I thank you for all your good wishes! I am still with the CWI, but I don't pay any membership fee, because I don't belong to any local group at the moment. Right now I am trying to find more people interested in trotskyism and willing to build a Hungarian chapter. I made a Facebook page called "CWI Magyarország".
Okay, let's talk about my political activity... Honestly, I can only talk about the lack of it. It's really nothing more than slacktivism at the moment, partly because I'm clueless but also because I'm very lazy. I'm a little bit depressed. Sure it has a lot to do with my inability to get a life (career and sex), but the basic reason is the state of local politics. To me, this right-wing government really feels like an absurd nightmare, and I really have no idea about the time I can wake up from it. You know the story: government full of pathologically narcissistic and paranoid gangsters with an ever more obnoxious style of völkisch superiority, opposition debilitated in complete disarray. What really angers me is much rather the opposition. The word "infantile" would be an understatement. Part of this is the kind of left-wing soap opera which you know all too well, but there is a more substantial part which is Original Ungarisch! These people are just so self-confident while being wound up in the most useless and pointless kind of bickering you may dare to imagine that it makes you think they have truly nothing better to do. All right, I might say, we still have 2 years to go. However, two years are really not that much considering that the opposition has to build a grand coalition in order to get rid of the regime. With their supermajority in the house, the government did everything to cement their influence over future administrations. This influence can only be eradicated with another supermajority.
On the right, we can see a race to the bottom between the feudal authoritarian Fidesz and the revolutionary fascist Jobbik. Both of them try to appeal for the arch-reactionary elements of our backwards semi-peripheral society. After realizing their lack of chances at the center with their extreme centralization of power combined with a complete lack of rationality in all of their policies, Fidesz is openly courting for the far right. Once again they are staging massive rallies with supporters shipped from every corner of the country (and even abroad), featuring Mr Orban and his cronies bashing the democratic opposition and the "foreing powers" they serve, using cruelly simplistic rethoric. Overtly racist and anti-semitic hate speeches are substituted with endless tirades for law and order and hard-ass clericalism. Trying to preserve its character and its voter count, Jobbik is positioning itself even more to the right. That means making even more hate speeches with even more brutal language. They made a very bold sortie just recently: one of their MP's was commemorating the Tiszaeszlar affair in such a way that it provoked some anti-fascist and pro-jewish responses even from the government. Now that's a feat! You know, this is not Germany. It's very hard to provoke even the tiniest bit of anti-fascism from the right. None to worry, Jobbik has made it! Another recent example is a bill intended to criminalize homosexuality in a way which would make Mr Ahmadinejad blush in confusion. (They want to sanction the act of "advertising sexual disorders" with up to 5 years in jail.)
So much for the right, but what about the left? Actually I joined a new left-wing party back in January! It's called 4k which stands for "4th Republik" and it is mostly made up of young students, the Y-generation. They try to be moderate and revolutionary at the same time, since they are these cooler-than-thou postmodern guys, but they have some "old-fashined" ideas as well. For example, they consider themselves social democrats in the classical sense, and they are using a few moderate class war narratives as well. I was afraid it might become some kind of yuppie shit and I was glad to see this didn't happen. The bad thing is, neither did anything else. I get a monthly newsletter about 4K in the press, about their positions on this issue and that, but the last meeting of my local group was in February. [Update: I am going to attend a meeting tomorrow! We are going to elect delegates and such. I'm really excited!]
Frankly, it would be a very bad idea for 4K to turn yuppie. Competition is very hard these days. The ultimate yuppie shit, I might say, apart from the tireless young electioneers of the right, is ex-premier Gyurcsany's centrist splinter gruop called Democratic Coalition or just DK. Just in case you missed it, Ferenc Gyurcsany was Hungary's prime minister between 2005 and 2010 and he is often regarded as a major player in the creation of today's right-wing supermajority. I mean his government was not very popular, to say the least. I must say, to be honest and fair, that the whole fiasco was not entirely his fault, but he was doing a good job in making a bad situation even worse. Running up to the 2006 elections, he successfully positioned himself as Tony Blair's perfect acolyte (the latter even gave a speech supporting his candidacy), giving his party an extremely pyrrhic victory. In order to make it clear for his comrades what this strange greek word means, he made a secret speech containing phrases like "we screwed it up", "nothing we said was true", "we were lying day and night", et cetera. It was leaked out in september. You must have seen the big riots on TV. They were unleashed by this speech. Full text in english can be found here.
Mr Gyurcsany was basically trying to condition his party on the inevitable project of brutal cuts and neoliberal reforms. Party members wanted it to wait until the local government elections held in october, but that was all but impossible as the IMF was already banging on our doors. All in all, the popularity of MSZP and its dynamic blairite chairman have jumped on a very steep downward slide which didn't stop for a second during four long years. The result was a breakdown of the whole administration in midterm. The betrayal from the small neoliberal coalition partner (SZDSZ) was followed by the resignation of Mr Gyurcsany himself just a few months later. He had to resign his chairmanship as well. He ended up being betrayed and ostracized by almost everyone within his very own party. Members of the old stalinist nomenclature were working day and night to shift the blame, helping the right-wing turn him into the ultimate bogeyman responsible for everything. Nonetheless he managed to retain a significant group of enthusiastic supporters believing in his reform policies and his charisma. He was bitterly dividing MSZP and its voters even after the historical defeat. Well, one thing is for sure: the old nomenclature is just as responsible for all this mess, if not even more. With both sides unable and unwilling to resolve the issue with a compromise, Mr Gyurcsany has finally made up his mind and founded a new party. Like I said, it's called Democratic Coalition in order to emphasize the party's catch-all centrist nature. They are officially open to liberals and moderate conservatives as well. (They placed well-known figures representing both into the presidium.) With all that being said, I still think it was a very good compromise: MSZP got rid of the bogeyman, Gyurcsany got rid of the stalinists. It's a win-win!
Mr Gyurcsany was basically trying to condition his party on the inevitable project of brutal cuts and neoliberal reforms. Party members wanted it to wait until the local government elections held in october, but that was all but impossible as the IMF was already banging on our doors. All in all, the popularity of MSZP and its dynamic blairite chairman have jumped on a very steep downward slide which didn't stop for a second during four long years. The result was a breakdown of the whole administration in midterm. The betrayal from the small neoliberal coalition partner (SZDSZ) was followed by the resignation of Mr Gyurcsany himself just a few months later. He had to resign his chairmanship as well. He ended up being betrayed and ostracized by almost everyone within his very own party. Members of the old stalinist nomenclature were working day and night to shift the blame, helping the right-wing turn him into the ultimate bogeyman responsible for everything. Nonetheless he managed to retain a significant group of enthusiastic supporters believing in his reform policies and his charisma. He was bitterly dividing MSZP and its voters even after the historical defeat. Well, one thing is for sure: the old nomenclature is just as responsible for all this mess, if not even more. With both sides unable and unwilling to resolve the issue with a compromise, Mr Gyurcsany has finally made up his mind and founded a new party. Like I said, it's called Democratic Coalition in order to emphasize the party's catch-all centrist nature. They are officially open to liberals and moderate conservatives as well. (They placed well-known figures representing both into the presidium.) With all that being said, I still think it was a very good compromise: MSZP got rid of the bogeyman, Gyurcsany got rid of the stalinists. It's a win-win!
There's another left-wing group called Szolidaritas, styled (a little blatantly) after the Polish Solidarnosc. They are a group of independent unions and they have a very decent left-wing message, but there is some fighting between the two frontmen of the movement. One of them left the group in order to join a totally unknown political party. For this and other reasons, the movement has a very low profile. Of course it's not easy to get a high profile considering that the mainstream media, if not directly owned by the government, is totally intimidated by their arrogance and paranoia. It's not that the government is so frightening, but most of the mainstream media are feeble-minded apolitical cowards without a backbone, looking for the easiest way to profit. They seriuosly lack both the intelligence and the courage to do the right thing. Meanwhile, serious opposition media have a very limited audience because they can barely make ends meet.
Speaking about the audience, I can think of 3 adjectives: apathetic, hypocritical and cynical. Nazis can get away with the most brutal acts of provocation like the spoiled kid from next door, while decent left-wing initiatives are caught in the crossfire because of issues which barely exist outside the minds of those making them up. The blame game is being played with superb enthusiasm. Everyone seems to be a self-appointed sociologist in here. Everyone feels more than capable to lead the whole country on his own, and they do not feel any urge to negotiate ideas and co-ordinate action after knowing so well how stupid everyone else is.
This is how our ruling class is implicitly legitimized: there's no point of doing anything because the people are so hopelessly stupid. This being said by the people themselves, it becomes the perfect ideology for mass inaction. We are the living example of the self-hating proletariat.
On the other hand, when I try to fight against the all-pervasive reactionary dogmas controlling the vast majority of political dialogue, I am being accused as a naive leftist idiot with an unwillingness to make the gentlemanly compromise. A typical situation is like this:
1. Message on a facebook wall receives arch-reactionary comments.
2. I express my outrage and disgust in a harsh and combative style.
3. The reactionary guy interprets this as a personal attack and accordingly he fights back with the most primitive sort of 'ad hominem' arguments infused with a great deal of scornful arrogance, trying to humiliate my persona.
3b. In the meantime, a holier-than-thou liberal cocksucker previously engaged on the "progressive" side starts attacking me just to show how impartial and open-minded he is. He starts bitching about my "generalizations" or ungentlemanly style or whatever.
4. I try to fight both of them, but the very fact that neither one gets the faintest idea of my arguments makes me lose my patience.
5. I finish with something like "sorry but I'm really not in the mood to debate with reactionary turds".
6. The reactionary guy expresses a great deal of sardonic smugness in his feeling of victory claiming that I just cannot stand being defeated and that's so LoL. His comment receives a like from the liberal guy.
8. The two engage in a blissful chit-chat of vague and pointless arguments in a self-satisfied gentlemanly style just to reassure themselves about the super enlightened state of their liberated minds.
Why am I using a harsh and combative style instead of "gentlemanly" arguments? To put it simply, it's because I don't believe in arguments. Marxism for beginners, level one: What is ideology? I believe in the strategy of containment here. Nazis and their right-wing patrons must receive attacks, ridicule and criticism everywhere they go. Everything they say and do, their whole personality must look totally uncool. I try to achieve this with a reckless and daring style intended to inspire others. The only problem is that there are no others. Everyone believes in this braindead liberal bullshit about tolerance and empathy and all that.
This is the right-wing narrative about the left wing. From their perspective, the leftist is someone who takes away the revenue from people earned with hard work and gives them away to "improductive elements" in the name of empathy. The right stands for decency and hard work, the left stands for losers. Here in Hungary, the left wing accepts this narrative without ever questioning it. It doesn't even come to the mind of anyone that it's just a narrative. Everyone groups society into winners and losers. This is a world in which the left is always determined to fail.
Without class war, the left is nothing...
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