Photo: Dián Ákos, Csernó Tibor a Hardy Anna, Merce.hu

Despite Viktor Orbán’s efforts, the thirtieth Budapest Pride march took place last Saturday with a record number of participants - almost twice as many as in previous years. Nearly two hundred thousand people came despite, or perhaps because of, the Orbán government’s attempts to deter them from participating.

Prime Minister Orbán had already said in his February annual speech: “I recommend that Pride organisers don’t bother preparing a parade this year! It’s wasted money and time.” In March, an amendment to the assembly law followed, which banned gatherings that violate an older amendment to the child protection law that has penalised “promotion of homosexuality” since 2021. This effectively banned the march. However, Budapest’s liberal-green mayor Gergely Karácsony subsequently designated the event as municipal, and according to his interpretation, the ban did not apply to it because it falls under different legislation. Police nevertheless banned the march. The Hungarian parliament simultaneously authorised police to use facial recognition technology at banned assemblies, which identifies demonstration participants, who then face fines of up to two hundred thousand forints [roughly €500].

The more people who aren’t afraid, the greater the chance we’ll defend our freedoms.

The enormous turnout was a clear message to Orbán, against whom an increasingly strong opposition is forming in Hungary. In recent weeks, variations of the statement appeared in public space: “I haven’t participated in the march before, but this year I simply must!” The attempt to ban Budapest Pride clearly completely backfired.

 Risk of repression

It might seem that participating was actually simple when so many people came. However, recent experience from [Russian opposition leader] Alexei Navalny’s funeral shows that camera systems help state repression, which can punish participants later. Compared to times when you could be detained at a demonstration, but if that didn’t happen, you got away clean, the situation for participants in banned protests has become significantly more complicated, which can strengthen people’s fear and the atmosphere of unfreedom. The reaction of Hungarian Pride participants is admirable partly because they certainly don’t live in a free country and it must be clear to them that the regime could become even more repressive and that their participation could come back to haunt them in the future. At the same time, this is the only correct strategy for confronting attempts to curtail freedoms. Hungarians can thus be an inspiration to the rest of us. If people aren’t brave in the face of attempts to limit freedom, they’ll lose it even before state repression affects them.

The Hungarian experience shows another important aspect of the fight to preserve our freedoms. After Pride was banned, companies that had participated in the parade in previous years withdrew their support. This year they didn’t participate and didn’t respond to journalists’ questions. This is clear evidence that corporations will only support openness and tolerance if it’s cool and profitable. Like all other supposedly ethical accents, their support for LGBTQ+ or anyone or anything else serves them as marketing. All the more important then is the participation of all those brave people who came to the parade. And the more of them there were, the more the risk of possible repression naturally decreased.

 Normalisation experience from the USA

In light of their courage, it’s difficult to avoid comparison with the reactions that the current situation in the USA provokes. Let’s set aside the approaches of Americans themselves, which are very diverse. How they’ll manage to stand up to [Donald] Trump’s efforts to curtail not only freedom of speech remains to be seen. What’s striking are the reactions of Europeans who are preparing to travel to the USA. Many of them are taking different mobile phones on their journey or have concerns about publicly expressing their opinions, lest they happen to be refused entry to the country. This would be an unpleasant but certainly not dangerous situation, especially in cases where people are going there for some conference and someone else is paying for their trip anyway. Nevertheless, the panic that the mere possibility of having problems entering the country has caused is so great among many people that they’d rather be careful about what they write where.

The moment people start changing their behaviour purely out of fear that they might not be allowed into the country, every repressive system has won. The correct reaction is not to limit yourself and to express your opinions just as if nothing were at stake. And if you’re refused entry to the country, publish your story. Only this way will the full force of what Trump’s regime is doing be revealed. If people are preventively super-obedient in advance and would rather not write anything anywhere and hide their opinions, they’ll find themselves in unfree mode even before anything happens to them. At that moment, Trump has essentially already won.

Our experience from [Czechoslovak] normalisation [the period of political repression following the 1968 Soviet invasion] could theoretically equip us with a figurative radar for when we should be aware of this. It’s quite possible that we’ll soon face various choices that could lead us down the path of fear and humiliation. Therefore, Hungarians deserve great thanks for their courage. If only a few thousand people had come to Pride out of fear of repression, Orbán’s regime would certainly have feasted on them with the help of technology and made exemplary cases of them. In the numbers in which people came, something like that will be hardly possible. And the same applies to every case where the extent of our freedoms is being negotiated. The more people who aren’t afraid, the greater the chance we’ll defend our freedoms.

Saša Uhlová is a journalist and has been an editor at Alarm.cz since 2017. She studied Romani studies at Charles University [in Prague] and previously worked as a field researcher and teacher. In her texts, she focuses on social issues and working conditions.