On the evening of June 6th, Friday, at the Main Hall of Akvárium Klub, in conjunction with members of the domestic cultural scene and active representatives of the LGBTQ community, the 30th Budapest Pride Community Festival officially kicked off. This year’s festival slogan is “We are here and we are at home!”, expressing that LGBTQ people are just as much an integral part of Hungarian society as any other fellow citizen. “In our history and culture, there has been, is, and will always be a place for the LGBTQ community, which, contrary to frequent accusations, is not a product of a Western-imported ideology, not propaganda, but a multitude of people whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from that of majority society, but who, beyond this, encounter similar difficulties and joys in their lives as anyone else.” With this slogan, the organizers also want to highlight that the LGBTQ community is not an urban phenomenon, just as Budapest Pride does not wish to address only big-city LGBTQ people through its activities. LGBTQ individuals live everywhere; they can be born into a homestead, a remote village, or a bustling metropolis alike.
Several representatives of qLit attended the opening ceremony. Among the many important and inspiring speeches, the marvelous words of poet Rebeka Kupihár struck such a chord in all of us that after the event we immediately asked for the script so we could share it with everyone who did not have the opportunity to hear it. Read it, and then rush to the bookstore for her Petri Prize-winning collection, “To the God of the Straights.”
I first traveled abroad alone when I was 16. After that, like others get addicted to alcohol or other things, I got hooked on traveling—it became my passion to roam, hitchhike, and sleep in hammocks around Europe on just a few thousand forints earned in the hospitality industry. Many times, I had to present my country, explain myself by saying “I’m not that kind of Hungarian,” or feel ashamed—”yes, that’s actually true” about this or that news about us. I owe a lot to the fact that I had so many opportunities to travel. I fell in love for the first time abroad. Abroad was where I first dared to admit that yes, I was in love with a woman—head over heels and hopelessly at that time. I was able to gain enough confidence through speaking foreign languages; this experience gave me the strength to tell the people closest to me what was really going on with me when I returned to the small village near Eger where I had grown up. I discovered stories written in foreign languages in which I could see myself reflected. I wrote poems in foreign languages because, in Hungarian, it didn’t feel legitimate—there were no words for the experiences I wanted to express..
It was no surprise, then, that after many years of worrying, complaining, and procrastinating, my ex-partner and I decided to move abroad. And I don’t think I have ever breathed as freely as since I did in a secluded village in the Black Forest. You could literally hear the weight sliding off my chest. Finally, I am not responsible for what happens here. Here, I am not a citizen. I didn’t read news from home, and I put all my effort into expressing myself as flawlessly and smoothly as possible in German, in the local dialect. I got a tax number, pension insurance, a bank account, and I looked at the beautiful same-sex couples in the local newspaper pages, on notice boards, in the doctor’s office. Professional work, promotion, and after the breakup, I could even fall in love again. Of course, it was also very difficult, and I suffered many wounds. I don’t want to paint it in rosy colors, but even so, moving back home was not a logical step. It wasn’t logical, but it made sense. It made sense from my own perspective and in terms of my own life. I am truly happy for those who can put down roots and find themselves in a safer country, and I sincerely feel for the many who do not have the option to move back home due to economic, safety, or other reasons.
I felt that I could stay in that country. I would live a healthier life. I could be more confident, I would have more freedom. But I dreamed in German, and I noticed that I was forgetting Hungarian words, and I felt how impossible it was to call my love by a term of endearment in a foreign language.
At the beginning of August 2024, I crossed the border with my Citroen Berlingo having the same age as me. Packed with all my things – everything, really. I was coming home. My clothes, from bikinis to ski socks, my bike, frying pans, mattress.
I crossed the border on motorway M7, the car started picking up the signal, perhaps Kossuth Radio came on. Hate speech. I listened to the four experts, the men were mocking, publicly shaming someone for being different, meanwhile I read the familiar town names: Oltárc, Becsehely, Zalakomár. The words from the radio poured down on me, and so did the homely, dear place names from the familiar green signs. Finally, Hungarian words. And I started crying, the realization hit me to my core: no one was welcoming me here, I was hated here and yet everything was here that felt familiar that was dear to me. Someone like me was being publicly shamed. I was pressing the gas pedal, speeding at 130 km/h toward what I feared—what I had once fled from, and I had been right to escape. I was driving toward something I might flee from again one day.
I arrived. I was at home. So this is what it feels like to return. Moved, with goosebumps and tears in my eyes – there had never been a listener like me to that high-quality broadcast, that much was certain. And as grotesque as it may be, I was certain I had made the right decision. Here I was, completely broken, tired, without a rented apartment or a job, yet I felt and heard that I was needed here. It was as clear as day that we were all needed – those of us who still fight with words and actions to create something better, something more livable no matter how weak our tools may seem.
I think this is when I truly grew up.
It has dawned on me that I am responsible and I am an adult; in the most beautiful, noble, and free sense of the word. And that is what brought me home. And it truly brought me home. Because I know that living abroad would be better. Having children abroad would be better. Pensioner years would be better. But still, my life has meaning here. And forgive these brazenly grand words: my life has significance here. I know, it’s foolish, I know, the playing field is clearly tilted, it’s always been slanted in one direction ever since I can remember. This ship is sinking, I know it’s sinking, but this is my favorite ship in the world. And I think I would rather patch up the leaks on this ship with my remaining hands than row or drift on another ship toward some vague destination that I don’t truly feel is my own. And I would like, I would very much like, to be there when these experts, who spoke on the radio, revise their views. When all they’ve said becomes embarrassing. And I know that starts with picking up my pen and opening my mouth. And, of course, opening my ears and opening my chest. To stay open to everything that comes my way, no matter who it comes from.
Naive, I know, very naive, but I believe these words. I would like to be there when nobody understands hate speech anymore, when nobody speaks it anymore. Not because everyone is cautiously making sure to be PC, but because we fundamentally understand and feel that our words have an impact. Not only a hurtful and threatening one, but also healing, healing, healing effects.
Because we seemingly speak the same language, because we have so many shared traits, shared experiences, and shared knowledge. Even with those with whom we don’t see eye to eye. And I believe that behind evil there is also a hidden need, fear, or uncertainty that is human, that is understandable. Even if the way it manifests in the world is unacceptable. And I would like us to understand, to surpass it. Together. Because I don’t believe in solitary things. I believe in communal things. Like Pride.
There is something that often comes to my mind when I see the future as very hopeless. Maybe we are making the planet uninhabitable, maybe we keep electing dictators over and over again, maybe the fear I feel when I see police officers will always be automatic. But no matter how our systems are, no matter what our living conditions are, our capacity for love is the same. And the need for love is even greater in a repressive and intimidating system. Regardless of circumstances, there will always be room in the world to be good to each other, to do something for one another.
We are here. We are home. Along with all its consequences and risks that come with it.
Even if we are not welcome. And all those are home here, too, who do not welcome us. Let us use this gentle and radical power that we have, we who have learned to speak, read, and write. Let us use this to understand each other, whether we live here or beyond the border. Let us read, ask, talk, write. Maybe, only in words at first, but let us make this a country where the cockade and the rainbow, faith and diversity, are not contradictory, and where hate speech is a dead language.
Source of cover image: telex.hu
Translated by Emese Balog
