Now whoever asks a question is arrogantly refused the moral right of posing the question at all, and is actually faced with a threat that has been openly codified in law. That’s new. But Hungary's authoritarians still have to speak to the outside world in ‘European’. Europe is key.
The sweeping reform programme of Viktor Orbán's Hungarian government is provoking alarm among its domestic critics and European partners alike. But its economic policies as well as its political ambitions deserve to be put under the microscope, says Anton Pelinka.
The portrayal of Hungary and its current government by the international media and external actors is one-sided and lacks context, says the academic and Fidesz member of the European parliament, György Schöpflin. The effects are felt within the country, and raise deeper questions about the Europea
The government of Hungary led by Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party is alarming many by its establishment of ever-greater control over the country’s institutions and public life. A group of thirteen Hungarian intellectuals and public figures, who opposed Hungary’s communist regime in the 1970s - am
Government campaigns against the poor are nothing new in Hungary. But 2011 saw some unusual developments.
The Copenhagen criteria for EU accession set strict democratic pre-requisites for any country wishing to join the club. But how should the EU react when members turn anti-democratic? This question of principle is given burning relevance today as Hungary's democracy comes under executive assault –
Viktor Orbán, Hungarian Prime Minister, is busy creating a nightmarish "managed democracy" while Europe has its gaze turned to its other crisis. The political conditions of EU membership are more fundamental than the economic ones, and Hungary should not be allowed to stay in the club while flouti
The Norwegian massacre and the gun attack on a US congresswoman were both dismissed as the work of deranged loners. But instead of signifying nothing, they were extraordinarily expressive of current political life. The author trawls through a host of supposedly pathological murders in the richest
The EU has to deal with a government that came to power democratically and uses its power to dismantle the democratic institutional system. Fidesz' ‘solutions’ are desperately wrong. But the problems are real. Europe can only offer attractive alternatives to its peoples, if it finds viable solutio
There is a vital need, for the sake of the future, for new forms of collective action to combine feeling with thought, neither denying the seriousness of the crisis nor closing our minds to a ‘radical hope’ that deep political change is possible. Empathetic imagination is as necessary as science.
The Fidesz party claimed it would reverse diminishing trust toward politicians. But did the Hungarian people, or the international community, fully understand what was being promised?
In the passing of MF Hussain, there is more to be mourned than the death of an Indian artist in exile. Nor is this terminal condition confined to India.
