On the road to a “patriotic” educational system, through history

First, a few words about István Simicskó, the former minister of defense. He received a Ph.D. in military sciences in 2009. His thesis, which has a very long title, has something to do with the organization of defense and mobilization “through history to our days,” a surprisingly broad topic for a Ph.D. dissertation. Otherwise, his name is associated with sports, mostly with martial arts, specifically Leung Ting Wing Tsun. Between 2010 and 2012 he served as undersecretary in the ministry of defense, but because of his less than amicable relation with Minister of Defense Csaba Hende he moved to the ministry of human resources, where he became undersecretary in charge of sports and youth. In 2015, when Hende was dismissed, Simicskó at last got the opportunity to put his ideas on national defense into practice. Less than three years later, after the 2018 election, Viktor Orbán no longer had a place for him in his cabinet. Reading Simicskó’s comments from a couple of months before the election, I’m almost certain that his dismissal was unexpected.

Orbán is normally quite generous with those loyal politicians who for one reason or another “didn’t work out.” As one often reads in the media, “they are not left on the roadside.” Some other job is found, or more often created, for them. This is one of the reasons for the incredible growth in the government bureaucracy. One favorite job for the discarded is “government commissioner” (kormánybiztos). Simicskó became government commissioner for patriotic and military education. In addition, he was chosen to chair the Honvédelmi Sportszövetség (Sports Federation of National Defense), a relatively new creation of the Orbán regime, which functions under the ministry of defense with a yearly budget of 1.1 billion forints.

The activities of the federation merit a full post, but here I will look at the patriotic education angle of István Simicskó’s new job. Almost a year ago I devoted a few lines to the frightening aspects of “teaching” patriotism/nationalism to youngsters. I wrote at the time that the distinction between patriotism and nationalism is often blurred. It’s enough to take a look at the dictionary definitions of the two terms. Patriotism is “love and devotion to one’s country” while nationalism is “devotion, especially excessive or undiscriminating devotion to the interests of culture of a particular nation state.” But what is excessive? The second meaning of nationalism is even more telling. Nationalism is “the belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals,” which is certainly true of the “patriotic” aspirations of the Orbán government.

Now that Simicskó is the government commissioner in charge of patriotic and military education, Magyar Idők arranged an interview with him so he could spell out his ideas on patriotic education. Let’s see what we can find out about the plans of Viktor Orbán and his willing assistant. Here we go. The western world is in trouble because it is globalized and too liberal. There are hidden forces that want to destroy national communities, families, and national consciousness. One of the main problems with western civilization is that it has abandoned its faith. “Healthy national consciousness” and faith in God are prerequisites for developing a patriotic citizenry, which is necessary for the survival of the Hungarian nation. Children should be empowered with instruments of spiritual defense, which I interpret as a way of instilling in them certain spiritual mechanisms that resist the evil intentions of foreign ideas like liberalism and internationalism. In brief, this is gibberish. But it’s dangerous nonetheless. As a blogger said, for Simicskó it matters not whether children can read or write as long as they love their country.

The problems with teaching history start here

During the interview it became obvious that Simicskó regards history as the most suitable subject through which to achieve his goal since its content can be spiced up with patriotic/nationalistic fervor. I’m not surprised at his choice because history has always been a vehicle for political manipulation in Hungary. The teaching of history in Hungary is far too Hungaro-centric in the first place, which often deprives Hungarian students from seeing their country’s history within a European context. That fact by itself leads them astray when it comes to the history of pre-sixteenth century Hungary. They do not realize that even in the most glorious periods Hungary was still behind the West.

And that leads me to another, related item, an opinion piece that appeared in today’s Magyar Idők. It is about an article titled “Worrying changes in Hungary,” published in Nature. The op-ed writer, a certain Dávid Ligeti, is outraged because the famous journal published an editorial on the clash taking place between the Orbán government and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, siding naturally with the Academy. He claims that the article in Nature is “crawling” with mistakes and that most of the “accusations” come straight from the researchers of the academic institution. He found one especially outrageous sentence, which, he said, one cannot leave without an answer: “Many researchers in Hungary tell Nature they are worried … that historians will be required to glorify their country’s past.” Then he adds: “Yes, you read it right. We got to the point that a number of Hungarian historians are worried that they will have to write about Hungarian history in a positive manner.”

In the author’s estimation, these historians have not even a modicum of love of country even though “historical writing is an inevitably moral genre.” It is not at all clear what he means by that, but he quotes a certain László Gulyás, who teaches at the University of Szeged, according to whom “it is fitting to write Hungarian history with a Hungarian pen, Hungarian heart, and Hungarian soul.” In fact, responsible historians must do exactly the opposite of what László Gulyás suggests. They must work extremely hard to keep any bias in favor of their own country at bay and analyze the past as objectively as is humanly possible. In this case, the Hungarian pens, hearts, and souls should be left behind. Otherwise a historian is nothing more than a nationalistic propagandist.

July 4, 2018