published in Postimees, 27 September 2022

On 18 September, the European Union executive recommended suspending some 7.5 billion euros in funding for Hungary. The explanation is widespread corruption, and Hungary was also named the first non-democratic country within the union. The sum to be held back is 5% of the country’s entire yearly GDP, and would hit in the middle of an energy crisis.

This is an exceptional ruling and also a first for the EU. Still, here in Estonia I find many Estonians unsure why it happened. Even if one’s not particularly fascinated by Viktor Orbán’s freedom-fight-infused politics – though many are -, they may still ask: how bad can it possibly be? After all, he is Hungary’s democratically elected leader. Hungarians clearly seem to want him, and seem satisfied with his politics.

So this is democracy, right?

One of the things I find hardest to live with in Estonia is the general misunderstanding of propaganda, as well as the impatient dismissal of its power. After all, decades of occupation didn’t break Estonians’ spirit. They preserved their flag as well as their backbone, they stood hand in hand, they sang themselves into freedom, united, active, strong. They picked themselves up and created a prosperous country. Look at the war: they were even right about Putin all along, and now the entire world admits that.

So those countries crumbling under divisive and hateful propaganda must be weak, stupid or evil. Otherwise, why don’t they unite and chase away their tyrant?

Hungarians are not stupid and evil, at least they originally weren’t. In the last twelve years, I watched them change. To understand what happened, one has to know that the entire state media is Orbán’s propaganda. Whatever he thinks is echoed a thousandfold, amplified by one of the two main commercial TV channels, all regional websites and newspapers and most of the largest news sites. Opposition in TV is almost nonexistent and opposition radio did not get a single frequency for years now, while numerous were recently shut down. In the countryside if you don’t have access to the internet (and many don’t), you don’t have access to any news other than Orbán’s. So why would you doubt it?

In the election period this spring, Fidesz had eight times the advertising space than that of the opposition. In the last four years, the opposition got 5 minutes of total screen time on state TV. Tens of millions of Hungarian forints were poured into Facebook and Youtube advertisements on taxpayers’ money, way exceeding the lawful campaigning limit, constantly trashing the European Union (which is usually referred to as ‘Brussels’), and spreading the news of Russia’s inevitable victory, as well as the imminent dissolution of the EU.

For expats (that are usually hostile to Orbán and Fidesz), voting from London or Helsinki was needlessly overcomplicated, not to mention that 2 voting spots were opened in the entire UK (estimated Hungarian population: 200 000) as well as in France (estimated population: 200 000). However, mail votes of the historical Slovakian and Transylvanian Hungarian diasporas are insanely unregulated. You could easily vote in anybody’s, even dead people’s name, the ballots were not sealed, and were collected by Fidesz activists.

Village mayors knocked on people’s doors, accompanied them to the booths and showed them where to put the X. Some bosses required their employees to send a photo of their ballots to make sure they were cast on Fidesz.

So yes, in a democracy like this, the people democratically elected Fidesz as governing party with an absolute majority, and Viktor Orbán for Prime Minister, for the fourth time in a row. By now, an entire generation has grown up without knowing any other Prime Minister, so they might struggle to understand what elections are for.

In the meantime, propaganda keeps working. According to the latest survey, the slight majority of Hungarians are moderately pro-Russian, and only 15% are firmly pro-Ukrainian. Unlike Estonians, Hungarians don’t like to follow war news: they remain confused, disengaged, unsure what to think, and even more threatened by the decaying morals of the West than the genocidal empire waging war with their neighbor. Meanwhile, my own little business is booming: a record number of people want to learn Finnish from me and emigrate.

Is every Hungarian personally responsible for this? Is it one’s personal responsibility to form their informed opinion when mass media is so one–sided, ~25% of the population is a functional anaphabet and education is deliberately underfunded? I don’t know. Maybe in Estonian eyes, we do qualify as a weak and corrupt nation. But definitely not as a role model.

As for the proposed money cut, this is a first for Europe. No liberal or illiberal regime ever got to the point of such harsh – prospective – reprimand from within the union. Of course, the systematic stealing of EU funds for a select group, grandiose vanity projects and anti-EU smear campaigns were common knowledge for many years now. So why now? Maybe being Putin’s thinly veiled agent, sabotaging sanctions, Finland and Sweden’s NATO admission, striking up special deals with Russia and openly rubbing against America’s MAGA movement might have just broken the camel’s back. It was long overdue.

Orbán reacts in his usual Orbán way: Hungarian media is loud with Brussels’ attack on the freedom of Hungarians, the leftover independent media is referred to as “Soros’s blog”, while with as much discretion as possible, he’s trying to meet the required standards without much compromising on his system. He has until 19 November to do so, when the issue is discussed by the European Council.

I think of my family, and it breaks my heart, but I hope he fails.