„Hungary’s Easter constitution entered into force on the first of January. It has garnered both sympathetic interest and more than a few attacks from abroad. Many Hungarian critics have notably received support from left-wing organizations in other countries.
Why do the constitution’s critics need this help? In the 20th-century history of Hungary, there is a separation between political groups styled as »progressives« and »reactionaries.« (Never mind that this latter set has included those who were classical liberals at the beginning of the last century.) The former group has consistently preferred to present itself as the only agent of progress against local backwardness. This is a crude misrepresentation.
The progressives who have been attempting to redefine the political spectrum in Hungary, and who have continually attacked the Easter constitution, have historically only been able to get and maintain political control with the help of foreign powers: this is true whether we speak of 1945 or 1918. In the same way that so-called progressive forces within Hungary facilitated the Communist takeover in 1945, for example, with the complicity of international organizations and foreign powers, so today the opponents of Hungary’s attempt to rediscover and re-embody its historical traditions in the Easter constitution are joining forces with the self-proclaimed agents of progress across Europe, especially those in the administrative and bureaucratic structures of the European Union.
In their political imagination, Hungary’s difficulties—political, economic, or cultural—are always the result of backwardness and the tradition-bound Hungarian who should be forced to modernize. Thus, there is no compromise with local tradition: it and its supporters need only be eliminated to make way for progress.”