*** The 15th of March is a national holiday in Hungary supposed to
commemorate the revolution of 1848. Apart from (or instead of) doing
such noble deeds, the occasion is being used since 1989 to stage some
high-profile rallies by the whole political spectrum. This year was no
exception. Daniel Marton reports and analyzes from Budapest... ***
What did 1848 and 2010 both have in common? I guess you're not catching
up with the great events of our recent history in appropriate detail, so
I'll give it: according to its current government, both years were
marked by a great revolution in Hungary. The first one, as we know it so
well from our history books (and also from Google), was fought on the
battlefield against the armies of Austria. The second one is not yet in
our history books, but it is there in the text of a short but none the
less grandiose manifesto pinned up on the walls of every public building
for all of us to know. It was fought in the voting booths against
corruption, disorder, lawlessness, hopelessness, the IMF, or any bad
thing you might care to imagine. According to this moderately humble
narrative for an unprecedented centralization of power through a process
of fully automated law-making, the opposition of the Orban regime is
waging a counter-revolution...
This thursday, like twice before, the counter-revolutionary
activities were centered at the eastern entrance of the magnificent
Elizabeth Bridge, called in perfect accordance to the nature of this
event the Avenue of Free Press. It is part of a long and wide "urban
motorway" of six lanes (2*3) going from Railway Terminal East in a
straight line up to the bridge. After lengthy negotiations with the
authorities, the organizers have managed to have that part of the motorway closed
down and the rally to be staged there. It has attracted no less than a
hundred thousand people. The stage was set up, like I said, at the very
entrance of the bridge, and the avenue was packed with people until
Astoria station some 600 meters away. Although the pro-government rally
at the Parliament square has managed to gather a similar number of
participants (including thousands imported from Poland), opinion polls
show the administration's approval not losing a bit from the impetus of
its downward slide. The critical mass of discontent is already there...
But it's still very far from gaining direction and form. The voltage
is high up between the government and the people it's supposed to
govern, but the people have yet to find a conductive path in order to
shock them. Protests can be found at least once a month, but those
manifesting a significant portion of popular rage can only be seen twice
or three times a year. And that's not even a problem. People just can't
protest all the time. It might be a little more worrisome to see
government rallies being almost as large, but we can get along with that
as well. Mr Orban was eager to flaunt his massive armies both in 2002
and 2006, nevertheless unable to convert this ability to electoral
results. The people were just not impressed by his zombies.
If the current trend goes on, even the far-right Jobbik party will
be able to beat him in 2014. Of course we don't want that, since Jobbik
with its old-fashioned brutality and its uniformed terror group called
the Hungarian Guard is much more fascist than it should be. But it's not
at all impossible. As we speak, and Mr Orban speaks about our
uncompromising insistence on "the souvereignty of our nation" (i.e. his
souvereignty over the nation), some grey eminence chaps are already
negotiating with our "colonizers", as he so eagerly calls the EU and the
IMF. It's a very tricky game, because the national budget needs quite a
lot of money to avoid imminent default. The EU promised to withhold
lots of money if we don't sqeeze our budged deficit under 3%. The
government nationalized the pension system back in 2010, but since
that's not a persistent revenue, it doesn't count. The IMF doesn't want
to withhold anything, but he doesn't seem excited to give much either.
Before our glorious revolution of 2010, the ancien régime has made a
deal with them, but the new government didn't like that, so they
practically chased the bankers away. And they didn't hesitate to call
this a war of economic freedom. They thought they might get some
better loans from China or Saudi Arabia or anyone else but the IMF. Now
that they figured out the sad truth that no one gives a damn about the
"unorthodox genius" of their surrealistic policies - an attitude shown
by government securities selling on such a high interest that the
government decided to stop trading them - they have the uneasy task of
luring these bankers back with their left arm while still brandishing
the sword of independence with the right.
We can be pretty sure that they will find a very ingenious way to
communicate this defeat as a victory. The evil conquerors have finally
realized that they can't just conquer but they have to make smart deals
with us instead, or whatever. But these "smart deals" are going to mean
ever more draconian budget cuts, restrictions and taxes. After already
feeling quite ripped off by the "no need for reforms" line hammered by
Fidesz day and night back in opposition, there is reason to believe that
the general population will find this victory a little bit pyrrhic.
They will at least give some more impetus to the happy slide of those
approval rating figures. Or they might just as well do something more
scary...
The demonstration at Elizabeth Bridge was organized by an NGO called
'One Million for Press Freedom', or just Milla for short. They started
out during the autumn of 2010, when it became clear that the new
government doesn't hold that much about this old and failing
institution. They thought it might be best to re-inforce it with a law
requiring press outlets to produce "fair and balanced" content. We all
want to read and watch fair and balanced stuff, aren't we? The meaning
of these two words is not at all specified, but the new National Media
Council is always there to tell you on a case-by-case basis. Of course
you have to pay around €150000 if you are deemed "unfair", so it's
better not to risk it. Some people didn't like this brilliant idea, so
they started organizing demonstrations. They created this NGO for the
bureaucratic hurdles and it seemed to work: the official organizers of
these large demos keep being this group ever since. They are very nice
and sensible young hippies and yuppies, apart from a pathological
obsession with being neutral. At first they didn't even let politicians
show up at the events, so the greens protested with paper bags on their
heads. Later on they relaxed this rule, so by this thursday we could see
LMP activists in uniform green jackets showing up in the crowd. They
were collecting signatures for their referendum request. Nobody seemed
to have an issue with them.
It was a lovely sunny day, perfectly suitable for mass
demonstrations. That might have been a reason for the high participation
figures on both sides. I arrived with two comrades from Vienna: we
approached the site by Metro and later on foot, walking from Astoria.
The old blue soviet train was jam-packed with people, but only half of
them left with us. Both the Fidesz and the Jobbik rallies were
accessible by line 2, so the rest of the passengers went one or two more
stops to their respective meetings. The big avenue was empty and there
were groups of people advancing for the bridge everywhere. With more
than half an hour to go, there already was a small crowd of a few
thousand people forming at the stage. Looking back from time to time, we
could see more and people coming until they turned into a steady human
drift.
The program started with the official "inauguration" of Hungary's
alternative president, who turned out to be a famous underground rapper
called Laszlo Pityinger aka Dopeman. Regardless of the artistic
qualities of the guy (he's not bad within the genre), the whole thing
came out as a big fiasco. This alternative president could have been a
serious guy representing the real unity of the nation, or at least of
those not getting a boner at the sight of Viktor Orban. He might have
become an instrumental player in the long struggle to overthrow the
regime. I have my doubts about him not only because rappers don't play
any instruments, but also because his selection was marred by
allegations of fraud. According to gossip, the real winner should have
been his contender called... I can't even remember his name, maybe
because he's that kind of tramp who could easily find a decent job if
not for his philosophical objections to washing and shaving himself. He
was way too much infatuated with the spirit of railway pubs serving
artificial booze and Hungary's rather low-profile punkrock scene from
the early 80's. Not my guy. Maybe that fraud was still the very best
option for everyone...
Dopeman managed to save the day with a very nice and poetic speech
including the sensible notion of stupidity not being far away from evil.
The contender, maybe as a compensantion, was given the opportunity of a
short speech as well. To no avail. I think it just reinforced my image
of him as an anti-social narcissistic little jerk. After this entrée
came the main block of speeches which were good enough. I didn't pay
attention because I was spreading CWI leaflets all along. There was some
prize awarded to bad politicians, and the anti-prize given to good guys
of which one has made a speech as well.
I was a little bit surprised to see so many DK flags and banners in
the hands of the participants. DK is the name of ex-premier Ferenc
Gyurcsany's splinter group of reform-minded technocratic yuppies from
MSZP, which in turn started out as a splinter group as well, back in
1989, as a result of a split within the stalinist state party. These DK
people are the ultimate technocrats, the reformists within the
reformists. The publicly assumed goal of Mr Gyurcsany is to establish a
catch-all party of liberals, moderate conservatives and moderate social
democrats alike. They have a logo most probably borrowed from a private
kindergarden chain, while their anthem reminds you of a new-school
nursing home party. Lately the ex-premier made headlines after moving
into the home of a working class family dwelling a very infamous housing
project in the crisis-ridden eastern rust belt, a relic of Stalinist
industrialization. It was a controversial move receiving widespread
attention from the yellow press and scorn from the right, but nonetheless he managed to
walk his dog among these tenements without being beaten - a profound sign
of the people of Hungary still willing to forgive the past if the
present is even worse.
Szolidaritás was also present in relatively large numbers. This
group is something between a political party and a federation of unions, and they are at the moment our best chance to save this
miserable nation from the last refuge of capitalism, which is fascism. (This we know all too well.) In the media they are mostly featured through direct
action in the spirit of old-fashioned working class struggle. The only
problem is that their outreach towards unions is far from universal. Now
they are trying to navigate the murky waters between union affairs and
mainstream politics.
Anarchists and anti-fascists were also there to be seen. They did not show any hostility towards our trotskyist leaflets, or at least not openly.
They were cool. Two of them even signed up on our mailing list. I
was not able to meet any people from the Fourth Republic movement (aka
4K), even though I'm officially a member of the party. Most
unfortunately I missed all but two of their inaugural meetings because
of my foreign scholarship. This party was just formed at the end of last
year as a new left-wing party with a great emphasis on the ideas and
aspirations of the so-called 'generation Y'. (This demographic term was
featured in their name before they became a party.)
The demonstration had some unwelcomed guests as well: nazi boneheads
of the lowest order were given permission to stage their own event at
the corner of a side street right at the backyard of our demo, but
fortunately separated by a police cordon. These were the guys too much
of a shame even for Jobbik, so the "new force" decided to send them here
to make the ever so useful trouble within the ranks of the "liberal
zionist puppets of international jewry" (i.e. us) instead of theirs. The
government of course was more than happy to assist the quest of these
useful idiots. Needless to say, it was not completely outside of their
interests either.
Trouble they could make indeed. The participants were bitterly
separated about the issue of wether to confront this heap of biological
waste. Like I said, Milla people are really obsessed with this hopeless
image of neutrality, so they are very anxious about confronting nazis.
In the context of Hungarian politics, "neutral" means you're not allowed
to tell a nazi that he's a nazi. If you dare to do so, cryptofascist
right-wing bitches immediately start assaulting you with lengthy, stupid
and self-important arguments about your loss of neutrality and the lack
of empathy in your mind towards the country's problems, and so on. I
guess they can't stand reading such comments on their Facebook page, or
even to risk it. They are pussies. They just let these great apes
infiltrate the crowd and walk back and forth as if that were the most
natural thing in the world. Or maybe it was the police which didn't
cordon them accurately enough. But then again, they might not be the one
to blame either, since the only "accurate" cordon would have been a big
cage. Or much better indeed, a big fist in each and every nazi's face. I'm afraid the people of Hungary need to learn (and forget) a few things before developing this technique of cordoning...
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