Media Revolution in Hungary? Riots in Budapest

international | politics / elections | feature

Wednesday September 20, 2006 00:50

by iosaf

Now Live on MTV: employees turned on
this image and escaped out the back of the building

Riot police have been firing tear gas at demonstrators in Budapest in the last hours as they tried to storm hungary's state TV company. Storming TV stations is a pretty traditional way of kicking off a revolution. The protesters are angry at the revelation that the current prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany admits that his party lied to gain office. Being relatively new to democracy the Hungarians find such cleverness a distasteful display of sociopathy. Hungarian radio played a tape of a meeting in which Gyurcsany & other party leaders (socialists by the way) did their Nixon best to pull the wool over the electorates' eyesv last week & since then the "politicisation" index of Hungarians has shot up. They are now very newsworthy and enjoying their second day of attention on Slavic language news sites.

Irish Indyheads in Budapest say: "Right reasons, Wrong People."

This is not the 'Left' protesting in the streets but mostly the nationalist Right (the 'Left' is the government but theres nothing 'Left' about it) - members of Jobbik and MIEP are most likely there tonight. I don't like them. Also as backdrop to it all - next month is the 50th anniversary on the 1956 Hungarian Revolution that was so brutally crushed by the Soviets.

So yesterday and today and tonight and undoubtably tomorrow all over the country there will be more protests. News says people will be shutting down roads tomorrow in the smaller cities and towns outside Budapest..."

Indy Audio Updates: 'Zoltan' (not real name) who describes the night when MTV (Hungarian TV) was attacked by angry demonstrators (6:38mins / 1.5megs)... Balazs describes how Hungary exploded in the last couple days and the lasted effect of 'socialism' and the imprint of the Soviet crushing of the 1956 revolution. He also offers some interesting observations about how media behaves in a post-socialist country. Part 1 (15:42mins / 3,6megs), Part 2 (16:43mins / 3.8megs)
BBC: We lied to win, says Hungary PM | BBC: Protests Target State TV
Reports From IMC.hu:National television under siege in Hungary | Photos of the disturbances

The story broke on Hungarian indymedia ages ago, got lots of comments (some of which are quite juicy - Hungarian imc is a liberal environment which doesn't do much editing) & thus Sunday saw protests in the Hungarian capital which for the dedicated turned into the attempted "storming" of the TV station at about 10pm Dublin time Tuesday night. You can read about the lead-up here. If you want you can listen to the tape here & make up your own mind on whether or not the socialists lied to get into power.

The Last Hungarian elections were celebrated the same day as those in Italy and Peru. As we remember Berlusconi didn't accept the results at first and the Peruvians had to have a run-off. This Hungarian election story might be understood therefore in terms of ailing social democracy. "we are used to troublesome elections". I'll be honest my Ugraic languages are very weak. But!!! We as a local site and global movement are lucky to count on two indymedia ireland regulars who live there and have cameras. One quipped a while ago that "all power ought go to media makers". Jolly good.

So I'll hope Redjade / ex-pioneer may tell us what's happening. Meanwhile the best we can do when a city our pals live in goes into revolution is switch off the telly.... Don't leave the house.... Phone up the Irish Independent and give them copy & ask them for NUJ rates. Or give our pals a call & make sure they're ok. Not everyone is the revolutionary type after all.