The Null Device
Posts matching tags 'hungary'
2013/8/1
Der Spiegel has an interesting interview with Adam Michnik, former Polish Solidarność dissident and now editor of the broadsheet Gazeta Wyborcza, talking about democracy, authoritarianism and civil society in Europe, looking partly at the hardline authoritarian-nationalist turn Hungary has taken, and to a lesser extent the Catholic-nationalist right in Poland:
SPIEGEL: Orbán is trying to direct his country into a "system of national cooperation without compromises." What does he mean by that?
Michnik: British historian Norman Davies called this form of democracy a "government of cannibals." Democratic elections are held, but then the victorious party devours the losers. The gradual coup consists in getting rid of or taking over democratic institutions. These people believe that they are the only ones in possession of the truth. At some point, parties no longer mean anything, and the system is based, once again, on a monologue of power. The democratic institutions in the West are more deeply embedded in the West than in Eastern Europe. Democracy can defend itself there. Everything is still fragile in our countries, even two decades after the end of communism.
Michnik: Back in 1990, I wrote that nationalism is the last stage of communism: a system of thought that gives simple but wrong answers to complex questions. Nationalism is practically the natural ideology of authoritarian regimes.
2012/6/19
In Hungary, the nation's medical research council has asked public prosecutors to investigate a genetic-diagnostic company that certified that a member of parliament did not have Roma or Jewish heritage. The parliamentarian in question is a member of the far-right racial-nationalist Jobbik party.
Nagy Gén scanned 18 positions in the MP’s genome for variants that it says are characteristic of Roma and Jewish ethnic groups; its report concludes that Roma and Jewish ancestry can be ruled out. The certificate adds: “For an interpretation of the test result and for genetic consultation relating to the family-tree research, please contact us as soon as convenient.”
The certificate first appeared on a right-wing website, which described the intention behind the gene test as “noble”, although it questioned the science. After the news blog Petőfi utca republished the certificate on 14 May, the Hungarian Society of Human Genetics issued a statement condemning the test. István Raskó, director of the Institute of Genetics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged, and the society’s vice-president, says that it is impossible to deduce origins from genetic variations at a few places in the genome. “This test is complete nonsense and the affair is very harmful to the profession of clinical genetics,” he says.
2004/3/29
Nagyrev is an unexceptional Hungarian village; it was also the site, some 90 years ago, of a conspiracy by the local women to poison their husbands:
"The women used to come to Mrs Fazekas with their problems," Mrs Gunya recalls. She said that when they complained about their drunken or violent husbands, Mrs Fazekas told them: "If there's a problem with him, I have a simple solution". That solution was arsenic, distilled by the midwife by soaking flypaper in water.
Some have claimed that the women of Nagyrev have been poisoning their husbands "since time immemorial"; meanwhile, corpses exhumed in nearby towns have been found to have contained arsenic.
And Maria Gunya points out wryly that after the poisonings the men's behaviour to their wives "improved markedly".
I suspect that the incidents of Nagyrev were the inspiration for the film Hukkle.
2003/4/14
Hungary votes yes to EU membership, with a large majority (albeit of a low turnout) assenting to joining the EU next year. Meanwhile, a pro-EU party wins the Maltese general election, confirming the island state's (non-binding) yes vote last month. Next stop: Lithuania, in around a month's time.