More comments on June 16
June 19th, 2019A left-wing commentator lambasts PM Orbán who only paid a private visit to Imre Nagy’s grave. A pro-government columnist thinks this symbolic civil war will continue in Hungary for decades to come.
In Népszava, Róbert Friss sees a contradiction between Viktor Orbán’s attitude thirty years ago, at the reburial of the martyred Prime Minister and his demeanour on Sunday, at the anniversary. He made his famous speech on June 16, 1989, about autocracy and freedom in front of a huge crowd of Hungarians, while last Sunday he went on his own, accompanied only by his wife, to the cemetery to pay tribute to Imre Nagy. ‘Gloria victis’ (Glory to the vanquished), Mr. Orbán wrote on his Facebook page, which prompts Friss to remark that he would very much like to see Mr. Orbán among the vanquished, although ‘by no means in the way Imre Nagy was treated by those Communists whom he abandoned’.
On Pesti Srácok, Botond Bálint writes that the opposing political sides promote conflicting narratives about Communism and the regime change. The descendants of former prominent reform communists believe that it was their parents who suffered most under Communism and claim the credit for the regime change for themselves. What is more, Bálint asserts, they claim that theirs is the only acceptable narrative. Meanwhile, they have allied themselves with the heirs of the Communist Party who instead of disappearing in their private lives, still claim political power. That is the reason why a cold civil war will continue to rage in Hungary for “who knows how much longer”, Bálint concludes.