Hungary: Persecuted for electing right-wingers

Gabor Stier

Magyar Nemzet

Nobody has anything good to say about Hungary these days, said Gabor Stier. After our governing right-wing party, Fidesz, used its supermajority in parliament to pass a new constitution that increases government control of the media and the courts, the Western press went ballistic. The New York Times claimed that our country had lost all checks and balances and become a mere fiefdom of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The Financial Times played up the protests against the constitution, emphasizing that demonstrators chanted “Viktator, Viktator,” a pun on Viktor and dictator. And to top them all, the Paris Le Monde actually ran a cartoon of Orban giving a Nazi salute. Sadly, it’s not just the press: The “big guns” of Western diplomacy, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, have accused Orban of becoming an autocrat.

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But while it’s tempting to just pout and say “the whole world is conspiring against us,” that would be a mistake. When so many voices utter the same criticisms, it is time to ask ourselves: Do they have a point?