Back to top
Submitted by redakcja2 on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 11:34
The Case for Populism
Polityka

Excerpt form an article by Maria Schmidt in The New York Times .This is an article from World Review: The State of Democracy, a special section that examines global policy and affairs through the perspectives of thought leaders and commentators.

“Nine years have passed since Mr. Orban’s landslide victory in 2010, in which he won over two-thirds of parliamentary seats — a feat he has since repeated twice. This is a clear demonstration of the popularity and success of his policies. Hungary’s economy is in good shape: Inflation and unemployment are at low levels; gross domestic product growth stands at about 5 percent; and real wages have increased by 40 percent in the past few years.

The nonliberal shift promoted by Mr. Orban and the spread of populism that it heralded were consequences of an imbalance within the liberal order, one that favored elites over the needs of everyday citizens. As liberalism runs out of steam, true majoritarian democracy and popular representation is returning to Hungary.

And the same is happening across Europe. In the European Parliamentary elections earlier this year, the “populists” (democrats, in other words) significantly strengthened their position. The European electorate voted for a balance of stability and change — for preserving the European Union without losing more member states, and for keeping alive all of the European Union’s worthwhile achievements while discarding anything that has proved unsustainable. Voters sent a clear message: They want more flexibility in politics, less ideological dogmatism and more readiness for compromise.

While some may not be able to accept it, the old world is disappearing. It can’t be saved. What can and should be saved is Western (Christian) civilization. We must realize that, as the historian Niall Ferguson once wrote, “the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity — and by the historical ignorance that feeds it.”

We Hungarians are well aware that nobody has our best interests at heart other than ourselves. That’s why we continue to insist on liberty, democracy and our independence as a nation-state.

As citizens of a free country in the heartland of Europe, we have served as gatekeepers between East and West for a thousand years.

We hope to do so for a thousand more.”

 

Maria Schmidt is an author and historian whose research focuses on 20th-century dictatorships in Europe. A former adviser to the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, she is the director general of the House of Terror museum in Budapest.

Link to the article in full in The New York Times