Zoltán András Bán on Hungary's unenlightened absolutism

In the left-liberal weekly Magyar Narancs, literary critic Zoltán András Bán paints a gloomy picture of the attitude towards democracy of Viktor Orbán's right-wing conservative government: "From a social and psychological viewpoint the rise to power of Viktor Orbán and his right-wing conservative Fidesz party was a revolution of the upstarts. After eight years [in the opposition] their mentality was pathologically reduced to the equation: we have suffered until now, now it's [you Socialists'] turn. ... Fidesz has lost its presence of mind, its common sense lies idle in the cloak rooms of parliament. ... What we are seeing is pure absolutism. ... But in contrast to its 18th-century predecessor there is nothing progressive about it at all. This government does not seek to renew society, and when it does it runs roughshod over the values of modernity. The absolutism of the Orbán government wants to reintroduce long obsolete values and an anachronistic mindset in Hungary. For the government, history is not controlled by the people, but by an ill-defined God. ... It undermines the country's secular fundament, which is essential for an efficient, modern society."

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