“They will have to unite the German, Italian and French budgets, otherwise the euro will fall” – 1/2
24-31 minutes
Interview with László Bogár, economist and university professor, former MP and former State Secretary of Hungary, publicist: “They will have to unite the German, Italian and French budgets, otherwise the euro will fall.” Part 1/2. At the end of November 2018, Raoul Weiss met with László
Bogár in Budapest for a interview without taboos on economical
topics. László Bogár is since the regime change a well-known Hungarian
economist: he is one the economists who shaped the Fidesz’ economical
policy. Author of 28 books, László Bogár has been State Secretary for
political questions of the Ministry of foreign trade relations from 1990
to 1994 and State Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister under
Orbán’s first mandate, from 1998 to 2002. Very critical of the current
capitalistic system and of the EU’s evolution, László Bogár is a shining
example of what is a Central European “illiberal” economist. Raoul Weiss: On the euro
crisis: whether in Strasbourg or Budapest, everyone is talking about the
so-called “migration rights” all the time, but some suggest that these
big moral questions also serve as a screen for financial worries, which
would – among other things – give rise to the tensions which could
recently be seen in Brussels and Strasbourg; the same malicious gossip
also states that, faced with the financial losses implied by BREXIT,
Germany would like to pass on the bill to others: either to its broke
clients in Latin Europe, and / or its subcontractors in Central Europe.
In your opinion, what would be the most intelligent strategy from the
German point of view? And, among the subsets of German-owned states –
the Latin countries on the one hand, and Central Europe on the other –,
which do you think is capable of the greatest resistance? Or, to put it
more simply: if the Germans do not want to pay, who will pay? László Bogár: I would like to
begin my answer by sketching a vast historical panorama in the
background. Whatever one thinks of it, it is clear that in past
centuries, the West has always been the seat of a world empire. This is
particularly clear in the case of the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French
and British empires: each of these nations held the empire of the world
for more or less a century; and, once almost all Western nation-states
have had their more or less 100 years of world power (this periodicity
of 100 years, by the way, is quite interesting in itself), the time has
come to transfer the empire beyond the ocean, to the United States of
America founded in the meantime there, as a pseudo-nation-state, but
which does
also function as a nation-state. And that century is the one we live in.
Though it will probably come to an end soon: if the empire mutates
every 100 years, then America too, within twenty years, might enter its
twilight zone. The most important thing is to understand that the world
currency is always the currency of the Western nation-state which
assumes the role of vector of the world empire, and which, ipso facto,
always shows a dual structure: while remaining a nation-state, it
simultaneously becomes the structural base of a world empire. Even
afterwards, the trace of this structure remains engraved in it, the best
example being from this point of view that of the British Empire: even
as long as Great Britain remained a member of the European Union (which
is still the case as I speak), it never considered for one minute giving
up the sterling – a former world currency – in favour of the euro. I imagine that the reader will not need long
explanations to understand what an immense advantage a given nation can
find in the fact that its national currency is at the same time the
world currency. Indeed, by simplifying to the extreme, it meant, in the
case of America in the 1960s and 1970s, that when the empire needed
money – for example to wage a war in Vietnam, which cost in the $ 5,000
billion, and the final bill is not yet issued, since pensions are still
being paid to veterans – it just printed all the money it needed, while
passing the bill to the rest of the world. Indeed, as long as the dollar
represented between 90 and 95% of world monetary reserves – a situation
that did not change until the end of the 1980s – only Charles de Gaulle
dared to provoke the system, an audacity for which, by the way, he paid
the highest price: in 1967 he demanded restitution of French gold, in
1968 he got a civil war for good measure, in 1969 he resigned, and died
in 1970. In 1971, under a secret agreement passed with Saudi Arabia, it
was decided that in the future, the Empire would whack all those who
would try to trade oil in currencies other than the dollar. After which
the price of oil was multiplied by 12, so that Western Europe would soon
no longer need to wonder what to do with its tons of dollars, being
forced to use them for its oil purchases. That’s how the world really works. What is
important to understand in this story is that, no matter how loudly the
masters of the world accuse us of believing in “conspiracy theories”,
what we are really witnessing is a conspiracy practice. (…) What must be
remembered is that the current world empire will always do everything
in its power to keep its status as long as possible, considering the
extraordinary opportunities yielded by the control of the world
currency. As we speak, a little less than 60% of the world’s reserves
are still in dollars, which is a huge drop from 95%, but still quite a
big proportion. Raoul Weiss: De Gaulle
famously called this the “exorbitant privilege”. [Erratum: these words
were those of Valéry Giscard-d’Estaing, then Minister of Finance; It is
frequently mis-attributed to Charles de Gaulle, who is said to have had
similar views, Ed.] László Bogár: Indeed, that phrase
goes straight to the point. As far as the euro is concerned, its status
stems from a deeper problem. In drawing up the list of nation-states
called to lead the empire, one cannot fail to notice that, after the
Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the French and the British, the
Germans did not have their turn. During the twentieth century, Germany
twice tried to capture the world’s empire for one hundred years. During
the two World Wars (which I usually call “projects”: two projects of the
global system of financial domination), the global system of financial
domination – the true masters of the world – sent very clear signs to
Germany, to make it understand the following message: “You will never
have the empire of the world. We recognize your talent, your zeal, your
enormous technological superiority, but you will never have it, not even
for 100 years, not even temporarily”. That’s why the real story of the
70 years following the Second World War is that of the constant efforts
of the American world empire to reduce Germany’s room for manoeuvre …
(…) [To parody the title of a] famous film from the Czech New Wave – Closely Watched Trains – one could say that those 70 years were years of Closely WatchedGermany.
On the cultural level, it was brutally tamed. The message was clear:
“You have no past, no culture, no history – everything that is about
identity is strictly forbidden to you”. And I just said the key word:
this whole story revolves around identity. The purpose of this
world-dominating power is to strip people – individuals as well as
communities of various sizes, up to entire nations – of their
identities, to dissolve them in what I usually call “scraping of diluted
multiculturalism”, the only attitude in which they become harmless from
the point of view of the system. Anyone who has an identity is
dangerous, because the very basis of human happiness is that I know who I
am, and no matter what hardships and sufferings I have to go through, I
know why I am confronting them – hence, I am someone. It is the only
possible way of existence, both for individuals and for human
communities of all sizes. This is what this invisible global system,
which keeps denying its own existence, is trying to crush.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that this crushing has been a success in
the case of Germany; its disastrous demographic figures, in particular,
show how far the Germans have disintegrated from a spiritual, moral and
intellectual point of view. In parallel, of course, Germany as a capital
structure has won gigantic victories during these 70 years. It
sometimes even managed to let America behind on the podium of world
exports (…). Even as I speak, the race is very tight; despite a huge
difference in the size of the two countries, Germany’s exports almost
match those of the United States of America. It’s a gigantic
performance. And in my opinion, this is where we come to the
point: for me, the euro is for Germany a kind of consolation prize. It
had to renounce the empire of the world, but at least it got the right
to coin a vice-world-currency. For me, the euro is the deutschmark of
the fourth German Reich. Of course, it is forbidden to name this fourth
Reich by this name – especially because it follows the Third Reich … And
the whole point is that for the American empire, more and more pushed
into its entrenchments, sinking more and more into chaos, the euro
becomes more and more of an obstacle. The empire would like to see the
euro collapse as soon as possible, because it becomes a competitor. 25%
of the world’s monetary reserves are in euros. Third place is the
sterling, followed by the yen and the Swiss franc, but all of these
haves shares around 3 or 4%. The rest is not even worth mentioning –
including China, with its yuan to be around 2.8%. Only the euro is able
to challenge the dollar: the more or less 60% of the latter and the 25
or 26% of the euro belong to the same scale. The amount of reserves in
euros is close to half that of reserves expressed in dollars. This is
all the more depressing for the American empire, as the latter also
loses ground in other areas, which makes it less and less able to retain
its global power, and plunges into a more and more serious funding
crisis – since all the expenses of the American empire are paid by the
American nation-state. The empire does not have a de iurebudget
– so, of course, the bill is passed to the nation-state. But the Iowa
farmer does not really understand why his country has an annual military
budget of $ 1000 billion, while no one in this world is threatening him
– and while will categorically refuse to protect him against what does
threaten him. For example: migrations. Raoul Weiss: But one may
wonder to what extent Germany is really determined to resist, given that
the German nation-state would like to have an empire, but is reluctant
to bear the cost … László Bogár: It is what the
Germans of today would like, as well as Germany, as part of the global
capital structure, as well as this German society, which still enjoys a
good share of well-being – they would desire this imperial status. Maybe
I wouldn’t dare to say that Germany does not want to pay the price; I
have rather the impression that it lacks the courage to admit that, in
order to defend her imperial candidacy, they would be obliged to
confront the American empire. This is where the limit of German daring
lies. Germany would like to step forward, but cannot even imagine what
this confrontation could mean. First, let us not forget that in the
1970s, Germany was the scene of numerous political assassinations:
high-ranking personalities (for example the director of Dresdner Bank [it seems that László
Bogár is referring to Alfred Herrhausen, then director of the Deutsche
Bank, or to Jürgen Ponto, spokesperson of the Dresdner Bank, Ed.]
) were slaughtered in the middle of the street, and the murderers were
never caught. The German elites then felt that the empire, if it feels
the need to punish them, can resort to quite brutal methods, so that
they do not wish to renew the experience of such a confrontation. To
some extent, the deepest sense of the migration crisis is that the
American empire wants to ruin the whole of Europe, and would be glad to
see the euro weakened or exploding – which would automatically free some
ground for the dollar, even if the result is no more than a
procrastination of the fall. The explosion of the euro would also have
extremely serious consequences for Germany. Admittedly, the most serious
consequences – a detail of great importance – would be in southern
Europe. Behind the disastrous situation of southern Europe, however, we
find – and this a very sensitive issue, a point on which one cannot
insist too much – the greed of German economic and political elites.
Indeed, those 2500 billion euros of Italian government debt include the
result of huge Italian trade deficits vis-à-vis Germany, of
which the latter has benefited hugely. In other words: to keep control
of the German imperial mark, the currency of the Fourth Reich, also
implies responsibilities. If the European Union was a unitary empire,
the problem would not even arise. Within the United States of America,
for example, it is not even possible to measure the exact share of Iowa
or Kansas in federal debt.
László Bogár (on the Left) and Raoul Weiss (on the Right) in Budapest, November 2018. Photo: Visegrád PostRaoul Weiss: There is already
some talk about a Franco-German joint parliament. It does not exist
yet, but it is already all over the media. But where is the common
budget? Macron has indeed made such a proposal to Merkel, but all Merkel
seems willing to grant is a tiny fraction of the requested sums… László Bogár: There is no
alternative. They will have to unite the German, Italian and French
budgets, otherwise the euro will fall. Spoken today, this sentence may
have accents of political science-fiction, and the German elite may
choose to say “no, I do not accept that” – but then the euro is over. In
that case, their calculation would be the following: let the euro sink,
even then, Germany will still be, in a way, the master of Europe – yes,
but the master of such a Europe in which not only Italy, but also
France are sinking into utter chaos. Here is the choice in relation to
which the Germans must now weigh the pros and the cons: openly assume
their will to operate a world empire of Europe, so that this empire can
survive, with the euro, or let down the whole thing, in which case it
will explode, which in the medium term will of course have catastrophic
consequences first for the French, Italian and all of southern Europe,
but will eventually not spare Germany either. They will soon have to
decide. The American empire is banking on the collapse of the euro,
which would favour its business. And there is also a certain part of the
German elite secretly thinking: “Let’s dump that shit – at least, it
will be a good riddance”. But the reason for this is that the German
elites have not yet got a clear idea of the size of the wounds that a
total explosion of the euro could inflict to Germany in the medium term.
I think that the coming years will be critical – say: the next five
years, during which the German elite will have to choose. And, from this
point of view, it will be very important to know who will succeed
Merkel as Chancellor – (…) This gentleman Merz, who was Wolfgang
Schäuble’s man – and, through Schäuble, in fact, a Helmut Kohl guy –,
one can suspect in what direction he is going. I suspect that he
might be able to understand the problem in all its magnitude, whereas,
as regards the other candidates, I’m really not sure that they would be
able to decipher the situation. No one can say today what would be
Merz’s answer if he ever had to face the problem as a Chancellor, but
he, at least, would be able to understand the problem itself, and to
make the German elites understand it. Merz also comes off a defeat in
the first round of the competition for the presidency of the CDU – which
could ultimately turn out to his advantage. But I think that the
decisive choice will be made within the next five years, and that it
will be of paramount importance: the future of the whole of Europe –
for, say, fifty years – will be determined by the capacity that
[Merkel’s] successor will have – or not – to understand the nature of
the situation and to provide such a strategic response that represents a
lesser evil for Europe. We are a little short of good solutions. Raoul Weiss: Let’s go back to
the euro – or rather, to the forint. In France, today, many describe
the euro as a trap. Assuming that it would also have been a trap for
Hungary – which is not certain, as the initial parameters were quite
different – we might say that Hungary managed to avoid the trap. There
remains, however, the question of how far this preserved forint
guarantees the monetary independence of Hungary – or, to phrase it very
plainly: is the forint really Hungarian money? László Bogár: There is a
Hungarian saying – full of that bitter irony that characterizes us –
according to which the only problem with the Hungarian National Bank is
that it is not Hungarian, nor national, nor even a bank; in fact, it is
the Hungarian local branch of the global financial power. This is a
consequence of the dogma of the “independence” of central banks, which
the liberal indoctrination has been inculcating to the Hungarian public
by means of a gigantic media arsenal – the dogma states that the HNB has
to be independent, that is to say that it should not depend on the
Hungarian people and the strategic interests of Hungary. Nowadays, thank
God, the Hungarian public discourse has been able to decode this idea,
and people now see exactly what this “independence” really means: the
obligation to serve the interests of the global financial power,
starting with the first of them: siphoning out of Hungary – partly
through exchange rates, partly in the form of interest on state debt –
as much resources as possible. Concretely: the interests on Hungarian
state obligations, which mostly leave the country, must be as high as
possible, and the exchange rates, as little favourable as possible for
Hungary. This is the real cause of the most serious conflicts which
Viktor Orbán’s governments had to face over the last eight years, and it
is highly likely that these conflicts – as the recent debates in the
European Parliament – will only intensify in the near future, especially
during the months before the European elections, but also afterwards.
They are largely rooted in the fact that Viktor Orbán is one of those –
still very few – European politicians who have identified this problem. A famous Hungarian thinker of the twentieth
century, István Bibó, said that the weakness of the Hungarian spirit is
that it produces on the one hand hypertensive realists, who see what’s
at stake in the world of their time, but do not know how to react to it
and therefore prefer to take refuge in a posture of prophets, an ivory
tower; on the other hand, false pragmatists, who adopt a cynical
attitude of saying: “Come on, whether we like it or not, we will have to
serve the world empire no matter who holds it, so why worry? The best
way to help ourselves is to help the Empire” – except, of course, that,
in doing so, they act against the interests of the majority of the
people. Raoul Weiss: The Gyurcsány type [Ferenc Gyurcsány, left-wing liberal, was Prime Minister of Hungary from 2004 to 2009, Ed.]. László Bogár: Indeed. And this is
what makes Bibó say that what we would need are pragmatic realists: men
able to understand the issues, to see that their homeland is cornered,
but also to have a pragmatic conception, based on the idea that there is
always a minimum of leeway: “Let’s try to loosen the noose!” And here
is the origin of the conflict: nowadays, even such a search of a minimal
leeway is perceived as a terrorist attack by the system of global
financial domination. Raoul Weiss: They got you rid of the IMF. László Bogár: Yes, and to do
that, it was even necessary to change the director of the central bank.
Obviously, the Prime Minister and the head of the central bank have to
work in tandem, in the closest possible collaboration, even perfectly
synchronizing their communication. And everything seems to indicate that
in the last eight years – at the cost of enormous risks, tensions and
conflicts – Hungary has succeeded – as is now generally admitted – to
reach a much more favourable financial situation than ten years ago. And
the lesson this teaches us seem to be that, even if the leeway is not
huge, even if it implies considerable risks – provided, of course, that
the circumstances make it possible – fortune smiles on the audacious.
This is why it takes a great deal of courage, intellectual courage,
knowledge and determination for a politician to truly act as a
responsible statesman, to be more than just a globalist collaborator –
even though, obviously, some level of collaboration is always
unavoidable. Indeed, direct confrontation does not make any sense
either. But, that being said, the leeway does exist, and it is a fact
that today, Hungary is more or less out of the trap, and enjoys some
level of freedom. We remain, of course, subject to the global system of
financial domination, but this freedom exists, and we may say that
qualitatively Viktor Orbán makes a much better use of it than Ferenc
Gyurcsány did – supposing, of course, that the latter really wanted to
make good use of it, which is a different issue. Raoul Weiss: Yet they’re still sucking your forints out of the country. László Bogár: Of course they are,
it’s beyond doubt. And the money pump is here to stay, but as a
Hungarian proverb says, “saving a little time can save your life.” The
simple fact that a local identity, moreover such an identity which was
quite unlucky historically during the last century – the Hungarian
nation – was able, within a decade, to avoid being deprived of, say, a
few miserable billions of euros per year may be sufficient to bring
about change – enough to give it, for example, small incremental odds in
the field of demography. Because, as you know, in Hungary as elsewhere,
that is the most serious problem: in the last thirty years, the number
of our deaths exceeds by one million that of our births. The population
is aging, which unbalances the age pyramid, and the working population
is plunging – which has the temporary advantage of upgrading the value
of workforce, which makes wage rises possible: the famine of labour is
such that capital is obliged to consent to small increases in wages. But most importantly, it seems that Viktor Orbán
embodies a victory of the realistic pragmatic option – in other words:
that his strategy is likely to succeed. Raoul Weiss: At present,
Hungary is getting richer and is industrializing a bit; but it was not
the same in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is a point I would like to
come back to, since, in Western European political debates – often even
in those of the Euro-critical circles – it has become customary to
present the V4 countries as clever parasites, who have become masters in
the art of sucking the blood of the great economies of the metropolis
through European funds. Now, following your activity as a publicist, I
was confronted with a radically different point of view on many
subjects, and especially on what was the real nature of these transfers
of wealth between East and West since the fall of communism – mostly
during the period immediately following the regime change. László Bogár: This view of the
situation seems extraordinarily wrong to me. Indeed, in the years
preceding 2004 (the year of Hungary’s accession to the EU) – that is to
say, a period of [14 years, but] we could even say twenty years, since
Hungary, as early as the 1980s, had passed some trade agreements with
the EEC which were even more disadvantageous [than the current
agreements] – Hungary unilaterally opened its markets. Let us not forget
that, as early as 1988, Hungary was open to inflows of foreign capital.
In this perspective, Hungary, as a country that opened its economic
space without compensations, has in fact made an enormous contribution
to the wealth of the West. There is at least a one-digit difference
between the total of funds that left Hungary, whether in the form of
profits or as interest on the debt – since its creditors were obviously
Western European countries – and the total aid received by Hungary since
accession. Hence, one could say that, to some extent, the
opposite is true: during the 14 years since the accession of Hungary to
the EU, Hungary has only recovered part (…) of what Western European
countries had unilaterally punctured during the 20 to 25 years elapsed
before the 2004 accession. The reason why it is nevertheless difficult
to address this subject in the media is that explaining this reality,
making it understandable is incomparably more complicated than to resort
to the striking but false metaphor of the wretched little cynical and
filthy parasite of the East, which everyone understands without
difficulty – which is even music to the ears of Western European
citizens, because it at least has the merit of providing a scapegoat:
thanks to such metaphors, they finally know what to think: “Here’s our
problem! That’s why there is never money enough for us! Because we have
to help out those punks!” And the same goes for Greece – the lousy and lazy
Greek society: everyone forgets to tell you that during the Greek
crisis, [financial circles] have, without the slightest sound motive,
pushed up to 35% the interests on Greek state paper in euros, by means
of artificial hysteria, spreading the word that Greece was going
bankrupt, and that this is precisely why it was necessary to maximize
the interests, in order to protect the creditors in case of bankruptcy.
Yet Greece did not go bankrupt, but, of course, none of those huge
interest gains was ever payed back by any of those creditors who had
used that bogey argument to plunder Greece. Everyone knew that Greece
would not go bankrupt: everyone was playing – and keeps playing – a game
of incredible cynicism.
“Our region is once again becoming a buffer zone whose geopolitical value is growing steadily” – 2/2
25-31 minutes
Raoul Weiss: László Bogár, what is the economic
reality of the V4? Until now, the main trade routes in Central Europe
have been the East-West axes. What does Central Europe lack the most in
order to assert itself also in the economic field? Are Central European
economies not sufficiently complementary? Or is it the lack of
North-South infrastructure – be it logistical or financial – to offset
the dominance of East-West infrastructures? Finally: assuming that the
V4 seeks to develop such infrastructure, to what extent do you think the
West will tolerate such an evolution? László Bogár: It’s all of that at once. There is an
analyst of Russian origin on Bloomberg, a guy called Bershidsky, for
whom I sometimes go out of my way: he’s a pure liberal, perfectly
cynical, but he’s very sharp, he goes straight to the essential; he is
the one who coined the phrase “foreign owned countries” to describe such
countries. What he’s trying to say is obviously something along the
line of:“Dear populists, what kind of game is this? We – the global
capital –are your master”. Now, let’s face it: there is a lot of truth
in what he says – especially in the case of Hungary. The most cautious
were the Czechs. The least prudent, the Slovaks, since after all,
Slovakia does not exist: it is a warehouse, partly German, partly
French. The very moment these global giants collapse, countries like
Slovakia, which are totally at their mercy, could disappear in a few
minutes. In concrete terms, Slovakia exports all of its GDP. Of course,
this is also the case of Singapore – but not under the same conditions…
In reality, all these countries are in the chains of the same
plantation; in each of them, however, an awareness has arisen: they are
beginning to understand the problem. Hungary is the country where the
resistance is most marked, [for a good reason:] after Slovakia, we
Hungarians are the most dependent in the group. Raoul Weiss: From this point of view, the most independent country would be Poland. László Bogár: It is indeed Poland. The first reason
for that is that everyone was well aware that Poland should have emerged
as a clear winner of the Second World War; however, of all the
countries in this situation, it is the only one to have been totally
treated as a losing country. This is partly true also of Czechoslovakia,
but above all of Poland, whose suffering has been appalling, but never
received the astronomical compensations to which it was entitled. But,
as this implies a huge potential for revolt, we understand better that
the Polish church and Poland’s rural society have been treated with more
respect than elsewhere … Raoul Weiss: Then how is it that, even though
Poland has a head start in this area, the locomotive of this
emancipation movement is rather Hungary… László Bogár: It’s an intellectual difference, and
it’s also about Viktor Orbán’s personality. It is linked to the fact
that – even if the same could partly be said about the Poles and Czechs –
the Hungarians, during the last three centuries, have been particularly
forced to an optimal spiritual production. Not because they would in
any case be more inclined than others to turn to things of the spirit,
but because they were subjected to shocks, constraints and revolutions
of such brutality, that their intellectual sensitivity must have come
out of the process increased– I say this without underestimating that of
the Czechs, or of the Poles, who have also been confronted with major
existential challenges, bearing similar psychological consequences.
The ranking, though, is still the same: when it comes to intellectual
fermentation, which can lead to the definition of a new global trend, a
thought, an alternative global narrative, Hungary is always leading,
because, if we take stock of – say – the last three hundred years, it is
certainly the country of the region which had to face most spiritual
challenges. Note, however, that this situation does not create tension
with the Czechs and Poles, who accept this leadership with no hard
feelings: the Poles one hundred percent, but the Czechs too, overall. In
the three capitals – Slovakia is not a full-fledged player – the basic
dilemma is the same. It is a collaboration between three high-culture
nations (Czechs, Poles and Hungarians), which of course have also been
opposed by conflicts, but which, on the whole, can look back to a
thousand years of sympathy and cooperation. (…) Now, in these three
nations, we are witnessing the same frontal intellectual clash between
two sides. On the one hand, the local collaborators of globalism (…),
which of course enjoy permanent international support. On the other
hand, a camp that is more difficult to define. In Hungary, it defines
itself as “the right”, the polgári[1]
camp, national and Christian, popular and conservative – as you can
see, it defines itself in a rather diverse way. This uncertainty
reflects in part internal conflicts – from this point of view, FIDESZ is
also in itself a great coalition, the crossroad of many currents,
unified by the synthetic effect exerted on them by Viktor Orbán: while
still fighting each other harshly, they do understand that they put more
chances on their side by choosing the path of consensus.
How can such countries, threaded like pearls on the chain of global
capital, living parallel existences and unable to relate to each other,
possibly cooperate? To be able to do so, they first need a well-thought
spiritual project. This is why I give extraordinary importance to the
intellectual fermentation which is now happening. On the one hand, it is
a mission that these countries will not fulfill within the next five
minutes: it is, after all, nothing less than the opening of a new
historical epoch, which should ideally be based on a lasting narrative,
not a simple conjunctural arrangement or a passing optical effect that
may vanish as soon as it appeared. This is all the more important as our
region is once again becoming a buffer zone whose [geopolitical] value
is growing steadily. Indeed, it is clear that the collapsing US empire,
on the brink of death, is trying to weaken Europe, the EU, Russia and
China – targeting each of these powers individually, but also by
sabotaging as much as possible the networks that unite them. A perfectly
logical strategy from America’s point of view – the trouble is that the
biggest losers in this rampage are likely to be, once again, the
countries in the buffer zone. Therefore, assuming this region does not
want to pay the price again –let’s wish it does not! … Ukraine is the
country offering the best image of the disaster that awaits us if we
give in to the irresponsibility of myopic and selfish elites. From this
point of view, Romania, too, is walking on thin ice … and might wake up
with a painful hangover. Even the Baltic countries. Even the Poles, from
time to time, are victims of an excess of visceral Russophobia,
certainly understandable, but which may become dangerously
counterproductive in the current situation.
All this, for the moment, is not very dangerous, but it is another
sign pointing towards an imminent peak in the strategic valuation of the
region, that the [competing] empires will therefore want to buy. It is
therefore possible to make them compete and raise the stakes. Even
without much thinking, I can mention four or five competing empires: the
EU empire, Russia, China, America. [To which must be added
non-territorial powers:] among the Jews, (…) the Soros-Netanyahu clash
clearly shows that there is local Jewry and world Jewry. To speak of it,
of course, is tantamount to a taboo – indeed, how to explain this
shock, if not [assuming] that Netanyahu, speaking in the name of local
Jewry, is signalling to Georges Soros that it would be time to show more
responsibility when he plays with the fate of Jews around the world.
(…) And lo and behold: Netanyahu comes here at the invitation of the V4
and invites them to Tel Aviv, or to Jerusalem – an event that, just a
few years ago, would still have sounded like political science fiction.
(…) Raoul Weiss: Behind all these divorces, there is
a major anthropological divergence, which was diagnosed a few years ago
by the French geographer Guilluy in his bestselling book La France périphérique. In the meantime, he has made his reflection more international, in the form of his new book No Society,
which contains numerous German, North American, and other examples –
but the basic pattern remains the same: on the one hand, there is
metropolitan humanity, the one living in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Paris,
Budapest … László Bogár: In days of yore, this was called: the cosmopolitan world – although, it would be time to find a better word. (…)
But if the conflict between Netanyahu and Soros worsens … and some
signs point in this direction – on some fundamental topics, in
particular: Netanyahu [for example] does not hesitate to declare that
the fate of the Jews in Europe – and here we speak of at least 2.5 to 3
million people – is tragically influenced by the migration problem, a
debate in which he assumed positions diametrically opposed to those of
Soros. From this point of view, such a situation should give us hope, if
only because it is now possible to open such a discursive space. As for
the direction in which it will evolve, this is a completely different
question, but [for now all is still about] the mere existence of such a
discursive space, where it becomes possible to address these questions
with sincerity and humanity, to simply assert that there is a conflict
area. It’a all about the simple fact that it is no longer possible to
call an idiot anyone who dares to approach this subject, to get rid of
it expeditiously by means of all sorts of innuendos and suspicions.
Since it is now necessary to take note of the opening of this discursive
space, which it is no longer possible to close. I would even say that
any sane and morally healthy person should rejoice at the existence of
this discursive space; later on we will see to what conclusions it will
bring us. Raoul Weiss: You are an economist, but an
economist able to think beyond economy, to reflect about the fate of
human communities. For the public opinion, if it were necessary to
summarize in two words your reflections, the result would probably be:
László Bogár, a thinker on the right. As far as I’m concerned, however,
having read many of your editorials and followed a lot of the TV shows
in which you participate, I have the impression that your perspective,
in many ways, departs both from that of the mainstream European right,
but often even from that of Hungary’s FIDESZ – or at least from the
doctrine of the “first edition” FIDESZ in the 1990s and 2000s. When you
write, for example, in the preface to your last book, that Hungarians in
the 1950s were spiritually, morally and intellectually in much better
shape than those of all subsequent generations. In view of such
statements, it is obvious to me that we are moving away from “primary
anti-communism” and that we are doing so to open up a critique of
modernity that goes beyond the creed of polgári Hungary. In fact, you
are a living example of this paradoxical truth that we, at the Visegrád Post,
seek to popularize: from an ideological point of view, this “illiberal”
Hungary is far more open than contemporary Western societies, which are
dominated by an increasingly threatening unanimity-constraint. László Bogár: All this is remarkably accurate. The
reason is that – and there is no doubt that this was a lucky development
in my life – for the last 16 years, I have not been subjected to the
direct influence of political responsibilities. Therefore, all that I
say and write is not the direct expression of this or that political
current, but the consequence of my endeavour to force myself, and to
force others, to contemplate with sensitivity the processes at work,
both in the world, and in Hungary. Let’s have the courage to re-examine
ourselves again and again. The courage of self-criticism. There is a
media theory, called the theory of selective apperception, which
predicts that, for reasons of energy saving, we have – all as much as we
are – a tendency to pay attention only to such radio, television, press
or other media contents which reinforces our beliefs; as for other
contents, we do not even notice their existence. This is quite
regrettable, insofar as it implies that, after a while, we end up having
blinkers, or even feel that something is wrong (…); which makes you end
up totally giving up. I know it’s very difficult, and often risky. [In
spite of everything,] at the university, I always encourage my students
to avoid thinking according to doctrines, despite the fact that higher
education tends to indoctrinate them, which often terribly saddens me. I
therefore strive, in my peaceful way, to wage an incessant struggle to
keep up with what is – to put it now in the terms of a deeper philosophy
– the only mission of man: to understand the totality of existence,
and, once he finally gets to a harmonic understanding of existence, to
fit into it, in a patient, peaceful and humble way. Raoul Weiss: This makes me want to ask you: can
this attitude of openness, this sincerity in the search for truth,
become mainstream in the long term in the political sphere as it is
currently configured, i.e. mainly according to the paradigm “right VS
left” – or do you think that a paradigm shift [will be necessary]? László Bogár: Such a change seems to me inevitable,
in so far as it is also happening on a global scale. Look at Steve
Bannon’s trajectory: how he seemed to come out of nothing, then seemed
to go back to nothing (hopefully this is only an impression, because his
ascent remains of great intellectual importance); in any case, he was
seen getting dramatically close to, and then equally dramatically far
from something that would have allowed him to exert an influence, not
only intellectual, but also institutional. He is the man who assumes the
intellectual paternity of the narrative that has removed Donald Trump
from nothingness and despair to carry him to the presidential chair. And
that’s why he was the first to fall out of favour. But this is yet
another symptom that nowadays this is the side – the right wing, the polgári camp,
the people’s side, the national, conservative, Christian camp, or all
that at the same time, in harmonious or even conflictual combination –on
which takes place the titanic intellectual work that must give birth to
a new narrative, more or less unitary, more or less variegated, but
capable – in its fundamental logic of existential interpretation – to
provide the new global narrative. This is of course, for the moment,
still a distant goal, and nothing guarantees even that it will be
reached, but, from an intellectual point of view, there is constant
endeavour in that direction – this cannot be overseen; to which we must
add that we live in a world where the combat for the interpretation of
fact, truth and reality has reached an intensity and visibility unseen
in history. We might perhaps say that ever since ancient Greece, 2 500
years ago, we have not seen such an open and daily questioning of the
foundations of fact, truth and reality.
The current situation is that intellectually, humanity is moving
towards the most total chaos. (…) Once again, we have to acknowledge the
duplicity of the tool – from the flint axe to Facebook: it can be the
instrument of building and healing, or that of destruction and
degeneration. As for which of these two scenarios will prevail, this is
essentially linked to the evolution of the spiritual civil war, the
ongoing global civil war: which of the competing narratives will be able
to make the largest population chunk believe that they should take this
or that direction, considering that all other narratives –as it is now
becoming even visible – lead humanity to its loss, including from an
ecological point of view. (…) The worst thing is that some of these
deceptive narratives claim to provide a solution to the ecological
problem. Let’s not forget that among the financial sponsors of
Greenpeace, we find some of the worst polluters on the planet. Now we
are witnessing the same processes in the spiritual sphere, since there
is not one nature, but two: one is the external nature of man, the
other, his inner, spiritual, moral, intellectual nature. And, in both
natures, we are playing the spiritual equivalent of a global chess game,
which would be at the same time a poker game in which every player is
lying about his hand. Raoul Weiss: Let’s turn a moment to the left. In
Hungary – when seen from a French perspective, at least – one is struck
to see that the pro-government press has the habit of blaming all the
worst enemies of FIDESZ as”Marxists” –no matter, whether they target
circles close to the Hungarian Socialist Party (which is indeed the heir
of a single party that once was officially “Marxist-Leninist”),
“ecologists” of the rather atypical LMP party, Macron-like ultraliberals
of the Momentum party, or even the formerly far-right Jobbik party,
ever since its recent “LGBT U-turn”. For me, I did read Marx, and I
often have the impression that László Bogár has understood more out of
Marx than, say, Gáspár Miklós Tamás[2],
who, nevertheless, has obviously also read Marx. However, the true
ideology of the latter (and this statement could be extended to all of
the above-mentioned opposition movements) does not seem to be at all
classical Marxism, but rather the kind of“radical illuminism” advocated
and studied, for example, by Jonathan Israel. Nobody, though, would ever
claim that László Bogár would be a Marxist; but perhaps the time has
come to introduce also in Hungary the distinction – already common for a
long time in French philosophy – between Marxists (those of Marx’s readers who also adopt his revolutionary program) and Marxians (those conceptually enriched by Marx’s thinking,who, however, do not become Marxists)? László Bogár: A story is told about Marx – authentic
or not, but a long-living one in any case: Marx, who was a choleric
man, amidst a fit, declares that he is certainly not a Marxist. Until
the end of his life, he strove to remain mentally flexible: to
assimilate contradictions and, if necessary, to modify his own views. It
must be recognized that Marx was a true thinker. From this point of
view, even if we do not accept any of his views, we should still
recognize in him an intellectual phenomenon worthy of attention. As for
me, what seems to me the most objectionable to Marx – whose analyzes,
though, always gave me food for thought –are the writings of his youth,
those of his journalistic period, that show a Marx who has nothing
against Capitalism, who is in no way opposed to modernity, modernization
– quite the opposite! … Those writings leave no doubt that, for him,
capitalism has a fundamentally positive function. When it utterly ruins,
first spiritually, then of course materially too, what he then sees as
his real enemy –traditional sacredness –, he welcomes it without any
hesitation, and he does so in Germany during the end of the first third
of the nineteenth century! This is what opposes me directly to his
thinking.
But let us return to “dialectical materialism” (the name under which
Marxism was taught in Hungarian universities during the communist era):
to me, the dialectical interpretation of history suggests exactly the
opposite narrative. For me, it is the “Enlightenment” that I see as a
process of systematic spiritual darkening. And – even if this argument
may seem demagogic – let me point out that 95% of the tourists who visit
Europe – whether internal or external tourism –, when visiting cities,
are looking for the products of that dark age that preceded the
Enlightenment, the age of the cathedrals, rather than those of the
following ages – which, in my opinion, speaks volumes. Even if we had no
other objection to the doxa, it would still be worth thinking about:
how to reconcile this fact with the general idea that there was first a
dark and horrible and inhuman “middle age”, followed by a wonderful age,
after which everyone is happy, because humanity has reached the time of
perpetual peace, well-being and happiness – at the end of which, in
accordance with Fukuyama’s predictions, the triumph of global liberal
capitalism solves all our problems in one movement.
If there is a dialectic of history, as I get older, I am more and more prone to agree with Spengler, who, in the Decline of the West,
misses no opportunity to emphasize that history, as such, does not and
cannot have purpose or meaning. What exists are cultures, enormous
flashes, gigantic cultural exploits, during which man, within the
framework of a certain configuration of being, by application of certain
self-repeating patterns, or fractal structures, gives birth to
fantastic, breath taking creations: the age of the cathedrals. Then,
like everything that lives, it reaches a peak, becomes lazy, hardens,
becomes heavier.
This is, however, the main reason for his distinction between culture
and civilization: the West began as a sacral culture, during – say –
six centuries, those of the Roman and Gothic styles in architecture,
then, for some reason, the mechanism derailed. At that moment, it is so
full of itself that it becomes parasitic. No longer yielding new
cultural performances, it begins parasitizing itself, then discovers
more and more the means of parasitizing others: it is the age of the
“great discoveries” and colonization. Then, in the end, it stagnates:
nowadays, obviously, Westerners even lack the will to reproduce. They
still live a short hedonistic phase, making a living out of all kinds of
scams, but they’re more and more unhappy, more and more bad-tempered,
more and more degenerate. Unfortunately,this phase was the last century.
Spengler did not pose as a prophet. He too only made suggestions. And
he was not a scholar. His book is rather philosophical poetry – which,
as we can see, reaches deeper layers. By staying at the level of
instincts, intuitions and suggestions, in fact, he gets a more accurate
portrait of this entity known as the West. If, therefore, there is a
dialectic of history, if history has the slightest sense and purpose –an
idea in which I tend to believe less and less – then the answer can
only be the one given by Spengler: when a great culture is in the
process of ascension, all – from the individual to the greater or lesser
groups of individuals –spiritually strive to bring to the surface all
they are capable of. Then, for a while, they try to maintain what they
have produced. And then, after a while – to paraphrase a line by Attila
József – “everything that exists falls apart”.
On the entropy scale, there is no [backtracking]. Everything in this
world that comes into existence ends up, of course, deteriorating. As
long as [a culture] retains its spiritual strength, the force that
allows it to maintain order – by which one must naturally understand:
the order of the sacredness – and to elevate it to an ever higher
organizational level, it keeps evolving forwards and remains truly
precious, ascending; then, from the very day this stops functioning … It
is also the case of our [individual] lives: obviously, they reach a
climax, which is the moment when we are theoretically capable of all the
successes – both physical and spiritual – of which man is capable in
this world. In practice, this is a point that most often we do not
reach, but there is in any case a culmination, after which we let go,
and this is not surprising. We always imagine that everyone dies, but
that we will live forever. Empires, too, those types of organization of
being, and large cultures, show this tendency to imagine themselves as
immortals. Now, if I dare say: nothing is eternal, except change. But
the essence of change is to operate in cycles: conception, birth,
ascension, decline, collapse, destruction – then, in the happiest case:
return to humus, where a new life can germinate. I like to believe that in Latin, humus (the earth), homo (man, humanity) and humilis
(humble) are derived from the same root. I hope that this coincidence
of man, earth and humility in some archaic stratum of language is not
the work of chance. László Bogár (on the Left) and Raoul Weiss (on the Right) in Budapest, November 2018. Photo: Visegrád Post[1]Translator’s note: we decided
to give up on this Hungarian word, which is largely untranslatable to
most Western-European languages; several equivalents (such as “civic” or
“bourgeois”) can be found in dictionaries, but, in such context, all of
them would be highly misleading. Polgári is an adjective derived from the substantive polgár, which was borrowed from the medieval German Bürger (which also gave bourgeois in
French and, hence, English); this word can sometimes be translated as
“citizen” (an English word sharing the etymology of German Bürger),
sometimes by “bourgeois”. In Western-European languages, however, in a
political context, the civic notion tends to refer to legal
citizenship, i.e. to a republican(i.e. modern, anti-monarchical and
secular) view of the nation – which is not the case of Hungarian polgár– whereas the political use of the term “bourgeois”evokes economistic and liberal Weltanschauungs
– which, again, is not the case of the Hungarian word (for diverse
reasons – the most important probably being the difference in industrial
development between the two sides of the continent, which explains why
Hungary has, until these very last years, never grown a modern –i.e.:
urban and industrial –bourgeoisie). [2]CEU professor and a major figure of anti-FIDESZ demonstrations.
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu