![tank](https://quadrant.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/tank-1.png)
Virtuous Fantasies of Fascism
When I mentioned to some friends that I was about to pay a short trip to Hungary, they were all duly horrified. It was as if I had announced in late August 1939 that I was going on holiday in Germany.
I readily confess that my knowledge of current Hungarian politics is very limited. I know four words in the language: please, thank you, water and national. This does not entitle me to pose as an expert, even though I know infinitely more Hungarian than did my horrified friends.
There was something formulaic about their horror, if I may so put it, a bit like the sign of the cross for those who do not truly believe but yet are attached to ancient customs. They had heard that Hungary was a fascist country, the kind of country that, according to the Dutch Prime Minister, should have no place in the European Union. Of course, he took that to mean that it was not virtuous, or not virtuous enough.
I had been to Budapest several times before: it is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant…
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