Meleg in Budapest

international | gender and sexuality | news report Tuesday June 27, 2006 23:06 by redjade

{ a redjade magyarország report }

nice to have riot cops protecting your own side, for once

The 2006 Budapest Pride Parade was hot. About 2,000 people suffered through the 30C+ humidity as they cheerfully marched from Hero's Square (Hõsök tere) to the Danube.

It is interesting that as 'Gay' is a politically correct/acceptable term for 'homosexual' in english, even though the original meaning of 'Gay' was 'Happy, joyful, and lively' - the politically correct/acceptable Hungarian word is Meleg which means 'Warm' or 'Hot.'

The Pride Parade is similar to a number of movements that have emerged in Hungary since the end of 'Socialism' that exist in a political space that is neither Left nor Right - with the exception of printed signs advocating the rights of the LGBT community and the presence of one centrist political party there was no presence of overt politics in this celebration - electoral nor activist. What 'politics' that did exist was mostly NGO-ish and service oriented, such as crisis centres and AIDS/HIV info distribution etc.

With the recent reports about Poland and Russia's anti-gay policies and police repression against Gay Pride demos one might think such repression was universal on the Eastern Pale of the EU and in Eastern/Central Europe in general.

But the Budapest Pride Parade went on, as planned, without much controversy or opposition and barely much notice in the media. The only 'backlash' that I know of was when the parade passed a small handful of conservative Christian protesters, a couple members of a right-wing political party and half dozen or so neo-Nazis (Arrow Cross wannabes, actually). The police were even fairly courteous and the riot cops lined the sides of the streets to protect parade participants, like myself, from the possibility of attack.

Although it has to be said, that it was reported in one newspaper that the neo-Nazis were not requested by the police for their identification papers. Contrast this with the Amnesty International Guantánamo protesters who just a couple days earlier were required to present their papers to police when they protested the visit of George W Bush.

So, perhaps it would seem that things are better in Hungary than its neighbors. Budapest, which is well known for its flamboyant and open heterosexuality does have an accepted social space for LGBT community, even if limited. A recent poll said that a majority of Hungarians do not support the rights of LGBT - but I think this would be typical of many countries in Europe and elsewhere. Opposition to the protest against the Pride Parade was small and LGBT rights were not even an issue in the recent national election.

additional photos posted at: All Other Places Blog