Letter From Hungary
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Issue:
The economic crisis has led to politicians blaming the poorest for society's problems, and the rise of the far right, writes G M Tamás
Hungary seems to be haunted both by the demons of its past and the ghosts of the ultra-capitalist present - and the two seem increasingly similar.
It is not only that the superlatively unpopular "Socialist" minority government, in contrast to at least feebly Keynesian attempts elsewhere, tries to pursue its failed neoconservative policies, aided and abetted by the International Monetary Fund, but the country does not feel able to follow its own fate with anything like sustained attention. The nation is gripped by an unprecedented racist paranoia.