The populist curtain: Poland and Hungary

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Political scientist Yascha Mounk travels from Szczecin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, the route of the former "Iron Curtain" and finds out what is changing under the new populist governments that been elected. He begins in the north in the Polish city of Szczecin (Stettin) – where Solidarity was originally created. Today the PIS party governs the country, with its appeal to traditional religious values and social conservatism. Critics say it is attacking independent institutions, especially the judiciary. He then heads on to Sopron, Hungary. Here Victor Orban’s Fidesz party is accused of attacking civil society and the freedom of the press in his pursuit of an “illiberal democracy” – but there are forces fighting back locally.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	It was basically a signal from the hardware saying it's overloaded.
0:05.0	I was totally in shock because it was totally unexpected.
0:11.0	That only comes when it's really serious.
0:14.0	13 minutes to the moon, from the BBC World Service coming soon.
0:23.0	This is the populist curtain on the BBC World Service.
0:36.0	I'm Yasha Monk and my day job is as a political scientist.
0:40.0	In a small square in the center of Stretchen in northwest Poland, there's a protest going on.
0:48.0	Stretchen has form when it comes to protest.
0:52.0	It's just a 20 minute walk to the shipyards where the first
0:55.2	uprisings against communist rules started in the 1970s and 80s. Those protests helped
1:00.9	to bring about a great democratic success story.
1:04.0	Since the early 1990s, Poland has enjoyed free and fair elections,
1:07.7	rapid economic growth and a huge cultural transformation.
1:20.0	But since a new populist government won elections in 2015, Poland has seen more and more protests.
1:22.0	Marches against curtailed abortion rights,
1:25.0	against government attempts to exert greater control over the Supreme Court
1:29.0	against growing restrictions on the country's media.
1:36.0	When on the country's media. When Winston Churchill said, From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,
1:42.0	an iron curtain has descended across the continent.
1:46.5	He could pretty much have been describing the spread of populism across Central Europe today. That's why I'm going to be traveling from the Baltic to the Adriatic through Poland and Hungary, Austria and Italy,
1:58.0	to understand the massive political changes these countries have undergone over the past years.
2:02.0	Why has the iron curtain? these countries have undergone over the past years.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.