Peter Kaslik

 

The Twenty-five-thousand Dollar Scam
Reflections on Anna Porter’s  Book on Eastern Europe

During the past eight years Hungary has been governed by the corporate friendly, corrupt, and wasteful government coalition consisting of former communists, and their unlikely (initially “anti communist”) liberal partners. It seems that during the Hungarian elections of April 2010, the principle of “You cannot fool all of the people all of the time,” prevailed. The overwhelming majority of the Hungarian voters said “NO” to the rule of corporate power, and corrupt government of the past eight years. In the events like these it is the job of the international media to punish and discredit any nation unwilling to entrust its fate into the hands of big business.  Consequently, this is the year of Hungarian bashing in Canada and elsewhere.¹ 

Manufacturing (Anti-Hungarian) Consent

Due to the international character of the media ownership, the different papers are different in name only. The ceaseless stream of anti-Hungarian articles in the Canadian media is a glaring example of what Noam Chomsky calls “manufacturing Consent,”which means media consumers do not see truth but rather what media fabricates. 

Since the free, and fair election of a new Hungarian Government in April 2010, every major Canadian newspaper, as well as the MacLean’s magazine has published an article on the rise of fascism, and the dangers of dictatorship in Hungary. In the process of this orchestrated and reckless campaign, the Canadian media has deeply offended Hungarians everywhere by depicting them collectively as inherently antidemocratic, intolerant, and incompetent. We are currently witnessing an orchestrated campaign against Hungarians, because the anti-Hungarian articles in Canadian press are tellingly uniform. Despite being published in different Canadian papers, and written by different individuals, the overall structure, as well as the line of argument about the alleged impending doom of democracy in Hungary is identical. Every one of these articles reflects the exact same point of view, and uses the same types rhetoric, only to, surprise, draw the same conclusions. Under normal circumstances, different individuals would have different points of views, and one paper would not dwell on the same subject that has been exhausted others.

Creative Non-fiction?

The flak against Hungarians continues to this day; however, the stakes have been raised by now. Aftefter the media frenzy, follows the book. Read all about it in Anna Porter’s newest, and well-timed assemblage entitled: “The Ghosts of Europe – Journeys to Central Europe’s Troubled Past and Uncertain Future.” Her “non-fiction” book contains a chapter on Hungary (Pages 201–268) These pages, as well as the book’s introductory pages, written by the author, contain the complete body of false claims, fear mongering, unfounded accusations which are already readily available in the Hungarian liberal media, and duly repeated in Canadian media.

Some of Porter’s statements in the book reveal her very tenuous grasp of reality in Eastern Europe today. On page 10 we find the following two sentences: ”In preparations for April 10 elections in Hungary Viktor Orbán, leader of the FIDESZ party spoke of ‘Greater Hungary,’ the pre-World I version that included most of modern-day Slovakia, and parts of Rumania and Serbia. His populist platform guaranteed his sweeping victory.”

For a serious claim like this to be made, one would expect some sort of primary sources to be referenced or at least alluded to, as historians and journalists base their credibility on such factual and concrete research. Alas, Porter provides none. 

As well, to achieve what Porter claims Viktor Orbán is promising here to the Hungarian voters, Hungary, as a NATO member would have to go war not only against, Rumania, Slovakia, and Serbia, but also against Italy, The Ukraine, Bosnia, and Croatia as well. Most of these countries are fellow NATO members with Hungary today. Further, Viktor Orbán is much too skilled of a politician to offer fodder for the already very intense anti-Hungarian propaganda. There is no trace in the press, or elsewhere, about this kind of statement ever made by Viktor Orbán.

The chapter of Porter’s book on Hungary is partly a retelling of the author’s previously published articles, padded for a personal touch with conversations with members of the liberal intelligencia, referred to by the author as ”leading intellectuals.” Porter dines with former communist informers, all of them beneficiaries of former regimes.

To understand the chapter on Hungary requires so much background knowledge, not to mention an insider’s familiarity with details, that it is nearly impossible for the Canadian reader. To make matters worse, the author herself obtains her information mostly second-hand. In an attempt to present it as primary knowledge, she puts herself in the picture, thus her text becomes crowded, loses focus, and makes it difficult to discern the irrelevant information from the main thrust of her message. The vast majority of the book’s footnotes on Hungary cite texts in Hungarian language. These sources are not readily available in Canada and, in any event, the vast majority of Canadian readers would not easily understand them.

Anna Porter’s sources, although some of them well known, or notorious in the narrow liberal circles in Hungary, are largely unknown to the Canadian readers, and that would make it impossible for the reader to asses their credibility. The question also arises: Do the Canadian readers posses the large amount of detailed background information on four far away countries of Eastern Europe required to follow Anna Porter’s book?  Do they have to?

In sum, Porter’s book rests on the intellectual fallacy, that insistence, repetition, and hearing a claim directly from those, who made it on the first place, will make something true and yet in spite of the book’s organizational and journalistic shortcomings,  it has been highly praised by every major Toronto newspaper, as well as by MacLean’s magazine, the Montreal Gazette etc. These reviews contain the most widely used quotable generalizations, and clichés found in any routinely written positive review. The majority of reviews were written by Anna Porter’s colleagues, and by her Toronto friends.²
The only realistic review of Anna Porter’s book appeared February 2001 in Prague Post, The Czech- Republic’s English Language Newspaper, titled: “Too Little, too Late”³ by Staff Writer Benjamin Cunningham, which pointed out that Porter”s book “rings hollow,” because:

“Some of Porter's vignettes might make for a fair magazine article, but one expects more from books, including sophistication and purpose. The Ghosts of Europe largely amounts to a trip down memory lane with former dissidents, but executed less insightfully than has been done already, and a decade or so late.”

 
Prize and Prejudice

Following the flurry of praise of the book in the Canadian mainstream media, or because of it, in February 2011 Anna Porter won the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for the best political writing in Canada.

According to the Prize Guidelines,⁴ the awarded works shall capture “…a political subject of interest to the Canadian reader…
- The winning work will combine compelling new insights with depth of research. Strong consideration will be given to books that, in the opinion of the jury, has the potential to shape or influence Canadian political life”.

It is incomprehensible how a book containing so much recycled, controversial information, and unsubstantiated claims about the events in four distant Eastern European countries can shape or influence Canadian political life. 

If one looks at the list of the runner-ups,⁵ it is obvious that there is something wrong with the process of selection, and the priorities of topics that might be important to Canadians. A book about the question of sovereignty of the Canadian Arctic did not get the award, although this topic is of paramount interest for the future of Canada. A book about the erosion of democracy during the rule of the present Government of Canada did not get the award, while the alleged erosion of democracy in faraway countries of Eastern Europe proved to be more important for the Canadian political life.

Dining with the Rich and Famous

Anna Porter’s Hungary is restricted mostly to downtown Budapest, where she dines with her subjects in fancy restaurants. The book describes a meeting at Budapest’s Rosenstein Restaurant with the Hungarian film director István Szabó, a former communist informer. It is Szabó who promises to treat the author to an exquisite dinner. The author, and her subject are having a great time together, and by the end of the dinner they come to full agreement that Szabó’s secret reports on his coworkers, and colleagues to the Hungarian secret police, didn’t cause any harm to anyone. Porter describes how Szabó’s career has taken off, how he has never looked back since agreeing to file information on his colleagues, coworkers to the secret police. It is worth noting, that all film-making in communist Hungary has had to be licensed by the state, and all of Szabó’s films have been all financed from the state budget for years. Porter does not make such connections in her book.  

The chapter of Anna Porter’s book on Hungary is adorned with a somewhat long, and cynical motto by Péter Esterházy¾ a Hungarian writer whose Father was also a communist informer. Péter Esterházy goes to extreme lengths in his writings trying to dismiss his Father’s guilt as irrelevant, because, according to him, in our time there are no binding moral imperatives, and, for that reason, in a dictatorship, everyone is implicated somehow. “This is a fairly stinky country,” claims Esterházy on page 71 of the corrected edition of his book about the subject.

Hungary is homeland to its inhabitants, and the spiritual homeland of many Hungarians outside the present borders of Hungary. As the Hungarian writer, and eminent jurist, Géza Herczegh wrote⁶ in response to Esterházy’s deplorable statement:  “It is not the country that stinks, it  is only a few who emanate bad odour.” There is no need to spread the stench of hatred and lies through Canada.

Footnotes

1. Justice for Hungary! Protest against the malicious, and insulting media campaign against Hungary, and Hungarians everywhere
http://magyarelet.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=617:vol-64-5-lxiv-evfolyam-5-szam-2011-februar-5-szombat&catid=43:general&Itemid=28

2. Douglas &Mc Intyre Publishing Co. Reviews of „The Ghostts of Europe”
http://www.dmpibooks.com/book/douglas-mcintyre/the-ghosts-of-europe/review

3. Benjamin Cunningham: Too Little Too Late - Post-communist history from an outsider looking in rings hollow The Prague Post – February 9, 2011
http://www.praguepost.com/night-and-day/books/7396-too-little-too-late.html

4. – Prize Guidelines, The Writers’ Trust of Canada
http://www.writerstrust.com/Awards/Shaughnessy-Cohen-Prize-for-Political-Writing/Prize-Guidelines.aspx

5. Best of Political Writing – The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize Scotiatoday
http://scotiatoday.ca/nova-scotia-ns-canada/life/6-the-reader/2481-best-of-political-writing-the-shaughnessy-cohen-prize.html

6. Herczegh Géza: Mennyei összhang - avagy Bach-huszárok, Quislingek és utódaik Kortárs 02-12 http://www.kortarsonline.hu/0212/herczegh.htm  

Published in "Magyar Élet" - "Hungarian Life Toronto, Ontario, Canada
September 10, 2010

The Hungarian version of the above is available HERE