I headed off to the protest after lunch, after taking a long time to decide whether or not I would go. I felt a little silly, like Norman Mailer in his writing on the 1960s protests, when he spent a silly amount of time thinking about himself and what his place in all these sweeping events was. Would I go as a journalist? not precisely, because there's no money involved. As a participant? that's tricky. I take the idea of national self-determination seriously, and Hungary is not my country.
Yet, 2011 has a certain special feeling, like 1989, 1968, maybe even 1848. Whatever is happening is bigger than any one country. I've spent a lot of time these past few weeks thinking about Occupy Wall Street, and how I'd respond if I were still back home right now. My opinion has changed a few times over that stretch. I began from a definite distance -- I have a permanent skepticism of the way leftist dissent in America presents itself as a laundry list of isolated grievances. Maybe its generational, but I can't think about this sort of checklist of interests without irony. But I've been won over by the idea of it. After all, I have an unreasonable mountain of student loan debt. I devoted myself to a profession that was trashed by unimaginative leaders, investment bankers, and a professional managerial class. So in general, yea, I have some pretty serious grievances.
So I chose to go as an observer, a blogger, and see what I could see. The walk to the protest was striking, as usual. I crossed the Lanchid, which I've done dozens of times this month, and it never looks the same. On Sunday, it was decorated with flags -- it was National Day, when the country commemorates the beginning of the 1956 Uprising.
Along the way, I accidentally bumped into the right-wing rally at Nador ter, which was aiming their ire at the national banking association. There were the Jobbik banners, the red and white striped Arpad flags, the men in combat boots and peaked caps stalking about. While I didn't quite feel that sharp sense of danger you get around Russian skinheads, I moved along briskly to get to the lefty protest.
To get there, I walked along Vaci utca, one of the main tourist pedestrian streets in the city. The area had a familiar, gloomy off-season vibe, down to the guy working a marionette trumpet player to the tune of "My Way." It is still strange to be in a large city, how there are different drawers and corners that seem completely separate from each other (the rest of my family, incidentally, was at a birthday party for one of my daughter's classmates).
Vaci utca led to an intersection near the front of the enormous crowd around Szabadsag sajto utca, in the plaza that leads toward the Elizabeth Bridge. There were a lot of people, and the make up was by no means what I expected. They were older, more middle class and working class. Somehow, I imagine young hipsters and whatnot, and they were there, but strangely, in context. Everyone seemed to have a kind of serious, worried feeling about them. There was nothing urgent or desparate about the scene; everyone listened carefully. I thought to myself that we Americans are still too fond of gloating about the quality of our democracy, but why do only the angriest and loudest get bothered enough to take to the streets? It is probably for much the same reason only a handful bother to vote.
Naturally, my ability to follow what was happening was seriously limited by this yawning language difference. There were speeches, listened to politely, and a little music. All that was lost on me. The best I could do was try to read the images. I noticed one that borrowed the image of Solidarity. I saw only one sign that looked like it would have fit in at an OWS rally. But since it was an important national holiday, the imagery from 1956 was very, very heavy. But to a large extent, it emphasized the positive. Images of protests and marches, not street-fighting and bloodshed. The day commemorates the beginning of the uprising, when a group of students had gathered at the memorial to Jozef Bem, a Polish general who fought with the Hungarians in 1848. It was a sign of solidarity with the Poles, who had just stood up to Soviet bullying. History is never far away here -- it echoes, and is firmly, deeply entwined with everything around you.
Most of what I knew about the content of the protest I'd picked up from the Internet. The most visible articulation, as it were, of the sentiment, was probably this Magyar hip-hop YouTube clip, which frankly, didn't seem very promising. Repeating over and over again "I don't like the system" is dangerously close to the vague bleating of teenage malaise. Stuff's broken, why can't we get along, etc etc. That can be very shallow, and very easy to ignore.
The rest of the organizer's materials got into some important specifics, about showing anger at the new media law in Hungary, which is a major cause for concern around the European Union. (and for the record, the right-wing rally I walked past was making an important point as well. Their theme for the day was the "we defeated the tanks, but were conquered by banks").
With time, I came to realize that the YouTube video was just the hook. As with the start of OWS, the point seems to be to point out the malaise and then let the details appear. Create some kind of manifestation of this frustration and anger, and find a way to shape it. It's a new strategy, I think, but worth a shot because nothing else has worked. the idea of angry chanting, organizing strike committees, throwing up barricades, and issuing communiques belongs to another generation.
There is a localized echo of the broader, global sentiment here: that sense of disgust and alienation from the people making the decisions. Call them the ruling class, the Establishment, the Very Serious People. No one on Sunday in Budapest forgot that the reason the right-wing Fidesz has such a stifling supermajority -- and can tinker with the Contitution and pass alarming media laws -- is because the previous Socialist governments were nearly as venal and self-serving as they are. As if to underscore just how clueless the professional ruling class is, only the day before former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany -- who was caught on tape in 2006 admitting his government lied for two years about the budget -- broke away from the opposition Socialist party to form his own party. The best strategy for success for a fractured and impotent opposition is a breakaway vanity party with no distinctive policy agenda.
In the face of such a hopeless moment, maybe a cute hip-hop song is the only way to start. Because let's not forget, we do not live in a world that is without alternatives. While the Western world continues to convulse, there in the east lie Russia and China, which have come upon their own way to navigate these difficult times, which Orban and Fidesz think about with longoing. Russia boasts sham elections and a democratic circus that parodies civilized political life. An oligarchy that is rapidly becoming feudal in its self-sustaining durability holds most of the wealth and all of the power. And social order is preserved not just with a sprawling and chilling police apparatus, but by complacency and inertia, purchased with the offer of the latest televison sets, Ikea furniture, and an annual trip to Turkey for vacation. It is a system in which the government distributes favors to the people -- access to the Internet, free (if shoddy) medical care and pensions, a passport to travel overseas -- all of which can be summarily snatched back if you show signs of insufficient gratitiude.
The organizers of Sunday's march said there were at least 100,000 people. Reuters left it at tens of thousands. State television found it warranted a minute's worth of coverage halfway through the daily news broadcast, only after a piece commemorating the 5th anniversary of the protests against Gyurcsany's ill-fated audio tape.
So perhaps, sometimes the only way to start is to stand in the rain, listening, worrying, being ignored. For the moment.
Most of what I knew about the content of the protest I'd picked up from the Internet. The most visible articulation, as it were, of the sentiment, was probably this Magyar hip-hop YouTube clip, which frankly, didn't seem very promising. Repeating over and over again "I don't like the system" is dangerously close to the vague bleating of teenage malaise. Stuff's broken, why can't we get along, etc etc. That can be very shallow, and very easy to ignore.
The rest of the organizer's materials got into some important specifics, about showing anger at the new media law in Hungary, which is a major cause for concern around the European Union. (and for the record, the right-wing rally I walked past was making an important point as well. Their theme for the day was the "we defeated the tanks, but were conquered by banks").
With time, I came to realize that the YouTube video was just the hook. As with the start of OWS, the point seems to be to point out the malaise and then let the details appear. Create some kind of manifestation of this frustration and anger, and find a way to shape it. It's a new strategy, I think, but worth a shot because nothing else has worked. the idea of angry chanting, organizing strike committees, throwing up barricades, and issuing communiques belongs to another generation.
There is a localized echo of the broader, global sentiment here: that sense of disgust and alienation from the people making the decisions. Call them the ruling class, the Establishment, the Very Serious People. No one on Sunday in Budapest forgot that the reason the right-wing Fidesz has such a stifling supermajority -- and can tinker with the Contitution and pass alarming media laws -- is because the previous Socialist governments were nearly as venal and self-serving as they are. As if to underscore just how clueless the professional ruling class is, only the day before former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany -- who was caught on tape in 2006 admitting his government lied for two years about the budget -- broke away from the opposition Socialist party to form his own party. The best strategy for success for a fractured and impotent opposition is a breakaway vanity party with no distinctive policy agenda.
In the face of such a hopeless moment, maybe a cute hip-hop song is the only way to start. Because let's not forget, we do not live in a world that is without alternatives. While the Western world continues to convulse, there in the east lie Russia and China, which have come upon their own way to navigate these difficult times, which Orban and Fidesz think about with longoing. Russia boasts sham elections and a democratic circus that parodies civilized political life. An oligarchy that is rapidly becoming feudal in its self-sustaining durability holds most of the wealth and all of the power. And social order is preserved not just with a sprawling and chilling police apparatus, but by complacency and inertia, purchased with the offer of the latest televison sets, Ikea furniture, and an annual trip to Turkey for vacation. It is a system in which the government distributes favors to the people -- access to the Internet, free (if shoddy) medical care and pensions, a passport to travel overseas -- all of which can be summarily snatched back if you show signs of insufficient gratitiude.
The organizers of Sunday's march said there were at least 100,000 people. Reuters left it at tens of thousands. State television found it warranted a minute's worth of coverage halfway through the daily news broadcast, only after a piece commemorating the 5th anniversary of the protests against Gyurcsany's ill-fated audio tape.
So perhaps, sometimes the only way to start is to stand in the rain, listening, worrying, being ignored. For the moment.
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| For the record, I love any country where the police look more like crossing guards than commandoes. |
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