Contrary to what various governments worldwide have been accusing him of, and most ironically, Soros has almost always been on the losing side politically
With all the money at his command and the influence he possesses he has not been able to turn the political tide in favour of liberal democracy.
Yet, George Soros is successfully pumped up and projected as some kind of a destabilising force by right-wing nationalist governments worldwide.
Having been vilified across several countries of the world, starting with Hungary in 2013, the world’s most popular bogeyman George Soros has virtually arrived in India, dominating proceedings in Parliament.
Popular bogeyman
Probably influenced by the success of governments in other countries in demonising Soros, the BJP in India has now borrowed the world’s popular bogeyman in its attempt to cast aspersions on the Congress party. This, in what looks like an attempt by the ruling dispensation to dent the Congress’s allegations of closeness between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani.
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At 94, when most others his age would most likely be in blissful retirement, in an old age home, or in the margins of a family they helped create, George Soros has stayed active and relevant – not exactly in the manner he may have imagined, but nevertheless up there in the news headlines.
Soros stands for a kind of political philosophy that was popular until the 2000’s – countries in the Soviet bloc and under communist rule longed for liberal democracy of the kind that had existed in Western Europe and the United States.
Liberal democracy
Committed to liberal democracy, under the influence of philosopher Karl Popper as a university student, Soros’s interventions with money and innovation were much sought-after in Eastern Europe, where he belonged.
Once the Soviet Union disintegrated, the initial move towards liberal democracy among the former allies of the Soviet Union gave way to a more restrictive form of democracy.
One view is that the proclivity towards liberal democracy was merely an urban phenomenon among the elites. But, in the hinterland, dominated by traditional communities, liberal politics had not seeped in. And, this enabled the rise of an “illiberal” form of democracy, authored by Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
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Narrow escape
In his younger days, Soros, his brother and parents had escaped the Holocaust narrowly. Later on, he left for the UK to study and settled thereafter in the United States, where he made a mark as a hedge fund owner in New York’s financial market with his outlet called Quantum.
A Hungarian Jew, his attention was focussed on his country of origin. He ploughed it with funds to improve education, offer free food for children, build an ecosystem for liberalism and even founded the prestigious Central European University to help promote a liberal culture. This was made possible by a financial bonanza he struck in the UK in 1992.
An uncanny knack at reading the market helped him jockey into the big league. His eye-popping success came about when he bet against the British pound. The currency which was being artificially propped up could not be sustained and the Bank of England let go. The pound sank, and Soros’s Quantum made a neat $1.5 billion.
Soros came to be known as the “man who broke the back of the Bank of England”.
Massive donations
Soros, among the world’s richest individuals, used the millions he earned to push for a liberal, open society with democratic values through his Open Society Foundation, or the OSF.
According to media reports, the Foundation has donated at least $15 billion in at least 120 countries to NGOs that work in the area of human rights, education, public health, LGBT issues and for media freedom across central and eastern Europe.
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The Foundation supports high-profile independent organisations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Center for American Progress (a liberal think-tank), International Crisis Group, European Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute for New Economic Thinking, among others.
Soros played some role in the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. Legend has it that he purchased scores of photo-copiers and distributed them across Hungary. That helped activists to print and copy thousands of newsletters for a democratic alternative.
Viktor Orban's act
Once Eastern Europe was rid of Communism, Soros sponsored several youngsters for higher education in places like the United Kingdom. Ironically, one of the students he helped educate at Oxford University, Viktor Orban, later turned against him.
Orban, in fact, was the first to demonise Soros and his activities. Having lost elections in 2002 after his first term in office, where he functioned as a liberal democratic prime minister, a distraught Orban shifted to the political right.
He consulted US-based political strategist Arthur Finkelstein in 2013 when attempting a re-election. Finkelstein came up with a devious plan advising Orban to project Soros as an evil force, out to destabilise Hungary using the OSF. Orban succeeded in projecting Soros as the villain, and was re-elected prime minister.
Orban has since not lost an election. After his second stint in office in 2010, Orban won in 2014, 2018 and 2022. Once he returned to power, Orban attacked Soros and all the liberal values he stood for, forced his much-acclaimed Central European University (CEU) to shift out of Hungary and closed down the Open Society Foundation office.
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Perceived threat
As the global political winds shifted to the Conservative right, and nationalist governments came to power in various countries, they easily identified with Orban’s perspective – that of Soros’s liberal democratic politics being a threat. Clearly, the global fight is now between political Conservatives and Liberals.
A post-Soviet globalised world, with ease of travel among countries, outsourcing of jobs and the rise of internet technology, triggered an unforeseen negative reaction among the many who had been left behind.
After an initial high, the neo-liberal order triggered unemployment, recession and the global economic crisis causing serious loss of credibility in the liberal democratic system.
The OSF’s position, supporting near-open borders, severely backfired. Soros opposed Brexit in keeping with his overall liberal philosophy and support for the European Union. But he lost out when the British referendum favoured Brexit.
Support for refugees
Later, his support for the large scale arrival of refugees into Europe from Syria helped his opponents like Orban construct a narrative demonising him and his foundation.
Orban was quoted by The Guardian as describing Soros as an American financial speculator attacking Hungary, who had destroyed the lives of millions of Europeans and planned to flood Hungary with Muslims. Such stark narratives had lots of takers in Hungary.
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More recently, Soros has criticised the continuing assault on Gaza by Israel and has called for a halt on humanitarian grounds. He has also expressed support for a two-state solution, angering the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
The campus protests across the US by students in protest against the Israeli assault on Gaza were linked to Soros’s Foundation, and its support for US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.
Assassination attempt
In the United States, Soros has consistently backed the Democratic Party and funded it substantially, from the time of George W Bush. This was because of Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, that outraged Soros. He was even the target of an assassination attempt that was later traced to a Republican supporter who ended up in jail.
Have Soros and the OSF actually destabilised any nation? So far, there is no evidence that they have. His intervention in the anti-Communist wave in the late 1980s was but a small part in a larger anti-Soviet wave that swept through Eastern Europe.
Some, especially on the extreme-left, who too look at Soros with suspicion, question his profession as a capitalist and doubt his credentials. To this, Soros, in an interview to the New York Times, said there is the difference between “my engagement in the markets, where my only interest is to get it right and make money, and my political engagement, where I stand for what I really believe in”.
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Where Soros lost
Contrary to what various governments have been accusing him of, and most ironically, Soros has almost always been on the losing side politically. His lifelong aim to push and promote liberal democracy around the world does not seem to have succeeded.
The nature of politics has actually worsened for those who favour unbridled democracy. Hungary’s Orban has, for example, actively promoted the idea of “illiberal democracy” which by definition restricts individual liberties and human rights.
As Soros told the New York Times, democracy was in trouble because in many countries it had become sclerotic and insufficiently responsive to the public’s needs. “It’s losing out,” he said.
The new-age autocrats have shown themselves to be particularly cunning in going after civil society as a means of consolidating their power. “It’s a less abrasive way of exercising control than actually killing people who disagree with you,” he said.
