The organization of society based on individual liberties might be the most substantial characteristic of European culture and one of its important traditions is the ability to self-reflect. Not only constructing historical myths but also analyzing them critically and conditioning the collective memory. Orbán appears to mean it seriously while talking about eastern winds. Seriously and extensively: it does not only mean an economical orientation for him, it also includes the reconstruction of the framework of our society as well as a change of mentality and historical memory. The proposal on the reconstruction of the Holocaust exhibition raised by András Levente Gál, the mighty state secretary in the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice can hardly be interpreted in a different way: the traditional European kind of thinking is not even featuring the official historical approach anymore. On the one hand, it is scary in itself that a politician wants to define historical reality. On the other hand, this is the natural consequence of a style of governance that has the idea that, apart from the number of unemployed and the budget deficit target, it knows everything better than others do, even what kind of geographical names can be considered adequate. But as far as that goes with the Holocaust it is anything but funny. Not even that is funny that the state secretary tried to underpin his message with a Márai quote which has appeared two years before (!) the Holocaust. Hungary’s role cannot be characterized the way the state secretary tries to do it. This role cannot be settled by the citation that numerous people ‘have driven the legally incapacitated Hungary onto meanness’. It is impossible because it is not true. The German occupation cannot be an excuse for the sins committed against the Jews before. The presence of meanness cannot hide the fact that the deportation was done by the cooperation of the Hungarian gendarmerie and Hungarian public administration. The relativization of sins, attempted by the state secretary, is only a few steps away from its negation. This would be unimaginable in a country living according to civilized, Western norms. If the state secretary did not resign automatically, he would have been fired next day.
András Keszthelyi, Vasárnapi Hírek, April 3. 2011.

Last Updated on Thursday, 14 April 2011 23:10