Solidarity is fine, but action speaks louder than words. The European Alliance of Academies is taking the European Union’s Europe Day on 9 May as an opportunity to advocate for the freedom of the arts – in Hungary especially.

In cooperation with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Alliance is launching an online petition to the European Parliament and filing a complaint with the UN Special Rapporteur for Culture, Karima Bennoune.

The European Alliance of Academies is calling for the violations of artistic freedom in Hungary to be opposed with the legal instruments available and for the legal framework to be enforced to protect the independence of cultural institutions and cultural workers wherever it is threatened. European Alliance of Academies calls for the violations of artistic freedom in Hungary to be prosecuted with existing legal measures and for the legal framework to protect the independence of cultural institutions and cultural practitioners wherever this is threatened.

The members of the European Alliance of Academies are in solidarity with Prof. Jan Grabowski, Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, and Prof. Barbara Engelking, founder and director of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw and professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The two internationally renowned Holocaust researchers were ordered by a Polish court in Warsaw to apologise to the plaintiff Filomena Leszczynska, who sued them for defaming her uncle Edward Malinowski and for “damaging national identity and national pride”. In the research work Night Without End: The Fate Of Jews In Selected Counties Of Occupied Poland (2018), the two researchers presented Edward Malinowski both as the rescuer of a Jewish village inhabitant and as a collaborator with German National Socialists. The plaintiff accused the researchers of inaccuracy in the supporting documents.

At a time when the right to “the cult of remembering decedents” is considered more important than independent Holocaust research, the European Alliance of Academies points to the freedom of arts and science and the independence of research institutions established in Article 13 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

In the name of academic freedom, we are also protesting against the politics of history of the Polish ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), which has repeatedly tried to reduce Poland’s complex historical role during the National Socialist era by way of national legend building to a “nation of rescuers of Jews”. This form of historical revisionism must not be accepted with a shrug in Europe either.

A.L. Kennedy 
There can be no peace or security anywhere while perpetrators of crimes against humanity are allowed to evade responsibility. No secure state can base national pride on national falsehood, or the evasion of international human rights law. It is vastly dangerous to diminish the complexity and culpability involved in fascist occupation, especially at a time of rising fascism. To do so endangers citizens of individual states and emboldens forces which endanger us all.

The Hungarian Network of Academics’ (OHA) issued the following declaration of protest against the appropriation of Hungarian universities:

The Orbán regime has changed gears in the process of seizing control of universities over the last few days: as if under martial law, five state universities have been rushed into a procedure to transform them into foundations, stripping them of all their remaining autonomy.

During the process, the government used a wide range of illegitimate means: universities were blackmailed that they would only be able to access further funds on condition of accepting their reorganisation into foundations. The rectors of the universities learnt upon arrival at the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (ITM) that they would „voluntarily“ hand over their universities to foundations, otherwise they could not access any of the 1500 billion in EU development funds. On the day of the vote, the Prime Minister himself warmly recommended that the universities commit to the new „model“. Hungary’s state-owned national public-service broadcasting organization, Media Services and Support Trust Fund (MTVA) announced the transformation of the universities as a done deal days before the respective university senates had even voted on the matter.

All along, government communications were characterized by a tendency to keep those affected uninformed, mislead and misinformed; false promises, the withholding of information, non-disclosure, and doublespeak. In the summer of 2020, László Palkovics claimed that “the largest institutions – including the three largest universities outside Budapest, as well as the Semmelweis University (SOTE), Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics ‒ will continue to work and develop further under state support.”

Early January 2021, rectors of institutions now included in the process of being turned into foundations had no idea that it would be their turn, yet by the end of the month they had to push through decisive votes in their respective senates. Only in the middle of January was a document leaked that contained the decision that the legislative amendment would be presented to Parliament on 9 February.

The rectors of the respective universities completed the tasks they were assigned, without even attempting to ask for time to undertake impact assessment and in-depth consultation. The forced pace of the process made it impossible for the universities to conduct a wide-ranging and thorough discussion of the question of transformation within their academic communities. In this extraordinary situation, spontaneous forums were organized at some university faculties, where the majority of those present refused to accept this forced transformation. There were official meetings where some of those wishing to speak were intimidated or silenced, or where the voting procedure was conducted in breach of established rules.

It is a disgrace that the Hungarian government carries out fundamental changes in the structure and ownership in Hungarian higher education with methods last seen in the 1950s. Turning universities over to private foundations suggests misappropriation, since valuable real estate and enormous resources for development will be transferred to FIDESZ oligarchs, losing their „public asset“ character.

The projected transformations will annihilate academic freedom in teaching and research; will jeopardise students‘ progress to further education; will endanger tuition-free training; and will limit access to university education. The transformation into foundations entails that academic staff lose their civil servant status, which may open the gates to mass layoffs. This is a new stage in the all-out war against intellectuals and, at the same time, against the entire Hungarian society.

Hungary is being hijacked and has been robbed for more than ten years, with increasingly aggressive methods, and ever more shamelessly. The state of emergency and the ensuing restrictions on gatherings are used by the Government to introduce measures that are against the interest of the Hungarian nation and the Hungarian people. The transfer of universities to foundations does not serve the public good, nor does it serve to increase the quality of Hungarian higher education or research – it serves the interests of those in power. These forced transformations make it possible for universities of great tradition to be handed over to private foundations run by FIDESZ party cadres, who will then continue to rule over higher education even after the fall of the “ National Cooperation System“ (NER), for eternity …

The Hungarian Network of Academics object to the anti-educational and anti-academic politics of the Hungarian Government, object to their hijacking Hungarian higher education, and object to their trampling upon academic freedom. We demand that the Members of Parliament block the enactment of the privatisation of public, state owned universities! We express our solidarity with protesting members of the academic community and demand that all responsible citizens and organisations support their fight with all available means to protest against the process of transforming universities into foundations. 

Budapest, 5 February 2021

Original Hungarian text: http://oktatoihalozat.hu/

In view of the persecutions of students and teachers of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, the European Alliance of Academies fully supports the statement of Prof. Jan Hančil, Rector of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague from 24 November 2020:

Allow me in my capacity as the Rector of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague to issue this public statement as a means of expressing my deepest concerns over the violations of human and civil rights of students and academics in Belarus.

Thousands of students and academicians joined the peaceful protests against the rigged presidential election, and hundreds of them are currently facing criminalisation and are expelled from universities. Each male student also receives a draft card along with being expelled from a university. Students are often arrested on the premises of universities, and are imprisoned and beaten.

I appeal to the rectors of Belarusian universities to thoroughly consider their responsibility for the future of their country, overcome their fears and resist the pressure towards expelling students and dismissing employees, however difficult this may be for them in their positions.

Namely, allow me to express my solidarity with the teachers and students of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts who suffered from repression and with those who have expressed their support for the expelled and arrested students.


Read the original statement here: www.amu.cz/en/official-desk/1772/

Text by Gábor Schein, writer, critic, literary historian, translator and member of the Society of Hungarian Authors

„Europe is György Soros‘ gas chamber: toxic gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society, deadly for the European way of life, while we, the nations of Europe, are doomed to fight for the last breath of air, trampling and clambering over each other. The Liberaryans now want to exclude Poles and Hungarians from a political community where we, as members, still have rights. We are the new Jews. No matter whether these verbal bludgeons are called open society, the rule of law, or solidarity, they all serve as tools of disenfranchisement. By questioning the will and ability of Hungarian voters to choose how they want to live and who they want to see in power, they actually say that we have a big nose, we stink and we have lice.” (Szilárd Demeter, origo.hu)

Just as a reminder: the person who had the nerve to put these sentences on paper, and who coined the word “Liberaryans”, is not a nobody in Hungary. Szilárd Demeter is Viktor Orbán’s most important confidant in cultural policy. Institutions such as the National Széchenyi Library, functioning as the state archives, and the Petőfi Literary Museum, preserving documents of modern Hungarian literature, are under his direct control. He also controls the popular music life and is a member of the so-called National Cultural Council operating around Viktor Orbán. His voice belongs to those who receive power from the state to speak today in Hungary. He needs to resign because he openly speaks the language of Nazis, but his resignation doesn’t change anything. What happened, happened, and followed from the logic and rhetoric of the Orbán-system.

A speech that equates the rule of law with gas chambers, solidarity with the deprivation of rights, and the European Union with Hitler’s Third Reich, erases the language itself. These words appeared on the origo.hu website only a week after the centenary of Paul Celan’s birth, on the Saturday before the beginning of the Advent period. The voice that Orbán’s cultural chief speaks, whether he is aware of it or not, floods a thousand darknesses of speeches that bring death. When this language refers to the right to national self-determination, the freedom of lifestyle, or when it speaks of Christianity, it immediately gives itself away. Yes, ultimately, it is murder and the evil that has become routine, that speaks this language. Those who negotiate with, bargain with, or accept support from this language, need to know this.

This language is not identical with Hungary. Today, there is once again dictatorship in Hungary. Voters did not authorize this. Laws, and even the constitution itself, are being rewritten or repealed overnight. It is not possible or requires a disproportionate effort to create, distribute and represent symbolic truths other than those of the power. The symbolic truths of power, on the other hand, are born as lies from the outset. Moreover, the lie is not enough for the lie itself. It has to keep raising the bet, because like all such attempts, this one, too, is ultimately in a terrible battle with the empty sky, not realizing that it itself is making the sky an empty wasteland. This happens day by day, tiring people out, driving them to despair, and rendering them hopeless. Priests and churches, of course, are silent, as their leaders have long since not believed in the Saviour, but are afraid of losing the graces received from the state, and, as they do not believe, they cannot be free either.

In Hungary, the hope of regaining language, truth, and human dignity is a hope beyond hope. The sentences quoted may warn that Europe is still a post-Holocaust continent. And Hungary is still in a post-Holocaust state. The hope of the continent and the country is identical: a wise and understanding hope, adhering to their values, somewhere beyond hopelessness.

Gábor Schein, writer, critic, literary historian, translator

member of the Society of Hungarian Authors
Source: 444.hu

DECLARATION

The Society of Hungarian Authors is a community of creators with a broad vision, acceptance, and healthy irony. Safely and merrily aware of this, we have always tried to formulate our statements, sometimes inevitably political, in this spirit. At the same time, the by now regular and clearly provocative manifestations of Szilárd Demeter have also put our patience and creativity to the test in recent times, and after his last writing, fair deliberation has become utterly impossible. A radical escalation of the war of words leads to a sudden first shedding of blood. The life-threatening system of rhetorical tools that Demeter is now reaching for is unacceptable, even if it was an obvious and desperate compulsion to comply that evoked it in the author. Those who lost their real lives in real gas chambers, the survivors, the relatives, the language, the humane thought, and respect towards acceptance and responsibility are what will not allow our common human tragedy to depreciate to a selfish journalistic tool in the hands of an irresponsible politician. The last statement of the director-general of the Petőfi Literary Museum is one of the symptoms of the long and difficult agony of the system; not the first, but the most penetrating so far.

The Society of Hungarian Authors 1) calls on Szilárd Demeter to make an apology, 2) finds it evident that the decision-makers shall immediately announce a new, open tender for the position to head the Petőfi Literary Museum, and 3) proposes the establishment of a professional committee with a balanced composition that can help rebuild the literary and cultural life of Hungary that has quickly become a battlefield, in the name of justice, solidarity and shared responsibility.

The Board of the Society of Hungarian Authors

29.11.2020
Budapest