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Hongarije: een autonome reactie
Infocentrum Wageningen - 25.09.2006 08:32
Hieronder een verslag van de rellen in Budapest, geschreven door iemand van een autonoom collectief daar.
Budapest Riots and Autonomous Reactions
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The context
-----------
It's 24th September 2006, Sunday. In the last seven days Hungary has seen
the greatest political chaos since the change of system in 1989. The
general reason is the failure of representative democracy, while the
particular reason is the leek of a tape. The context is that during the
last few terms the party-in-power (Hungarian Socialist Party) was forging
reports on the economic status of the country in hopes of being
re-elected. The strategy was successful: the HSP was the first party to be
re-elected since the beginning of the multi-party democracy. Observers
noted that all parties were caught in a "torrent of lies", where every
side tried to promise a better and even better world to their voters.
Also, there was not much choice for the people: since 1989 they have tried
every single possible party to be government party, and banished all the
parties after a single term because they did not live up to their
expectations. Even the general population began to see that there is not
much difference between the parties.
The leek
--------
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Gyurcsány's_speech_in_Balatonőszöd_in_May_2006
Now, that the HSP was re-elected, they realised that it is impossible to
continue telling stories about the wealth of our country. They put forward
a series of "reforms" that involved cuts in the welfare system and raises
in taxes and basic utility prices. And then came the leek. Some observers
say that the HSP itself organised the leek, but at least they are not
investigating who did it. The leek is the audio recording of the Prime
Minister speaking in May in a meeting of the internal party. He analyses
the current situation with square words that seem to ring true to most
people, including my anarchist comrades.
"There is not much choice. There is not, because we have screwed up. Not a
little but a lot. No country in Europe has screwed up as much as we have.
It can be explained. We have obviously lied throughout the past 18 to 24
months. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Gyurcsány's_speech_in_Balatonőszöd_in_May_2006
After the leek, the Prime Minister said that he is glad the recording
surfaced, because it shows how committed he is to truth-saying and how
necessary are his reforms. He published the full transcript of the speech
on his personal blog! However, a lot of people were angry about their
leader telling them in the face that he lyed to them for years and hoping
to stay in power and go on with harsh economic reforms. Of course, the
political right seen this as a great chance to throw over the government
and seize power in the name of the people and the mythology of truth.
The siege of the national television
------------------------------------
Hours after the leek people took the streets by the thousands in anger and
without any clear demands beyond the resignation of the Prime Minister.
Masses gathered before the Parliament building. Some far-right persons
took a petition to the national television to be read. When the petition
was not accepted for reading at the reception, they called for
reinforcements from Parliament square. Eventually the mostly nationalist
radicals sieged and took the television building. The police could not
react quickly and strongly enough because the situation escalated too
quickly. The occupiers were unable to use the equipment inside and TV
transmission stopped. By that time there were all kinds of people in and
around the national television building and the scene was transformed into
a catastrophe-tourism site. Everybody was very glad to be able to go into
the TV building without any barriers and wonder around. There was no
wide-scale destruction and after the people got bored the police
peacefully escorted the remaining people out of the building.
However, a few cars were burned and some serious injuries taken during the
siege, and the television was occupied after all -- which has not happened
in the last half-century. Many people made parallels with the revolution
of 1956 because of the spontaneous reaction of the people, the
street-fights and the occupation of the television. After the siege people
went back to the Parliament to demonstate peacefully and most of them were
bored by the far-right speeches on the stage and dispersed.
The demonstration in front of the Parliament
--------------------------------------------
Every day since the leek, there are between two hundred and twenty
thousand people demonstating in front of the parliament, depending on the
time of day and the weather conditions. By now the crowd has a clear far
right political profile. They are forming a National Guard to keep order
in the demonstation and calling for a Contitutional Gathering of the
People which would re-write constitution in the spirit of the Holy Virgin
Mary (the official patron of Hungary) and Saint Stephen (the first
Christian king of Hungary). They are tentatively but not officially
supported by the right-wing party. Most people take the same position as
the Prime Minister did in the leeked recording: "It's OK to protest in
front of the Parliament. Sooner-or-later they will get bored of it and go
home."
Inner city riots
----------------
In the first part of the week the inner city of Budapest has seen the most
severe riots since 1956. A mostly extreme right crowd and football
hooligans used street signs, iron rods, bottles and the many new cobble
stones that were heaped up on the sides of roads because of the ongoing
reconstruction of the inner city to throw at police lines. The police used
tear gas and batons and suffered serious damages because of their
inadequate equipment. The authorities were forced to buy bigger shields
and new body armour that covers the legs as well. Political parties and
the general public distanced themselves from the rioters. One thing is
sure: the people who are the angriest are not the ones who voted for the
present Prime Minister.
Local elections
---------------
Unrest is expected to continue until next Sunday (1st October), when local
elections took place. As opposed to national elections, local elections is
about choosing the mayors and local governments of districts, cities and
towns. However, the official right-wing frames the election as a national
impeachment vote against the government. Answering the call of the
right-wing party, many people will forget about their local priorities and
vote against the HSP thinking that this is a way to bring about a new
government or at least take revenge on the liers. Legally, the whole
argument is a nonsense and it is clear that the right-wing is confusing
the local elections with the national elections. In contrast with the
spectacle in the news, it is quite possible that the HSP and even the
Prime Minister will remain in power and continue with the economic
reforms, because most people are passivists who don't like the right-wing
rioting in the street, and on the other hand the official right wing does
not offer any alternative to the programme of the HSP beyond abstract
nationalist mythologies.
Our reaction
------------
It is extremely difficult for an anarchist to take sides in the war
between the government and the fascists. Moreover, taking sides with the
passivist majority is not an option either. The situation was developing
rapidly, and we could not aim for a serious analysis or a full consensus.
We ended up trying different strategies of "detournement" and "hacking" to
tap into the events which fascinated the people and generated an extremely
dense stream of information, as well as spending a lot of time supporting
initiatives of self-organisation that could add some (black) colour to the
nationalist campaign. Responding to the attention of the people, the media
needed a news item about the unrest every 10 minutes, which means that
very small things were reported. On the other hand, many people left their
homes with politics on their mind, while police was occupied with handling
riots, so that street propaganda had great potential.
Distributing leaflets at the siege of the television
....................................................
http://mindennap56.blogspot.com/
We were the only ones to distribute leaflets at the siege of the building
of the national television. It was the remix of the legendary demands of
1848 headed by a quote from the present constiturion: "In the Republic of
Hungary, all power is held by the People". There were thousands of people
around , and as expected, even nacis seemed receptive of our message in
the moment of chaos. It was a quite spontenous and childish reaction, with
all the good and bad connotations. Read the English text of the demands at
the website!
Guerilla propaganda and street art actions
..........................................
http://ruganegra.tk/
While the authorities focused on the riots and the people were on the
streets there was an excellent opportunity to write our message on the
walls. Our guerilla propaganda troops focused on the inner city avenues
that are normally too dangerous to cover, as well as the universities
where we hoped to make an impact on the students.
Student Network
...............
Some month before the leek the organisation of a Student Network based on
participative decision making and affinity groups already the started. The
Student Network was drafted as a tool for coordination which would inspire
the establishment of small local groups that work on particular issues.
One focus is to offer an alternative to the official Student Union that
many see as corrupt and reformist. The most important issue is to iniate
dialogue on the government plan to introduce general tuition fees. That is
a big problem because so far higher education was free for most students.
There were two discussions planned for the week in connection with the
Student Network at two different universities in Budapest. Both
universities closed down completely for the day of the discussion,
claiming to be afraid of the "2000 anarchists" who would create chaos and
havoc. The media hype around the closing of the universities served our
purposes well, because a lot more people got to know the Student Network
as a relatively small group of students discussing their common problems
in peace. We could make the point that the universities and the
authorities are afraid of the students talking amongst themselves about
their problems, and that the proper location of discussing the university
should be the university
We also re-organised the demonstration that was initially organised by the
official student union against the introduction of tuition fees but
cancelled because of the political unrest and transformed it into a
student forum. Working groups have been formed to tackle particular tasks
based on the interests of the attendees, and we practiced autonomous
self-organisation successfully, introducing a new flavour to student
politics.
Illegal Critical Mass
.....................
http://mindennapcm.blogspot.com/
One of the working groups of the Student Network decided to re-organise
Critical Mass, which was scheduled for Friday (22th September). There is a
splendid three-year tradition of Critical Mass in Hungary, organised twice
a year. Last CM was 30.000 bikers strong (really!), which meant great
political impact. The message is that politicians should provide adequate
physical infrastructure for bikers and drivers should respect them on the
road. It is organised by the strong bicycle courrier community in a
reformist manner with police closing down the roads for bikers. It has
wide support from all sides and it does successfully affect government
transportation policy, at least in Budapest.
The organisers cancelled Critical Mass three days before the planned date,
because they were afraid to be involved in party politics. There were many
spontaneous reactions from individuals saying that they will ride anyway.
We called for an alternative Critical Mass and planned an alternative
route that does not cross Parliament square where the demonstrators were
gathering. This was the first old-school Critical Mass in Hungary where
around 200 bikers rode in the traffic without official police support and
blocked roads. Instead of the police, it was the bikers who sometimes
blocked the roads, stopping in junctions, making noise and pushing their
bikes over their heads. Apart from minor conflicts everything went well
and we did not receive attention from the police or the far right. Most
drivers understood that we are not blocking the traffic, but we are the
traffic! There was a wide-spread understanding that we should do the same
every last Friday. We had a fucking great time!
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| Read more about: vrijheid, repressie & mensenrechten | | supplements | | verklaringen, links en updates | fierman - 25.09.2006 10:05
Deze tekst is eerder gepubliceerd op http://www.indymedia.org/en/2006/09/847163.shtml
De tekst van degene die de posting hier plaatst klopt overigens niet.. Het is GEEN verslag van de rellen, het is een autonome visie op de gebeurtenissen. De mening dat het er een conflict zou zijn tussen 'regering en fascisten' wordt niet door iedereen gedeeld, in ieder geval niet door het grootste deel van de protestbeweging.
Een verklaring van het protestplatform is gisterenavond uitgegeven, de engelse vertaling is hier te vinden:
http://www.indymedia.hu/cikk.shtml?x=32183 en
http://indymedia.nl/nl/2006/09/39044.shtml#comment.65011
Gisteren kwamen er weer duizenden demonstranten samen op het Kossuth Plein. Het aantal was nu wel wat kleiner: tussen de 3~ en 5000 mensen. Een aantal boeren kwam ook langs, zij hadden een maaltijdsoep bereid die gratis werd uitgedeeld aan de demonstranten en de paar honderd daklozen die op het eten afkwamen.
De boeren hebben eerder dit jaar al van zich laten horen overigens, in maart hebben duizenden tractoren het verkeer in het hele land ontregeld voor een paar weken lang. Men protesteerde toen tegen het zoek raken van europese landbouwsubsidies en het opheffen van importbeperkingen.
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