The Hungarian government is putting the Hungarian society on a path reminiscent of dark historical times: it has amended the law on assemblies, which hypocritically makes the Pride march illegal on the grounds of protecting children.
What can we do in this situation? Instead of letting ourselves be intimidated, we can go out to protest and express our discontent—as qLit did. We were also there at the March 18th protest.
We made it out to the second of two demonstrations on Tuesday, and we were informed about the protest organized by Momentum, which started earlier, by reports from friends there and various “rolling dollar funded media” (irony alert). Everyone expected that the two protests would join together since they were close in time and location—and a few hours later it happened. At 7PM we listened to speeches at Szabadság (Liberty) Square, where the heightened mood was clearly palpable, and it was not out of boredom that this event was pulled together in a few hours, but anger – and rightly so. There were chanted slogans, the most important message from here was “One solution: resistance!”.
From Szabadság (Libery) Square we went to Kossuth Square, by this time the initial small group had swelled into a crowd. Everywhere there were rainbow flags, trans logos, black and red antifascist symbols, and last, but not least, Hungarian flags, which (with a lot of irony) are extremely important, because we all belong to this nation.
At Kossuth Square the event officially ended. The organizers were obliged to tell everyone to go home, but they asked us to continue to assemble peacefully. The march proceeded to Margaret Bridge where we joined the other protest and here we were met with a closed bridge, police sirens, and flashing police cars.
At Jászai Mari Square, although some people climbed up lampposts, the crowd was generally peaceful in front of the queue wall, with many chanting “let me through!”. This would have been welcomed by several passers-by/runners, but no one was let through for any reason.
The size of the crowd is important, but what really gave me strength was that in a few hours the outrage turned into two demonstrations. Among the participants were not exclusively members of the LGBTQ+ community, but anyone who wants to live in a progressive country and sees that banning Pride is not just about LGBTQ+ people (not that that’s not enough reason to be angry.)
Using the words of the organizers: organise, take a stand, be present, resist, express your opinion! Meet us at Pride, meet us at the next demonstration!
Translated by Amy
