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Thanks for keeping us updated on this, DoDo.  It's simultaneously horrifying and fascinating.  There really doesn't seem to be anyone (group or individual) who's coming out of this looking good.

Should we read anything positive into the fact that the police internal investigation (a) appears to be rigorous, timely and self-critical, and (b) is being made public?  Because here, even if (b) might be true, (a) would never be.

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 06:52:05 AM EST
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Well, we could read both (a) and (b) into it, though note:

  • the investigation was done by the national police, and the culprits are likely to be found in the (rather autonomous) Budapest police -- so it's more like one police branch finding it easy to criticise another;
  • maybe this investigation could have been done back in September;
  • I didn't mention that all the criticism is mentioned in a kind of implicite fashion -- this is an investigation was meant as analysis for decisionmakers and not as judgement, and I also note the report praises policemen in general terms throughout;
  • No names were made public.

There really doesn't seem to be anyone (group or individual) who's coming out of this looking good.

Indeed, except for humanitarian NGOs who do some legal work and protest. But it is next to impossible to convince anyone from one cold civil war side that their side is wrong and immoral too.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 07:01:35 AM EST
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So nobody is going to be held accountable for either the police brutality or the sacking of the TV building?

But it is next to impossible to convince anyone from one cold civil war side that their side is wrong and immoral too.

True.  Anywhere.

by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 07:08:42 AM EST
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So nobody is going to be held accountable for either the police brutality or the sacking of the TV building?

I didn't say that. For the storming of the building, of course a lot of captured rioters stand trial. For failing to prevent the storming, it remains to be seen what decisionmakers decide -- and the very existence of the investigation shows that the government and police leadership was forced back from complete denial and wants to 'come clean' to some extent, we'll see how far it goes. For police brutality, a number of policemen have been indicted (largely thanks to the work by said NGOs), but as I wrote in earlier diaries, the main problem was the law-breaking practice of taking off identifying numbers from policemen's helmets.

True.  Anywhere.

I'd disagree here. It wasn't as bad here nine, or even just five years ago. And while the USA has a two-party system with similar symptoms, people from differing political backgrounds can be critical of their side and get along and even talk politics between friends from different camps in most other Western countries, say Germany.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 07:19:02 AM EST
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It wasn't as bad here nine, or even just five years ago.

What reasons can you suggest for the decay?

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 09:20:21 AM EST
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Essentially, the move towards the bipartisan system, pushed on by the combined Rovian-Berlusconian-Tudjmanian tactics of one political power. Read the earlier pieces of my Hungary diaries, in particular this introductory one and this one where I'm vailing about the two-party system.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 09:46:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
To demonstrate what this means on the 'left' side, the two worst in recent discussions I had, both with older ladies who are lifelong liberals:

  • One volunteered that it would have been okay with her if a few of 'the rabble' had paid for causing this much trouble with their lives.

  • Another, when I brought up the case of a state TV reporter who was beaten twice by two different police squads during the last police storming during live coverage (on the telephone, unfortunately not the picture), said the journalist must have deserved it with something.


*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Nov 21st, 2006 at 07:09:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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