Itt-Ott, 1991 (24. évfolyam, 1-2/118. szám)

1991 / 1-2. (118.) szám

•Hungary’s occupation by the Soviet army (from the late sixties it was permitted to mention them as “friendly Soviet troops temporarily stationed on the territory of our country”);

•the country’s absolute rule by the Communist Party (from 1948 to 1956 it was called the Hungarian Workers’ Party, after the 1956 Revolution the Hungarian Socialist Labor Party, with “elections” always showing upwards of 90% popular vote for its singular list nominees);

•the more than four million Hungarians living as oppressed minorities in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (their existence was simply not mentioned in any printed publication — including school textbooks and scholarly works — for decades) and the some two million Hungarians living in Western countries (they were simply called fascists until 1956, and dissidents afterwards, until the 1970’s);

•the 1956 Revolution (the only reference allowed was: “1956 counterrevolution”, then from the 1960’s “the events of 1956”);

•national consciousness, patriotism, national identity, loyalty or solidarity (which was branded as anti-socialist, anti-internationalist, dangerous and condemnable “nationalism”);

•stratification, i.e., flagrant social inequalities: the affluence of the privileged and powerful Communist Party elite and the poverty of the disadvantaged, the powerless, millions of commuting workers, deprived peasants, senior citizens, Gypsies, struggling young adults (until the 1970’s the “Hungarian People’s Republic” was officially defined a “classless society”);

•the rights to the freedoms of speech, of assembly, of religion, to free and open elections, to fair, open and equitable legal procedures, etc., that is: the basic human and civil rights of a democratic society.

3. Suppression and Cognitive Dissonance

Psychopathologists are aware of the anxiety-producing effects of unconscious repression or conscious suppression — also called motivated forgetting — of painful information, experiences and emotions. Social psychologists study the tension and stress producing aversive effects of cognitive dissonance, that is, the simultaneous presence of incompatible, contradictory information, ideas, “messages” and definitions.

In a totally controlled society one has to add the elements of coercion and isolation to these phenomena. Members of extremely controlled societies are forced to suppress certain information, experiences and emotions, and are severely isolated from alternative ideas and definitions.

For lack of the possibility of conducting empirical investigations in such settings, one can only hypothesize that in coercive and isolated societies the forced suppression and the severely induced cognitive dissonance, for long periods of time, cause cognitive and emotional trauma. Operationally expressed: when facts are definitely known or have been directly experienced but cannot be expressed in a safe way, and when information contrary to those facts has to be constantly expressed on pain of violent coercion — this may caused anxiety, stress, fear and tension, that is, cognitive and emotional trauma.

Prolonged states of fear and inescapable, aversive, punitive conditions can cause aggression, destructive behavior or, if that is impossible, self-damaging behavior.

The human sciences do not yet possess a conclusive list of causes for self-destructive behavior, but it is known with a high degree of certainty that such behavior includes at least some elements of traumatized cognitive and emotional states of consciousness. Therefore one could hypothesize that Hungarian society’s cognitive and emotional traumas at least partly contributed to causing that society’s extremely high and rising suicide and alcoholism rates. Hungary’s suicide rate is the highest in the world since 1968; currently it is 45 per 100,000 population (in Austria and Denmark this is 27, in France 20, in the U.S. 12) — almost 5,000 suicide deaths every year. (1988 data)

Hungary’s fatal alcoholism rate was also the highest in the world in 1988: 67 of 100,000 people died of alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver (35 in Austria, 17 in the U.S., 6 in England).

In the decade 1980-1990, more than 70,000 Hungarians died as a result of suicide and alcoholism.

m.

In 1989, Hungary’s political regime changed, the oneparty dictatorship was toppled; the democratic Republic conducted free, multi-party elections; the executive, legislative and judiciary powers were separated, the country’s sovereignty was restored, and the last occupying Soviet troops are expected to leave Hungary by June 30, 1991.

With these actions the taboos were lifted, state coercion stopped, suppression, isolation and lies-infested cognitive dissonance are no longer officially enforced. With the human rights guaranteed and the freedoms practicable, most of the previously traumatizing conditions have been eliminated, comatose Hungarian society has regained consciousness and its vital signs show the process of recuperation.

Some of the signs of this recovery include the following:

•virtually innumerable books, documents, anthologies, collections and pamphlets, of varying quality and credibility, have been published in the past two years, offering facts, figures, data and opinions about every one of the previously suppressed taboo topics, issues and historic events.

•The media, especially the printed news media has proliferated, and is completely free of any centralized, official or state regulation. Demonstrating a wide freedom of expression, it does not yet, however, appear to

ITT-OTT 24. évf. (1991), 1-2. (118..) szám 43