Democracy and Justice Under Siege By Paul Belien

Last week, I attended a colloquium in Hungary on “Morality and expediency in politics.” Our group included political scientists, historians and philosophers. Most of them were Eastern Europeans; the majority were Hungarians. One evening, while having dinner in an expensive Budapest restaurant, the Hungarians at our table noticed that one of the former communist leaders of their country had entered the restaurant.

He was a shallow octogenarian who had reserved a table for his entire family. The Hungarians told me that this man was a former printer, who had made his career in the Communist Party (CP), rising to the position of the country’s senior economist, although he did not know anything about economics. The man had ruined the life of many fellow citizens, but after the fall of communism none of the former dictators had been taken to account, and certainly not this fellow, who the media used to describe as one of the CP’s “moderates.” The previous week the man had been on television, declaring that he regretted nothing.

Full Article...

Sphere: Related Content