Student representatives' personal data in pro-gov media

Very typical for Fidesz...

In the past two years, several observers have taken note of the utmost restraint that student leaders (elected leaders of universities' students organisations and their ceiling organisation) displayed, despite wave after wave of government-induced chaos and havoc in higher education. Wherever any student resistance tried to form, these leaders typically put their feet on the brake. Even in the past several days, where students' anger spilt over, there were leaders who tried to prevent demonstrations on universities. Having said that, most realized that they must follow their student electorate and began supporting the protests.

Now that earlier obstructive behaviour was quite puzzling... until now.

Yesterday, as a reaction to most student leaders siding with the students, the government spokesman cited a need to check if all student representatives' own status (i.e. as a student themselves) is in good order from an administrative point of view. And hey presto, today the daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet (tightly controlled by Fidesz) presented a handy table with many student leaders' personal data, including information clearly intended for diffamation (e.g. how long they've been at their universities - some indeed quite a bit of time...).

Privacy organisations have promptly commented that it would be hard to obtain such personal data in a legal way; luckily the ombudsman for privacy matters confirmed without delay that all is in good order and no laws were violated. The ombudsman had been installed, of course, by Fidesz. 

'Reforming' higher education with the chainsaw

No detailed analysis, just the numbers.

Last year the number of higher education places (university etc) financed by the state was  halved from 80.000 to some 40.000, this two weeks before the student's deadline of filing the application for the places.

Now it has been announced (two months before the deadline...) that from 2013, there will be only 10.000 state-financed places. The rest will require co-financing or (mostly) complete financing by the students themselves.

In some areas such as law or economics/business studies, there will not be any state-financed places. A state secretary explained this by stating that in economics, students are taught, inter alia, how to avoid paying taxes, and thus there is no reason for the state to support this line of education.

Viktor Orbán stated himself that the final goal is a higher education system that is competely self-supporting.
 (prompting commentators to draw comparisons with professional football, where there seems not to be such a requirement of self_support, as a large many billion forints state money is being spent on all-new stadiums and artificial grass football-fields - NB Orbán is, as everybody knows in Hungary, a football-freak)

The governmet's steps have incited quite a reaction in high-schools and universities, with several protests and marches having been organised in the past days. Certainly the activisation of these age groups is new and spectators have agreed that the situation is highly dangerous for Fidesz.

Teachers reactions to the protests have been cautiously positive, although not everywhere. Let me conclude this post with another true Hungarian gem; please find below today's statement of the Cistercian Order's Nagy Lajos High School, published today on their website:

'Dear students!
Our school's leadership took the following decision in the context of the nationwide student demonstrations being organised for tomorrow against the change in higher education.  

In this uncertain situation it is <only> one's faith and confidence in the Lord's wisdom that can provide support. Therefore, tomorow the 11. and 12.-grade students will participate in a holy sermon where they can offer their destiny and future to God's mercy.  They shall do so safe in the knowledge that by that they do the most they can do in this situation. After the sermon the curriculum will continue as planned. Other grades' students are unaffected by this change.'

MP: "Jews should be listed" II - The Aftermath

I. A demonstration with all parliamentary parties except for far-right Jobbik.
Participation 20-30 thousand - not bad but nowhere from Fidesz' well organized 'peace marches' in support of the government with several hundred thousand participants.

Quite a novelty that Fidesz sent a representative in the person of Antal Rogán, head of Fidesz' parliamentary group. Media consensus is that he gave a fairly good speech - certainly clearer than what the public has come to expect from Fidesz in such matters. Some irony though lies in the fact that Mr. Rogán won his seat as mayor of a Budapest district with the Support of Jobbik.

II. In parliament, Viktor Orbán touched upon the issue, whereby the most cited sentence was this: 'We, Hungarians protect our Jewish fellow countrymen'. This has again caused slight irritation as some understood this as implying that Hungarian Jews aren't, in fact, Hungarians.

III. In the more detailed parliamentary debate on the issue, Fidesz assigned the task of articulating the party's position to its only prominent MP with admitted Jewish origins. He said inter alia:

'My mother is Jewish and my father is Jewish - I was born into this. I did not have a choice. But you <i.e. Jobbik MPs> do have a choice.'

IV. Jobbik-MP Márton Gyöngyösi was called on to resign as deputy head of the Hungarian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, which of course he refused (backed by his party).

V. However, he was disallowed to participate in that Committee's next official visit to Rome. The decision was taken by László Kövér, Chairman of the Hungarian Parliament and a vastly powerful and influential figure in Fidesz. The background of his decision was explained by Mr. Kövér as follows:

From a Hungarian national interest perspective, it would not be worth sacrificing the Committee's visit to Rome by having to explain Márton Gyöngyösi's completely unacceptable and inexplicable statement, be it by Mr. Gyöngyösi himself or by any other member of the Committee. Seeing the European press, and within it, the Italian press, which provided a lot of coverage to this - to put it mildly, unfortunate - statement, this danger looked real to me'.

Education: one size fits all

From the next year, primary and secondary education will be standardised completely in Hungary.

All schools will be required to teach identical course materials throughout the country. This means inter alia that all schools will use the same teaching books and all teachers will need to follow the same detailed curriculum.

This curriculum has some fine specifics to it. For instance, English will be abolished as the first foreign language and will be replaced by German. The official explanation on the Ministry of Education's behalf was that English as a first foreign language has given kids the false impression that learning a foreign language is simple, hence the need for change,

This in a country where it is rather typical that youngsters learn many years English at school but still aren't able to communicate at any level.  

MP: "Jews should be listed"

Márton Gyöngyösi, an MP from the far-right Jobbik party concluded his parliamentary speech yesterday as follows:

"It is time to establish that <among> the people living here, and especially in the Parliament and the Government - how many people with Jewish origins are included given that they represent a certain risk for national security. I believe that you <i.e. the Government> owe such an assessment to Hungary."

The answer on behalf of the Government of Hungary was given by Zsolt Németh, state secretary in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and was perceived by some as rather lukewarm:

"I cannot be supportive of this research. I believe that the question of how many Jews are there in the Hungarian Government is not really related to the severe conflict that is playing out in the Near-East" <NB the argument occured in the context of the Gaza conflict>. 

***
Truth be told, both Gyöngyösi and his Jobbik party said later that the MP chose his words unwisely and he had intended to target, in fact, only holders of high offices with Israeli-Hungarian dual citizenships. Also the Government issued a clearer statement against such talks.

Still, some critics saw it as telling that even in such a clear case, the Government representative did not dare to offer a harder response (as would be standard against e.g. a Socialist Party MP in any given case) without the approval from above.

***
P.S. Zsolt Németh is no-nobody. He a long-time member of Fidesz Party's inner core who has been responsble for the party's foreign affairs programme and implementation for ages. In fact he's seen by many as the true man in charge of Hungary's foreign affairs, rather than minister János Martonyi who has materially weaker Fidesz-affiliations.

Pp.S. Márton Gyöngyösi studied economics and political science in Dublin and Nürnberg. He worked as a tax advisor at KPMG before moving back to Hungary and entering politics.    

Re: free and fair elections

A new day - a new law before parliament. This one will restrict parties' advertisements in non-state TV, national print media and the internet.

As it happens, these are the media most favoured by opposition-leaning voters.

It has been also confirmed, that the restrictions will, of course, not apply to advertisements by the state itself.

And state advertisement is not the only channel that is available to the government but not to its competitors.
It has now been announced that an NGO will launch an 'informative campaign' to the general public. As a start, they will provide a little booklet to all Hungarian households, explaining that general hardship is the result of earlier governments' misdeeds and Orban's team is doing a fantastic job.

The NGO is headed by Mr. Csizmadia, who is at the same time a member of Orban's administration and responsible for the distribution of all state funding to NGOs. He also happens to be the chief organisator of the 'peace marches', grand demonstrations in support of the government.

Nationalising... weather forecasting

It has been announced that in future only the state will be allowed to provide public weather forecasting services. The corresponding draft law is already before parliament.

The cited reason is that weather forecasting is a very complicated task requiring special expertise... and... well, therefore hence it should be in the hands of the state. The lawmaker responsible for the draft said in an interview that it has the additional advantage that the public will be sure, whatever channel they use, that the forecast they see is of excellent quality.

Cynics have suggested the step might have to do also with the stated-owned weather forecast organisation's poor financial condition.