"It has principles and fundamental values: work, home, family, health, and order," I told him. These five values and their order are not just speculation but have rather developed on the basis of the first Orbán government's experience and on surveys. However, while the government is trying to govern along these principles using the power entrusted to it as a result of winning the election, people who hate our legitimate government are doing all in their power from abroad to make it impossible for Hungary to take over the EU revolving presidency. This is a matter of a concerted series of attacks since in many cases they have been blackening the Orbán government's name continuously for several months through numerous channels. The failed political forces at home may have no credibility whatsoever but they are still trying to discredit the government from abroad. 

"They will not be able to defeat Brussels," said László Kovács. By saying this he let it slip out in no uncertain terms what the stakes of this foreign crusade are. The incitement to hatred and the politics of hate are taking place at an international level. It is within this framework that our centre-right government has to work. An array of methods are being employed to try and disrupt the integrity of Fidesz. Yet, knowing all of this, the decisive question is how the government can achieve its stated aims. This is the political question of 2011.

Governmental unity

The left-wing governments have focussed their attention on distribution; in other words, who should be given what and how. Their entire governance was subordinated to this. Since Hungary is a country with scant natural resources, any considerable redistribution can only be executed to the detriment of certain groups or by taking on credit. In Hungary there is an iron curtain of debt that can be traced back to the Kádár regime. If we want a different life, it is essential to break out of the debt trap we are in, otherwise the cycle - and this is just in the better scenario - will repeat itself. If conditions are a bit more favourable, we can fund consumption from credit (at that time the slogans of "equal opportunity" and "social justice" were resounding) followed by the policy of seven lean years (the Bokros-package, austerity measures).   

It is the objective of the Orbán government to break out of that vicious cycle. What Ferenc Gyurcsány and his followers called honest talk ("the Őszöd speech"), was none other than a politically failed attempt to save a politician's neck and in the meantime they had neither the required concepts nor the political strength at their disposal to deal with the problem. Real political questions cannot be answered merely through PR. Viktor Orbán always said what the political problem was but his opponents saw his most directly expressed statements as mere political communication; they regarded his change of rhetoric not as constant evaluation of reality but as tricks and fickle change. Whoever spends too much time in power is blinded by that same power, and this is true for a whole party too, presently in the case of MSZ(M)P (Hungarian Socialist [Workers'] Party).

Hostile and blinded by hate, they evaluated Orbán's speech in Kötcse as proof of his dictatorial ambition. Yet, this was the governing principle of the government's philosophy, according to which if the government does not have a powerful base, there can be no internal order in the party, and thus it is impossible to govern even with a two-third majority, since legitimacy should not be confused with the ability to govern. The political conditions of governance are resolve and unity of leadership, otherwise the only thing that remains is the empty "word magic", a heap of policies and the Gyurcsány type communication panels escalated to passionate theatrical performances.

Orbán went further than this in his speech in Kötcse. He spoke of Hungarian quality, something that could provide an identity and strength to the changes. Although he could not put a name to this Hungarian quality, the aim is clear: there has to be something beyond the division - which is naturally present even in democracies - that ties us together even if there are some people who can only address others with hatred. Orbán has repeated for years that national unity is needed, otherwise we will never be able to break free of our inherited problems, nor will we be able to achieve any of our new objectives.   

I remembered an event that took place in the summer in Poland. I was participating in an organised walk in Wawel with an international group, when, reaching President Kaczyński's grave, the Polish lady acting as our tour guide made a political comment, in response to which one of the Polish members of our group asked her to not bother foreigners with internal controversy. The national minimum starts somewhere here: if someone suffers offence, they should not go running to the other side of the world to complain. In the present case, however, it is more than that: the enemies of Fidesz
are using slander and have misled the international community.

Believe, trust, criticise

How long can one believe in a political leader? The left-wing answer: not for any length of time, virtual government is the job of the intelligentsia. They blow apart everything that shows any signs of life. They don't even spare their own leaders, since even a critical intellectual can be a leader but just by some kind of coincidence somebody else exercises power. They behave as if they were living in a period of absolutism and their task was to win liberty or establish a utopia. A great many western left-wing intellectuals treat democracy like an ideology and act as if they were its protective propagandists. They are actually unthinking rationalists and the products of totalitarian modern politics.

The intelligentsia developed as part of the development of civil society at a time when what was at stake was the need to topple tyrannical rule. But what is the role of intellectuals in a democracy? No one has provided an answer to this, because - depending on the political situation - the intellectuals of the incumbent opposition wish to have us believe that those in power are not democratic. It is often failed politicians past their day that push intellectuals to the forefront in a bid to claw back power. Thus, the true question does not concern the relationship between politicians and intellectuals but rather how a political decision is made, and how big a role, for example, a party's presidium, the expert teams working in the background and the reconciliation forums have. I have never heard of a successful party organised to include the majority of the population and at the same time based on principles of a democratic base, but the highlighted role of the "boss", i.e. the leader of a party, was already discussed by Max Weber back in the early 20^th century.

It can even be read on Hungarian online sites - which are not exactly left-wing  - that they are disappointed in right-wing intellectuals because they do not speak up, i.e. they do not behave like the left-wing "intelligentsia". Set against the standard of left-wing intellectuals this really is the case. The difference here is that the left-wing "intelligentsia" profess a liberal outlook on life holding only their own point of view to be universal since they are the children of the modern cult of the brain, whereas the right-wing intellectuals propagate good causes without forcing their own points of view on others since for them it is more important to achieve real freedom, and they are aware of the limitations of individual interest. For right-wing intellectuals the interests of the community are not a fiction, and the responsibility of the leadership does not dissolve in the complicated cooperation of institutions. For them, politics are based on a delicate balance between rationality and faith, because this is the nature of it. In decisive points left-wing intellectuals work purely on the basis of dogma, and its naïve representatives do not even realise that they are being used as mere tools while their vanity is being fed.

If there is one expression needed to express what the present government is doing, this would be: putting things in order. Only he can create order that has a concept of order. In modernity this merely means that a democratic order, which has a natural liberal tendency, is kept within the framework of freedom. People cannot simply be allowed to do as they please. Anyone with just a bit of insight into western societies knows how much more disciplined the people are there, and how much more relentless those societies are in applying the laws. In the United States the individual states have the competence to rectify the violation of morality demonstrated by their being able to force commercial TV channels to edit their content for bad language - i.e. they do not bleep out obscene language but completely edit it out. The requirements of "law and order" are met in every solid democracy.

Debate on order

It is precisely the problem of this sensitively guarded democracy in Hungary that it has been too compliant over the last twenty years. Private interests have often been placed above the interests of the majority. The republican form of government has remained nominal in many respects. There have been too many stowaways and too few people who have been successful on the basis of their merit. This is partly understandable since the main objective was the liberalisation of the economy and society, which could not be kept under full scrutiny. Nevertheless, the consequence of this process is that ever fewer people pay ever more tax, the government's expenditure is unjustifiably high, we have not been able to break out of the debt trap for decades and social indicators - life expectancy, health and cultural consumption - all paint a depressing picture.   

If today's young people are not able to find intelligent aims in their lives, the generation which is as old as the change in the system will become a lost generation and their elders will have to bear the responsibility for this. The policies of a real change of regime can only have a point if our lives will be more secure, more calculable and more meaningful. If the government's policies help to facilitate this in 2011, it is worth drawing up and implementing new laws even if it finds itself at the centre of immeasurable hatred. Then it will be possible to tend to the duties of the upcoming EU revolving presidency with dignity and work hard - fully disappointing those wishing to see Hungary fail. If the EU gains a real insight into Hungary, they will also see what the Hungarian left wing is all about. The reasonable citizens of the international community can be won over, since real hatred springs from somewhere other.