who used to earn his living as a humble gas-fitter for decades, became one of the wealthiest men in Hungary in the course of a few years. He keeps winning national tender contracts, and he owns 30 different companies, which specialize in the construction of roads, stadiums and public buildings, the management of hotels located in Hungary and abroad, newspaper publication, radio station operation, the sponsorship of domestic and foreign football teams, horticulture, animal husbandry as well as food processing and sale. Within a couple of years, this man, Viktor Orbán’s straw man increased his wealth faster than Mark Zuckerberg in the same period, which our brave man commented as follows: perhaps because I am the smarter of the two of us. Another buddy of Orbán’s was granted the right to operate the Hungarian casinos with a package deal including a several-year tax relief. In return, this grateful friend of his has bought the second biggest commercial television channel of Hungary, a few commercial radios, newspapers and internet portals, and by connecting them, he has set up Hungary’s strongest single-owner commercial media network, which has been churning out tabloid filth and fake news around the clock. The key messages of the government are quite simplistic, yet efficient. They create enemies and then they monger hatred for these enemies among their voters. In the past seven years, the government has declared war on Brussels, the EU, the migrants, the NGOs, George Soros, foreign-supported agents, the homeless, the poor living off unemployment allowance as well as the intellectuals critical of the government and the independent media. The propaganda is actually working. The country’s population is growing more and more suspicious and aggressive towards all critical or simply other attitude; the people are less and less willing to engage in debate and common thinking, or to seek a compromise. Just like the wealth of the blue-eyed boys of the governing party, of those middle-aged men mostly from the countryside who have grown rich thanks to state contracts and advertisements, has skyrocketed over the past years, so has one third of the society been thrusted into desperate and deep poverty. While Orbán preaches about Hungary’s independence, the boosting of the Hungarian economy, and the uplifting of the Hungarian entrepreneurs and the Hungarian people, the principal employers continue to be foreign companies because the entrepreneurs stuffed by the government don’t give a damn about improving the Hungarian economy or the Hungarian labour force, while the multinational companies are still paying extremely low taxes. Orbán has abolished unemployment with the so-called public works programme, which means that masses of workers without any marketable technical skills are treated like the slaves of the local governments. Taking back all kinds of allowances and training, this programme offers people a bearable living in exchange for their entirely meaningless and useless work, which produces only deficit for the state. The only goal of this is to hack the statistics so that we could proclaim to the world that Hungary is progressing unshakably towards full employment. The situation of women is devastating. They are painfully underrepresented in the Parliament (10%), and they are not taken seriously in the labour market, either. Also, the government intentionally manipulates the political representation of the Roma, making up 10% of the Hungarian population, because it plays all the financial support into the hands of a thoroughly corrupt Roma politician, who uses these funds to build his own network and mute the murmurers.

But if this government is doing such harm, why don’t the people revolt against it? Where are the endless mass demonstrations, trade union strikes and opposition events? Most of the society has either been misled, or they fear for their existence, or they have no means or opportunities at all to make themselves heard. The trade unions have been corrupted by various governments since the political changeover: today nothing can be expected of them. Apparently, the opposition can’t find a grip on the current situation. Sad as it may be, it is still the Socialists, having gone down in 2010 due to corruption and lying in public, that run the biggest chance, now headed by a fresh face, the mayor of the third biggest city of Hungary. The Hungarian Socialist Party has been campaigning with the taxation of the rich and holding the current government to account. How interesting: the Fidesz spoke a similar language when it delivered the final blow to the Socialists. Briefly, the Hungarian Socialist Party is enervated, has no credit or long-term agenda, and it bases its strategy on protest votes coming in at the very last minute. Jobbik, the extreme right party is steering towards the centre, and it is currently the third strongest party. Curiously, they represent or at least, voice the same position in a whole series of issues as Orbán. And lagging behind them come the dwarf parties of the new generation of the left-wing and the liberal intellectuals with their few percent. The current electoral system, of which I have written earlier, compensates the strongest party. In other words, the winner takes it all, the loser standing small… The opposition should have a vested interest in joining forces, yet it is incapable to do so. There is a gaping theoretical abyss between them in a bunch of substantial issues. And if they were governed exclusively by political pragmatism, they would tumble down the minute they would have to form a government. At present, the opposition parties lack even the guts to come together and declare a boycott against the 2018 elections in order to coerce the drafting of a just electoral law that would favour them. This inertia must also derive from certain existential considerations: it is still better to be the members of an opposition party in the Parliament with zero responsibility than to suddenly find themselves on the labour market with zero marketable professional expertise. Hungary is going through a belated change of regime: those socialized after the political changeover are slowly, excruciatingly slowly starting to recognize their personal responsibility and go to the political mattresses. It is not a good government that Hungary needs, but a well-functioning society, therefore it should not be forgotten that the ultimate aim is not an electoral victory, nor ruling, but the well-being of the demos. 27 years after the historical political changeover, the question is still whether we want democracy or not.

What should we focus on instead of tearing down walls? For instance, we should think about how to develop education, how to strengthen the citizens’ autonomy, how to boost social cohesion and solidarity, how to motivate our talents, the young entrepreneurs, how to ensure a fair and just competition, how to give a realistic perspective to the youth, how to enhance self-reliance, the cohesion of the families, the courageous and critical patriotism, informedness, the non-servile commitment to the European Union, how to contribute to global debates in a constructive manner, how to be useful and proactive partners in international contexts. I would like to see that politics revolve around sustainability, environmentally consciousness, renewable energy resources, international solidarity and other such values.

I would like to make progress, but for now I am just a blue-collar worker dismantling Orbán’s wall. I spend the most active part of my life fighting against the intellectual degradation of my homeland and total expediency, against a violent, hatemongering, corrupt, thief, jealous and arrogant government, which spreads fake news and divides the society manipulatively. I don’t pity myself because many have even less joy in life than me because they have to rescue their family from a war zone, for instance. I’m not complaining – I just want to shed light on the situation of those who live in Hungary and feel that the trends generated by the present Hungarian government and the opposition locked into an impasse by the former are unworthy and noxious. I’m not fighting against a political ideal, but the chaos of ideals.

I’m 43. I fear that by the time I can finally construct and not only demolish, I will have, alas, run out of breath.

Árpád Schilling