Jozsef Lakatos, a young Hungarian artist, woke up one morning in mid-June full of rage and painted a television on which the old adjustment chart is seen, whose colors match those of the rainbow flag of the LGBTI community; in the middle of the screen he placed the message: "No signal." There is no signal at the moment for this group in Hungary. The country's Parliament, explains Lakatos to argue the origin of his anger, had just passed a law that prohibits any content that "propagates or represents" homosexuality or transsexuality in schools, television programs and advertising directed at minors. The move went ahead with the overwhelming parliamentary majority of Fidesz, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's party, and immediately unleashed European fury,with most of its leaders clamoring against the homophobic and authoritarian slope on which the country is dangerously sliding.
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"The representation of any minority is important so that society can sympathize with them," protests the artist Lakatos.
It's a sweltering night at the end of June in Budapest and around it there is a hubbub of laughter and music and beers in Szimpla Kert, a pub with an alternative scent that locals define as "liberal and tolerant" towards the gay, lesbian and trans community.
On one of the walls of the premises is the poster of this artist, along with other protest posters.
They are all part of an exhibition on the “barriers” one faces in Hungary, an event organized on the occasion of Pride month.
Most of the posters express the sense of harassment, oppression and homophobia that has swept through the country in Orbán's 11 years in power. There are brains turned into spaghetti on the news; people buried by blocks of law sheets; muted mouths. Graphic designer Vivien Icsa has represented this asphyxia as a shadow from which a rainbow heart emerges. She talks about the guilt and shame to which one is pushed when the environment denies him his identity; She grew up in a small town, without gender education in school or LGTBI references. “We want to speak out and tell everyone how we feel,” he says. "But this law prevents us from defending who we really are." Another poster shows a face with its eyes covered by hands. Its creator, Wanda,who wears a mask with the Pride flag, describes what is happening in his country as follows: “The government points to an enemy, uses a scapegoat to obtain votes. It's disgusting". But also, he adds, the homophobic norm has managed to bring together a community of aggrieved people wanting to change.
Orbán has been, since he came to power, one of Europe's conservative leaders most backed by his voters.
In the 2019 European elections, which were the last national thermometer, his formation got 52.5% of the votes, 36 points ahead of the second, the center-left coalition DK.
But after years of a populist and illiberal turn, and increasingly estranged from EU values, Orbán faces growing resistance from civil society and the opposition.
The latest anti-LGTBI measure has been the last straw.
At the moment, six political parties, ranging from the greens to the far right, are trying to build a coalition with the aim of defeating Fidesz in the 2022 elections. With the polls evenly matched, for the first time in a decade the fall of Orbán seems possible.
Anti-Orbán resistance
Several of the people interviewed for this report feel comfortable calling themselves part of that kind of anti-Orbán “resistance”. “We didn't want to go into a war, but now that we are being used we feel a responsibility,” says Boldizsár M. Nagy, a 37-year-old publisher of youth literature who last year published a storybook titled
Meseorszag mindenkie.
(A fairy tale for everyone) that has become a symbol of that struggle.
After ultra-conservative politicians denigrated the volume in public, it has pulverized records selling some 30,000 copies.
Nagy, who is gay and from the Roma minority, feels that the increasing harassment they face has also had an unexpected effect for Orbán: the LGTBI community has become important to the opposition, and society is increasingly interested in their situation.
"We may not win the elections, but we will be more visible."
In video, interview with the editor Boldizsar Nagy.ÁLVARO GARCIA
Nagy acknowledges, however, that the new law has hurt the trend toward openness in the publishing industry. While the inclusion of LGTBI characters is something "increasingly expected" in the international book market for kids between 12 and 18 years old, their country has chosen to close. And given the uncertainty about the possible legal consequences of publishing something improper, lately some publishing houses have decided not to bet on this issue. The law seeks to "cause fear" and "silence people," Nagy concludes. "We must continue the fight."
Besieged by Brussels, Orbán has justified the measure by assuring that “the sexual education of children is a parental right and, without their consent, neither the State nor the political parties, nor the NGOs nor the rainbow activists can play a role. ”, According to related in one of his habitual letters, published after the European summit of the past week in which, in his words,“ the prime ministers with the rainbow flag paraded in a phalanx ”. For Orbán, the European reaction is based on "false accusations." “The law basically leaves the choice about the sex education of their children in the hands of parents. How can it be undemocratic to have a real option? ”, Adds by email the international communication office of the Hungarian Executive.
The regulation has been described as "a disgrace" by the president of the Commission, whose Executive has sent a letter to the Hungarian Government requesting explanations for a law that "discriminates against people based on their gender and sexual orientation." "Homosexuality, sex change and deviation from one's own identity corresponding to the sex of birth are equated to pornography and are considered capable of exerting a negative influence on the physical or moral development of minors," the letter denounces.
The controversial articles were a last minute inclusion in a legislative package on pedophilia, adding even more stupor on the community bloc. For analyst Boris Kalnoky, however, although this mixture of concepts may suggest that homosexuality and pedophilia are equated, this is not something that is said in the law. This journalist and analyst at the Matthias Corvinus Collegium, a think tank linked to Orbán, argues instead that Hungary is "the most vibrant place in the former communist bloc for homosexuals." (To which a gay politician from Budapest replies: "Shit!")
For Kalnoky, the origin of the law is a response by Fidesz to different sex scandals related to the party, among which the episode of the gay orgy in Brussels of the MEP József Szájer, one of Orbán's strong men in the EU, stands out. architect of the current Hungarian Constitution, especially hostile towards the LGTBI collective. The prime minister's party, he adds, "always tries to create a division on an issue in which they know they have the majority," just as it has done with immigration. And he considers that the measure has been "a great triumph" for Fidesz because it has managed to divide that opposition in the process of union: the law received the votes in favor of the far-right Jobbik, part of the coalition that seeks to overthrow Orbán.
David Dorosz is one of the political strategists working to shape that grand coalition.
He was also the architect of the campaign that brought Gergely Karácsony to the mayor of Budapest in 2019 with a similar union of parties.
And the mayor is right now the most visible head of that future anti-Orbán front.
"I see signs that Fidesz is scared," says strategist Dorosz in a room with the blinds drawn and a certain aura of secrecy located in the headquarters of his party and that of the mayor, Dialogue for Hungary, a green and leftist formation.
"It is a shame"
From this room, details of the complex coalition are negotiated, designed in part to circumvent the change in the electoral law proposed by Orbán in 2020, “a case of a manipulation book,” he denounces. "United we can win Orbán", adds Dorosz, for whom the homophobic law is a "trap" created by Fidesz to "distract attention" from a "fed up" society. And he is glad of the "resistance" shown by society against the regulations. "Many people got up, yelled and criticized," he says. "It is a shame. And it will be part of the movement created to win over Fidesz ”.
"I am part of the resistance," says Daniel Turgonyi, who leads the LGTBI group of the liberal party Momentum, also included in the anti-Orbán coalition. His group was born in 2017, but already in 2019 it obtained almost 10% of the votes in the European elections. Turgonyi, 26, is deputy mayor of the Óbuda-Békásmegyer district, the second largest in Budapest, with 130,000 inhabitants. This young man says that Fidesz “has realized that they have lost Budapest. Now they need every vote. And they no longer speak to liberal people or educated conservatives. But to rural areas ”. Hence the new anti-LGTBI rhetoric. "They are learning from Poland, it worked there." “From my gay eyes,” he adds about the ongoing battle, “it's the most important thing I've participated in so far. Young people's lives are in danger. It is important to get up ”.He says that Orbán has raised a "culture war", but people like him will be found in front of it. “Nobody wants to fight this war. But when you are cornered you have to do it ”.
It is not easy to be gay, lesbian or trans in the country.
In Budapest, which is open and modern, there are hardly any Pride flags to be seen, and wearing a colored pin can mean that someone is yelling or spitting at you as you pass.
57% of LGTBI people in Hungary admit that they do not walk down the street hand in hand with their partner of the same sex "for fear of being attacked, threatened or harassed", the second highest figure in the EU, after Poland ( 58%), according to a 2020 survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights.
In video, interview with Tóbiás Tuza, star of the Hungarian short 'Colores de Tobi'.ÁLVARO GARCIA
On the last night of June, the atmosphere on this rooftop with spectacular views of the city is very different. There are kisses, confidences and hugs between same-sex couples during the outdoor premiere of the documentary
Colores de Tobi
. The film narrates the gender transition of Tóbiás Tuza, a Hungarian teenager who lives in a small town, and the beautiful love relationship he forges with his mother, determined to understand and accept his search. “My non-binary son. I love you ”, he tells her at one point in the film. About 200 people laugh, cry and clap. And, after the screening, Tuza, who is now 21 years old, wonders about the law and its effects on the younger generation: “How can they accept themselves if they cannot have access to an example? For me it was a blessing to see other people on the internet, in movies, in series; it helped me to overcome very hard times ”. The film that follows more than four years of his life is just that: an example. Prohibited for minors, at least for now.