Why Pride in Budapest could shake Orban
Dear friends!
It was truly incredible. On Saturday, I joined 70 other MEPs from all democratic political groups at Pride in Budapest, Hungary. In response to Orban’s ban, Budapest’s Green mayor Gergely Karacsony organised Pride as a municipal event, openly challenging the autocratic regime.
Well over 200,000 people from Hungary and across Europe turned up for this demonstration, which was actually banned, making it one of the largest demonstrations ever held in Hungary (here are my photos). Some are already calling it a moment like 1988, when the Hungarians successfully rose up against the Soviet dictatorship.
If, like me, you spoke to the people at the demonstration, you know that this was much more than a demonstration for the rights of LGBTIQ* people. It was a demonstration against autocrats like Orban and for liberal democracy, in which everyone can live as they wish.
That alone is a huge success. But one thing is perhaps even more important: the behaviour of the police this weekend.
Under the command of Interior Minister and long-time Orban loyalist Sandor Pinter, the police should only have been protecting the registered and authorised counter-demonstrations by neo-Nazi groups.
But the police did the opposite: they protected the peaceful demonstration against the Nazis. The police even actively protected the after-party, something that has never happened before.
The police took a stand for their own citizens and against Orban. This weakens the autocrat enormously, because control over the police and intimidation through them is at the heart of every autocracy.
If we look back at the history of non-violent movements against autocrats, their success is strongly linked to whether they manage to separate the police apparatus from the autocrat (recommended listening: this podcast with protest researcher Erica Chenoweth).
Perhaps we saw the first signs of this on Saturday in Budapest.
What can we do to make this happen and bring Orban down?
Exactly what we did on Saturday in Budapest. Take to the streets, go to Pride marches, even if you don’t have much to do with LGBTIQ issues yourself. Because your solidarity and the spread of the movement to all sections of the population has an impact on the systems of autocrats.
Autocrats never restrict the freedom of the entire population in the first step. They target one group after another: migrants, LGBTQI people, women – and play them off against each other. But when all freedom-loving people stand together, autocrats don’t stand a chance. That’s how they can be overthrown – or prevented from coming to power. In Budapest and everywhere else.
Feel free to share my post on Instagram and BlueSky. And of course, share everyone else’s posts too.
With hopeful regards,
Alexandra Geese