In the space of a three-day visit, I am smitten with the place. Budapest is beautiful. It also has quiet lessons to teach.
Sailing serenely down the Danube in warm late September sunshine is no hardship. Yet serenity has not been Hungary’s lot: at least not for any length of time. This land-locked country with borders facing seven nations has literally been in the wars for centuries. The tanks of foreign liberators-turned-oppressors have been on these Hungarian lawns, leaving indelible marks on their towns and on their psyches. As we pass along the Danube, a friend points out 40 pairs of shoes on the river bank. They are an understated memorial to 40 Jews who were cynically slain there. Their bodies were thrown into the river. The red Danube. During the Second World War, more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews perished in the Holocaust.
Two things immediately strike this visitor from Scotland. The first is the cleanliness of the city. No wading through discarded pizza boxes. No fag ends lying everywhere. No chewing gum sticking to the soles of your shoes. No throwing of the remains of fish suppers out of car windows. The other thing is the cleanliness and efficiency of public transport. The buses run on time. If you miss a subway car, another will be along in a minute or two.
The last time I encountered conditions like these was five years ago, on a visit to Prague. There also you can travel around a clean, beautiful city in easeful comfort, whether on foot or by tram, bus or subway. The citizens of Prague and Budapest would be amazed to learn that the efficient transporting of people around a clean city is a problem for a Scotland which once provided a few leaders for the Enlightenment movement.
Walking around some of the streets of our cities resembles not so much an easy perambulation along pleasing boulevards as the hens’ march to the midden. This is not simply a question of better municipal arrangements; it has to do with a mindset which sees streets as receptacles for rubbish. When we understand ourselves primarily as consumers with packaging to get rid of rather than as stewards of the earth’s resources, it’s no wonder that our planet is struggling for breath.
But why are Budapest and Prague so good at it? It’s not about better technology or bigger resources. It has something to do with appreciating what you have got and looking after it with care. It has to do with a
sense of corporate accountability, thinking in terms of “we” rather than primarily in terms of “I” all the time. Yes, I know, this sounds very schoolmasterly, but it’s actually about simple human decency and respect. When I was a divinity student in Edinburgh, I spent one summer sweeping the streets of Marchmont. I was shocked when I saw the amount of rubbish dumped in the capital’s streets. Things have not improved much since then. Despite our perpetual talk about progress, there are areas of our public life which are a complete embarrassment.
Here is an intriguing question: are Prague and Budapest so much more attractive environmentally and in terms of public transport because they have lived under totalitarian regimes? Hopefully not. Surely it doesn’t require rule by fascists to get trains and buses to run on time. Surely totalitarian rule by communists isn’t necessary to create a mindset of refusal to live in a dispiriting midden.
The haunting presence of the shoes by the side of the Danube reminds us of prices that are too high to pay for authoritarian politics. The challenge for liberal democracies is to nourish the spiritual and economic infrastructure of caring community which alone allows individuals to flourish. Public decay eventually destroys the soul. A Scottish delegation to the bonny, bonny banks of the Danube -- with hearing aids firmly switched to the “on” position -- might point us in healthier directions.
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