Viktor Orbán’s 2014 ‘Illiberal Democracy’ Speech Cites Non‑Western Regimes

Freedom House Chapter 5 The Rise of ‘Illiberal Democracy’ In July 2014, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban gave what has come to be known as his “illiberal democracy" speech before an ethnic Hungarian audi- ence in Baile Tusnad, Romania.! Several points in his remarks are worth noting: ¢ Orban urged his listeners to no longer regard the 1989 triumph over communism as the reference point for developments in Hungary. Instead of measuring progress from the transition from dictatorship and foreign domination to elections, civil liberties, and sovereignty, Orban said Hungary should adopt a new point of departure, the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, which also marked the European Union’s greatest setback. ¢ He cited U.S. president Barack Obama and vari- ous unnamed sources on the West's weakness, including an “internationally recognized analyst" who wrote that liberal values today “embody corruption, sex, and violence.” « He suggested that in the future it would be systems that were “not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies, and perhaps not even democracies’ that would create successful and competitive societies. He asserted that “the stars of the international analysts today are Singapore, China, India, Russia, and Turkey.” In a passage devoted to the obstacles facing his own political party, Fidesz, as it seeks to build an alternative to liberalism, Orban singled out civil society and the nongovernmental sector. Civil society critics, he insisted, “are not nongovern- mental organizations" but “paid political activists who are attempting to enforce foreign interests here in Hungary.” (In a separate speech in early 2016, he referred to “hordes of implacable hu- man rights warriors" who “feel an unquenchable desire to lecture and accuse us.’”) In this relatively short address, Orban neatly summa- rized most of the key factors that distinguish a fully democratic “Western” system based on liberal values and accountability from what he calls an “Eastern” approach based ona strong state, a weak opposition, and emaciated checks and balances. “There is a race underway to find the method of community organization, the state, which is most capable of making a nation and a community internationally competitive... [T]he most popular topic in thinking today is trying to understand how systems that are not Western, not liberal, not liberal democracies, and perhaps not even democracies, can nevertheless make their nations successful.” —Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary “If we want to organize our national state to replace the liberal state, it is very important that we make it clear that we are not opposing nongov- ernmental organizations here, and it is not nongovernmental organi- zations who are moving against us, but paid political activists who are attempting to enforce foreign inter- ests here in Hungary.” —Viktor Orban First, his exhortation to no longer regard the events of 1989 as a seminal, even sacred, juncture in Hungarian history is noteworthy given Orban's biography. While he often cites his own role in the anticommunist struggle and describes himself as a freedom fighter, he now regards 1989—so redolent of liberal values, ideas about individual freedom, and democratic solidarity—as an intellectual impediment to his plans for a Hungary that is skeptical of such ideals and of European integration. Second, Orban included full-blown dictatorships (Russia and China) in the roster of governments he admires, along with quasi-democratic illiberal states (Turkey and Singapore) and one genuine, if inconsis- tent, democracy (India). www.freedomhouse.org 35 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019269