Protest Math

I must correct myself at one point about the Hungarian situation. Like many uncritical people on both sides, I just grossly overestimated the significance of this love march for the government.

The right-wing has just shown that they can still beat us in protest math. So what? Does this mean the people, the "men on the street" still love the government? No. Fidesz has made it once again what they made for eight long years. That's it. That's the story. No more and no less. As you might already know, the Hungarian right-wing has an idiosyncratic feature compared to their western counterparts: they have a voracious appetite for massive public rallies.

This is one very basic things which holds the herd together. It was invented by Fidesz in 2002... Re-invented, I might say, since it was already invented before 1945. But I really don't want to go into Nazi analogies, since there actually is a chance that things might get much worse, and we must reserve the analogies for those days...

Although this time, I'm afraid I can't avoid it in order to draw the big picture. Fidesz is of course very far from being nazi, but nevertheless they use some of their techniques, like many other parties everywhere else in the world. Joseph Goebbels was a truly remarkable genius of political marketing, so they use some of his techniques. One of them is the development of a craving addiction to street rallies in the minds of their followers. The rally is not just a casual event anymore. It's a sacred mission. It motivates, excites and uplifts the spirit anytime.

We need a benign and benevolent, peace-loving father figure fighting a mighty and treacherous enemy which threatens to destroy everything noble and beautiful. The people need not only the beautiful feeling of communion and being on the righteous side, but also the imminent urgency of a large, ominous threat. For eight years, this threat has been represented by the "commies" with their prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany - the earthly incarnation of Satan himself. Now you might wonder what this enemy might be, with a supermajority in the House permitting them practically anything. But if you look closer, you can find two occasions when our mighty government was forced to bow (at least to some degree): the media law last year, and the financing of our national budget this year. 

All the three big rating agencies have downgraded our country to junk status just recently. Now the question is whether we can avoid national default or not. Without the help of "that three-letter institution" (the IMF in the words of our "unorthodox" minister of economy and finance), the answer is a certain no. With their help, maybe we can make it until 2013. Most unfortunately for the government, they have some reservations. Just like the EU, which threatens to suspend our voting rights in Brussel unless our government softens the line.

Now, like all the dictatorships from Egypt to Russia, we have our mighty enemy as well: foreign powers trying to interfere in our "domestic problems". You know the story...

But Fidesz didn't organize a single rally for more than 20 months, and the herd was starting to show some very acute signs of withdrawal. They were starting to lose their magnificent spirit and give in to the popular rage. After holding on for those "eight terrible years", now that their dreams came true (and turned out to be nightmares), they were starting to lose their unquestioning faith in the Dear Leader. Right before our last national holiday, the Party had to cancel the whole thing. Since they feared that the opposition demo might turn out to be much larger, there was no Fidesz rally on the 23rd of October. And with these messy anti-government protests turning bigger and bigger, they didn't really want to compensate. But something had to be done nonetheless.

So they made up the idea of this peace march. As I already admitted, it turned out to be a success. There is only one problem: they already made at least one, but maybe two larger rallies. And they made them from opposition. They didn't have all the public media commandeered, and neither did they manage to intimidate the private outlets. Back in 2002, they didn't even have their own TV channels on cable. But still they made it. 

By now, they managed to form an iron grip around the public broadcasters, plus they have one privately owned national channel being even more subservient than public TV, and they have two channels on cable full of nothing but the most obvious kind of propaganda 24/7. With all of this in their pockets... Well, yes, they made it. Bravo! But it looks like they are somehow frustrated with the result. Why? Because they had all the public TV and radio stations, and even the Ministry of the Interior say that this was the largest demo ever since the fall of Communism... 

Wasn't it?

Well, err... No.

I mean, let us assume that there was a million people on Kossuth ter, the Parliament square. In reality, there was only 1/10 of that, but let's say we believe this obviously impossible figure. (Kossuth ter can barely accomodate a hundred thousand people.)

The problem is that in 2002, they said two million...

Oops! Now what?

The Ministry of the Interior might have been honest, though. They didn't say anything about Communism. They used the worlds "since time immemorial" instead. Now that might be damn right! Considering that the average Hungarian can't remember what was going on even last year, they might actually have a point...

And this might become their nemesis after all. The people are starting to forget or forgive those eight years. And our government is doing its best to motivate them...