Fear is everywhere in Hungary nowadays. A couple of days ago I was listening to an interview with Tamás Mellár, a professor of economics who beat the odds and won a seat in the last election from the city of Pécs. Mellár today is a member of the opposition, but at one time he was a trusted member of the Fidesz team. Admittedly, that was a long time ago, during the first Orbán government, when he headed the Központi Statisztikai Hivatal (Central Statistical Office). In any case, Mellár now, as a member of parliament, had some questions about figures provided by the Central Statistical Office. After some difficulty he received permission to get the information he was looking for. While he was there, he wanted to say hello to his former secretary. However, he couldn’t leave the area to which he was restricted. When he expressed his astonishment about such constraints, the poor woman begged him not to insist on visiting the secretary because “she will get into trouble.”

One might think that this woman was just too timid, but fear has gripped the whole country, and not without reason. Supporters of the far-right government are targeting writers, artists, movie makers, researchers of the academy, and all and sundry who are viewed as not being loyal to the regime. We have covered some of these attacks, coming mostly from zealous writers and journalists writing for the flagship government propaganda site, Magyar Idők. Now attention is being focused on ideologically incorrect university professors.

The attack was initiated by a first-year student in ELTE’s department of media and communications who in her spare time works for the infamous 888.hu under the watchful eye of Gábor G. Fodor, editor-in-chief, a most loyal political hack. It says a lot about the journalistic quality of 888.hu that a first-year journalism student without the slightest experience was invited to write for the publication. G. Fodor wanted a young crew. And, indeed, judging from their photos, they are young and, let me add, totally inexperienced. Dóra Zelenka, the first-year student in question, complained bitterly in her article that the professors in her department opted to join the protest against abolishing gender studies. She was hoping for a high-quality education. But “instead of a regular education [the students] receive information that may influence [their] decisions.” That is a stupendous observation, isn’t it? First of all, what does this young sophisticate mean by “regular education”? Second, what’s wrong with information that might affect our decisions? I thought we are supposed to make decisions on the basis of knowledge we absorb over a lifetime, including our first year of college. In addition to her complaints about the quality of education she receives, she also accused the professors of outright lying.

The head of the department of media and communications, Ferenc Hammer, answered the student and pointed out her factual mistakes about his department and its faculty. That was taken by the journalists at 888.hu as a “veiled threat against the student.” Hammer was accused of “violating the basic spirit of the university, the freedom of opinion.” Hammer committed “opinion dictatorship.” Lóránt Sümeghi, one of the regular associates of the site, called on students who are “tired of the unasked-for left-wing political opinions … to write to us and we will publish it.” In case the message didn’t get through, another associate, a certain Zsófia Horváth, continued the attack on Ferenc Hammer, calling attention to the faculty’s “rants of left-wing political opinions.” She suggested that the university should conduct an ethical inquiry into this particular case.

Eventually, Gábor G. Fodor spoke up. We should keep in mind that G. Fodor at one time taught political science in ELTE’s law school, but he was fired after an inquiry into his unethical conduct as editor-in-chief of 888.hu. In this article G. Fodor coined a new term: “university me-too,” which doesn’t mean sexual but ideological violation. “You get violated because you’re vulnerable. Your professor violates you with his political opinions while you’re defenseless.” Students might think that they’re defenseless, but it isn’t so. “A university shouldn’t be a place of frustrated and vindictive professors’ cheap politicking.” At the moment Hungarian “universities are the last hotbeds of the politically weakened left,” a situation that should come to an end. Keep reporting these left-liberal political activists, surged G. Fodor.

Népszava published an article on November 22 titled “Stalin would smack his lips: 888.hu urged students to file complaints on the basis of an article full of inaccuracies.” The article points out that 888.hu’s “brilliant” idea is not very original. In Brazil a member of parliament from Jair Bolsonaro’s party urged students to report teachers who were not happy with the election results. The far-right AfD (Alternativ für Deutschland) asked both students and parents to report on teachers who express political views in the classroom. The Demokratikus Koalíció issued a communiqué in which it called urging students to file complaints “disgusting.”

György Gábor, the witty philosopher of religion whose Facebook notes are a delight to read, called attention to Pavel Trofimovich Morozov, a Soviet child hero from the early 1930s. Those of us who are old enough all remember the story. In 1932, during the Stalinist drive to herd individual peasants into kolkhozes, the 13-year-old Pavel filed a complaint against his father because he didn’t want to join the cooperative. As a result, the father was killed, and the boy became a Soviet hero. In the last few years historians of the period learned that the real story of Pavel Morozov was very different from the myth the Soviet leadership created, but the veracity of the story is really immaterial in this case. Evidently, the Soviet leadership considered the boy, who indirectly killed his father for the cause, someone to admire and imitate. This how far the Orbán regime has sunk in the last few years.

November 26, 2018