Hungarian protests

October 23rd, 2006 § 0 comments

[crosspost from [livejournal](http://oedipamaas49.livejournal.com)]
Despite what a few people seem to think, I really didn’t [come here for the rioting](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6078052.stm). Still, I did spend a couple of hours wandering around the town centre – I may be spending most of my time at home, but you can’t listen to sirens and helicopters without getting a little curious.
In case you’ve missed the backstory: the political right have been pissed off for the past month or so, since somebody leaked a recording of the Prime Minister admitting (in pretty colourful language) that he lied to win the last election. Partly because of that, his party did badly in the local elections a few weeks ago. The president hinted that he wanted the Prime Minister to resign, the PM won a not-particularly-resounding vote of confidence, and things settled down a bit.
Then comes today, which is the 50th anniversary of an uprising against the Soviets. So that gives an excuse to start the whole thing again. Everybody has the day off work, there’s lots of flag-waving anyway, and it’s not hard to turn it against the Prime Minister who, being a socialist, gets painted as a sort-of communist clinging on. Veterans refuse to shake his hand, the opposition organise a demonstration, and by lunchtime it’s moved on to teargas and rubber bullets.
So I walked around a bit, stood around with a crowd of similarly-uninvolved gawkers and watched the police tear-gassing a protest. Then decided it’s a bit silly to get too involved in it all, given that I don’t even agree with the rioters. Plus there was far too much flag-waving for me – it’s something I have a not-entirely-irrational loathing of. Would have taken some photos, but -despite all your advice – I’ve not got my act together enough to buy a camera.
As before, there were an impressive number of 60-something-year-olds, although the angry young men were out in force again. Also: a total absence of ghouls around the edges selling whatever the right-wing Hungarian equivalent of the Socialist Worker is, and generally a sense that people don’t know what they’re doing. It’s nothing like, say, France, where everybody knows what happens at protests, they treat them as a fun day out, segregate themselves into little blocs and cliques.
Anyway, I think I’ve now fulfilled my quota of paying attention to Hungarian politics, so now I’ll just sit in my room and see how many hooligans get beaten up by the police.

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