The news that power corrupts might not surprise too many students of politics.  But electorates tend not to appreciate learning the Actonite truth too suddenly.  There are apt to be colourful consequences.  At least, that was the reaction in Hungary to the news that the elected left-of-centre government, led by blabbermouth Ferenc Gyurcsany, are thieves of power, and Hungarian democracy is a perfect sham.

Hungarian police have used tear gas and water cannon to quell violent overnight protests in Budapest in which buildings were attacked and cars set alight.

The clashes happened following a rally demanding the resignation of PM Ferenc Gyurcsany, after it was revealed his government had lied during an election.

The worst fighting came when protesters stormed the state television building.

Dozens of people were hurt, including many police officers. The city is now said to be calm.

In Western democracies spontaneous demonstrations of popular righteousness are always of interest to anti-establishmentarians.  They express not people power so much as the people’s abrupt discovery of its own powerlessness and a rejection, however fleeting, of its former complacency.  These things would perhaps be sufficient to trigger change if principle was the issue, or if integrity obtained among the elected.  But in modern politics ambition trumps every other human quality.  Principle is absolutely not the issue.  The continued holding of power is the issue.  And in that regard, if they can survive the initial shock political establishments always have the advantage.

Thus, ten years ago the removal of the wildly popular judge investigating the Dutroux case brought 300,000 Belgians onto the streets of Brussels to participate in the peaceful and dignified White March.  The establishment waited for the storm to pass and brought Dutroux to trial - as the sole perpetrator - only in Spring 2004.  The dismissed judge gave testimony that would have caused national uproar in 96.  But the momentum for protest was long gone.  The people are fickle, and their political attention span is limited.

One also remembers Amsterdam in December 2004, when thousands stood in Dam Square to mourn the death of Theo Van Gogh and to protest at the vile manner of his passing.  In that linked piece I wrote:-

Admiration for Theo has been expressed all across the political spectrum in Holland because, quite simply, there has to be room for people like him in Dutch society, of all societies.  What people liked about the fabled Dutch tolerance was precisely that.  In stark contrast, Bouyeri’s actions are not simply an extreme expression of intolerance but are intolerable to the point of being anti-Dutch.

The exceptions to this view come from those Theo most opposed, meaning anybody connected to the Dutch government and “the establishment”, and those he gleefully offended, meaning Jews and Moslems and the professional anti-white lobby.

But if Theo won’t be quickly forgotten, nonetheless the establishment has not been so very inconvenienced.  As in France after the Paris riots the thinking is not, “My God, what have we done.”  It’s “we have been more tolerant of indifference than difference.”  More, not less, is demanded of Dutch society, though now the demand is also made of the “different”.  And that demand - a recognition that Islamic extremism may take hold among an excluded minority, so exclusion must end - is the sole political consequence of Theo’s murder.  The idea that a grotesque mutation of liberal principles has led to this pass, and it is very necessary to commence upon a rectification now ... today, isn’t anywhere on the horizon.  Send Dutch-born Moslems home?  Are you mad?  Are you a Nazi?

What all this means is that the beast won’t be bothered by one night of riot, by one television station invaded, one period of soul-searching, one “far right” election success.  Like a tree that can be axed to pieces yet does not die, it has its roots sunk deep in the constitutional process.  It will wither and die only when something else blocks out its light.