Culture war seen as a lasting curse

A left-wing analyst believes the ideological divide within Hungarian society is too deep to disappear even in the event of a change in government.

In Népszava, political scientist Ádám Paár describes the efforts by the government to bring cultural institutions under control as a parody of the culture wars in Germany and Italy in the late 19^th century. In those cases, the state was conducting a massive offensive against the Catholic Church with persecution and prison sentences inflicted on priests defying the government’s authority. In today’s Hungary, he writes, conflicts are milder but not less lasting. Differences in worldviews cause a sharp divide that will not go away even if the current regime falls, he writes, warning that such a heritage will require a high degree of tolerance from all political parties in the future.

Tags: culture wars