What Can We learn From Hungary?
Prime Minister Orban is a Republican Role Model
I’ve been reading about Hungary. Although I’ve traveled extensively and even lived abroad, I’ve never spent time in Eastern European countries. Hungary has always been of interest to me, but these days, I’m not inclined to venture there. I’d be safe, especially because I’m white, but Hungary is on its own political journey after a few years of democracy.
Now, I’m not a historian, so forgive me for supplying only rudimentary facts concerning the rise and fall of Hungary.
With all of its problems — and it has suffered many setbacks — after 1989, Hungary was a success story. Their transition from dictatorship to democratic government was celebrated. Suddenly, Hungarian citizens could travel, watch foreign movies, start their own businesses, and speak freely. Free elections, a representative government, a constitutional court, and democratic opposition were established. It wasn’t that long ago, mind you, and it really didn’t last that long either, because sooner rather than later, their success was challenged. By 2010, the transition started to reverse course.
One day you have something, and the next day it’s gone.
From the reading I’ve done, prior to the democratic movement in 1989, Hungary experienced a dictatorship. By 2010, people could still remember the good old days. Yep. There were people who actually longed to return to pre 1989. Viktor Orbán became the new Prime Minister. A violent coup wasn’t needed.
He won the election.
I stumbled across a Reddit conversation the other day. A person from the Netherlands wanted to know what life is like for Hungarians now that Viktor Orbán has full control. I have wondered myself. Sometimes, the bleakest picture we paint isn’t exactly how things go down. If you’re not an active dissenter, daily life takes a detour, but life goes on. People still work, cook, have children, go to school, date, get married, and try to build a life with some personal meaning.
Once things have settled down, and it’s clear who is boss, people learn to adjust to their situation.
They may not be happy, but many weren’t happy with the way things were after 1989. People are rarely 100% happy and content with the status quo. There are always problems to solve and disagreements about how to solve those problems. Disagreements cause conflict, and our conflict resolution skills are limited.
Maybe it’s true that we don’t know what we have until we lose it.
So, although life has changed and many Hungarians are struggling, some people may be profiting from the change in power, while others simply choose not to think about it. Others may actually be comforted by what’s happened as it harkens back to the good old days and feels familiar.
I have wintered in Spain for the past 18 years.
I developed an interest in Spain’s recent past, the days of the Franco regime. What little I knew about it sounded awful. But one day, I got a rude awakening. I was staying in my favorite family-run hotel in the mountains of Andalusia when one morning at breakfast, the owner invited everyone in the dining room to accompany him to his own personal museum. Besides me, there was a fairly large group of hikers from England enjoying their breakfast. Almost everyone in the room agreed to follow the owner up the street, where he unlocked the doors to a three-room building filled with memorabilia from the Franco regime. He was so proud of his collection. He even had a photo of Franco and a relative of his standing at attention.
Franco was in full uniform.
I was confused. But so were the British hikers. We kept exchanging furtive glances behind the owner’s back. What the bloody hell? This man loved Franco. He wasn’t sorry that the dictator had passed away and that Spain transitioned to a full-blown democracy. He missed the good old days. He longed to have them back.
The psychology behind what makes people do what they do is endlessly fascinating.
It’s also complicated. We often get what we deserve, or at least we often get what we thought we wanted. We don’t solve problems easily. Our problem-solving skills are not highly evolved. Much of what we do in life is reactionary, not rational. Emotion rules our decisions.
In the end, we might try to save people — even risk our lives to do so — when they didn’t want our help in the first place.
I’ll venture a guess that there are plenty of people in Hungary who were unhappy after 1989, and that discontent grew over the years. Problems were perceived as unsolvable. People longed for a strong man to take care of them. They just wanted to be able to feed themselves and have a little money left over to enjoy life once in a while.
The Republican Party is enamored with Viktor Orbán’s success.
He has become, to a greater or lesser degree, a role model for the transition that we’re now making from democracy to dictatorship. He’s been in power for over a decade. That’s impressive to our autocrats.
There will be things that happen that those who voted for the current administration will not like.
But there was also much they didn’t like about the past. Some will get fantastically rich, while others will flounder and get angry. But that has always been the case. Rules will be laid down to keep dissenters in their place. Many, however, will simply get up each morning and do what they have always done — go to work, eat a meal, have sex, and watch their favorite TV show. Soon, it’ll be life as usual until one day, someone will try to do something about it. They may or may not succeed, but while they’re rising to the task, others will follow them.
We always need a hero, a leader, someone to take care of us.
There’s a lot to be learned from Hungary, but most people can’t find Hungary on the map, and those who can don’t really know what to do with the information. I apologize for the limited history lesson. Although, the more I think about it, this article isn’t so much about history as it is a short lesson about psychology. It’s the psychology of what makes us do what we do that explains why history repeats itself.
Maybe that’s why we never learn from history.
Teresa is an author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
