Apparently, there was more than what I saw in front: earlier the right-of-Jobbik far-right circled around the police cordon via alleys and into the Milla protest, and there have been arrests. Then, after the protests, part of these guys joined part of the (according to press reports) "few thousand" Jobbik protesters in a storming of the bank center where the IMF's Hungarian representative has his office. They blew up a few petards but left without much of a fight when police turned up in strength.

The right-of-Jobbik guys then moved on to the old public TV headquarters (place of the first 2006 riot).

Earlier in the day, the Polish hard-right delegation that came for the Fidesz rally toured Budapest, passing the same spot where Milla would hold its protest.

As for the Fidesz rally itself. The place was in front of the parliament building, where Szolidaritás held its rally ten days ago, too. The government played a dirty trick on them, too: just after the announcement, they had to tear up the pavement on half the place. But miraculously, the place was accessible again today:

Orbán echoed the slogan of the first pro-Fidesz rally back in January: "We will not become a colony". How do you counter-act the impression of a pensioner army if you'r Fidesz's spinmeister? By putting a bunch of young people behind Orbán...

As for the numbers game. Milla organisers claimed 130,000 people, the (Fidesz-controlled) national wire service claimed "tens of thousands" at the Milla event and 250,000 at the Fidesz rally.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

While the Fidesz mass rally had a contingent of 'guest protesters' from Poland (with the added irony that they were supporters of the party of the Kaczyński Twins, that is the Eurosceptic opposition to the government of Fidesz's sister party), the Milla protest was attended by individual guests from France. Among them, the deputy of the French PS, who was spot-on with a negation of Orbán's international-leftist-conspiracy rhetoric:

Népszabadság - ,,Az Orbán-kormányt kell megbüntetni, nem a magyarokat"		Népszabadság -"The Orbán government should be punished, not the Hungarians"
Rossz célpontot választott az Európai Bizottság és a többségében konzervatív politikusokból álló pénzügyminiszterek tanácsa (Ecofin) ugyanis a magyar néppel fizettetné meg az Orbán-kormány bűneit, ha tényleg felfüggesztenék a kohéziós alapok folyósítását - erről Harlem Désir, a Francia Szocialista Párt (PS) főtitkárhelyettese beszélt lapunknak.		"The European Commission and the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers (Ecofin), the majority of which consists of conservative politicians, selected the wrong target, because they would make the Hungarian people pay for the sinsof the Orbán government , would they really suspend the disbursement of cohesion funds" Harlem Désir, the vice secretary of the French Socialist Party (PS) told to our paper.
A francia szocialisták második embere szerint Európának - egyik fő alapértékéhez híven - szolidárisnak kell maradnia a fejlettségben még lemaradó tagországokkal szemben. Az Európai Bizottságnak ugyanakkor késlekedés nélkül az Európai Bírósághoz kellene fordulnia, amiért az Orbán-kormány megsérti a bírák függetlenségét és a sajtószabadságot. - Magyarország kapcsán ma nem csak a költségvetési hiány vagy a Magyar Nemzeti Bank státusza jelent problémát. Aggasztónak tartjuk Orbán Viktor és a Fidesz politikáját, azt a törekvést, hogy a hatalmon lévő politikai párt teljes ellenőrzése alá vonják az államigazgatást...		According to the second-in-command of the French Socialists, Europe - in accordance with one of its core values - should maintain solidarity with member countries still lagging behind in development. At the same time, the European Commission should, without delay, turn to the European Court of Justice regarding the violation of the judiciary's independence and the freedom of the press by the Orbán government. "The budget deficit or the status of the central bank aren't the only problems in relation to Hungary. We are concerned about the policy of Viktor Orbán and Fidesz, their aspiration to put public administration under the complete control of the political party in power..."
Désir csütörtökön délelőtt ellátogatott Gyöngyöspatára is, hogy a helyszínen tájékozódjon az ottani roma kisebbséget ért atrocitásokról. Szintén aggasztónak nevezte, hogy Orbán elnéző a szélsőjobboldallal szemben, fut a Jobbik után és elhibázott gazdaságpolitikáját próbálja autoriter-nacionalista ígérgetés-dömpinggel maszkírozni.		On Thursday morning, Désir also visited Gyöngyöspata, to inform himself about the atrocities suffered by the local Roma minority on site. He also expressed concern over Orbán's indulgence of the extreme right, his running after Jobbik, and his attempt to mask his misguided economic policy with an authoritarian-nationalist dumping of promises.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

As foreshadowed at the end of the diary, here is a photo report on the 10 March rally.

I have argued before on ET that a successful revolution needs an alliance of middle-class and working-class elements (specifically students who can be the voice and union or other activists who can be the fist). I think a serious challenge to Orbán's 'democratorship' needs something similar. So I saw Szolidaritás's bad moves mentioned in the diary in that light. Even at a tactical level: if you hold a separate event, hold it on the same day and nearby so that people can walk from one to the other (in fact that's what they did last time in October).

Now a reason Szolidaritás was keen to hold a rally on a different day was that their traditional main rally site is in front of Parliament Building, which Fidesz occupied for this 15 March.

As told upthread, the government played a dirty trick on this protest: out of the blue, most of the place as closed down for works in February, only to be cleared for Fidesz's mass protest. So on 10 March, Szolidaritás placed its stage facing the main road leading up to parliament. Most of the crowd, however (whom I estimated at 10-15,000 at its peak), having arrived from the metro station on one side of the square, massed on the not closed part of the square, facing the side of the stage.

Some placards. The first one needs no explanation:

A pair of placards showed Terence Hill and Bud Spencer with slogans quoting an Orbán speech last year, in which he claimed to have "handed out a few bops for the impetuous quarrelers of the European Parliament, a few slaps fell, we handed out a few friendly rabbit-punches" (derided in opposition circles ever since the bops and slaps obvously go the other way).

The next placard shows three government politicians with the question, "Could you live from 47 thousand [Forints a month]?". This one was a recurring theme in speeches and needs an explanation.

While faking the pose of a freedom fighter against the IMF, the Fidesz government is implementing labour market and social 'reforms' which are usually extorted from governments by the IMF under the mantle of austerity, but they do so on their own volition, accompanied by a rhetoric of base social contempt. The flagship 'policy' is forcing people on long-term unemployment or social benefits to take part in a public works programme, which gives no hope of gaining real employment, looks like slave labour, is implicitly aimed primarily at the Roma, and brings up ugly WWII-time associations (see Salon thread back from August).

This 'public works' pays only 47,000 Forints a month, that's €161 at current prices. Economic minister György Matolcsy (top right) earned wide outrage by claiming that you can live pretty well on that sum. He actually said that this is the case because it's more than the 28,000 Forints (€98) people previously got as social benefit – but (as the lead column in this week's issue of liberal literature magazine Élet és Irodalom pointed out) he was comparing apples and oranges and forgot to mention that he cut both the public works pay and the social benefits by c. 20%. Meanwhile, other ministers gave support, including interior minister Lajos Pintér, who told 'yes you can live off 47,000 well if you keep a goat' (left top on placard).

I will show only one of the speakers: one of the leaders of Szolidaritás, Péter Kónya, who was forced to resign from his job and thus his position as head of a police union with the help of the new labour laws. He presented Szolidaritás's proposals on what a new, referendum-approved constitution to replace Fidesz's patchwork constitution should include. He also talked about the cockade: this symbol of the 1848 revolution was misused by Fidesz in the 2002 election campaign as a means of division, when they called on supporters to keep wearing it until the election (which they lost narrowly to a silent majority). Kónya told that he put his cockade into a box then, but now is the time to re-gain these symbols. (I am an anti-nationalist, but after thinking of the propaganda angle of images of the Milla protest on 15 March, I bought a cockade from a Roma street vendor when I got off the train.)

There have been several speakers speaking about the plight of students, teachers, the homeless, small churches, the disabled, pensioners, the jobless, Roma, artists and so on. But it wasn't either of them who earned the greatest response, but Orbán: they played a tape of a 2010 campaign speech in which Orbán warned of a bleak future should the pro-austerity Socialists win another election – foretelling lots of measures and ill developments which then his government brought upon the country.

With so many speakers the event ended up being rather long (too long). I had to leave after two hours as the Sun set behind Parliament Building, so I missed when the organiser of the Hunger March came on stage.

:: :: :: :: ::

As told in the diary, Szolidaritás's sets of demands are more social while Milla's are more liberal, but at least Milla included "Solidarity" among its 12 points and there were Solidarity guys with placards also seen five days earlier. For a time I stood in the shadow of the placard below, which asks (in rhyme) "Old judges are geezer judges! But the disabled are fit for work?" The first part refers to the Orbán government's attempt to get rid of independent judges by temporarily lowering the retirement age, which the European Commission rightly challenged. I don't expect them to challenge the policy to re-evaluate disabled people's fitness for work, however, as going after disabled people is another austerity hit across the EU (also see In Wales's In time, wrong time).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

A final addition promised at the end of the diary: on the way the government appears to use the far-right to scare the democratic opposition. On 1 February, there was an anti-fascist protest against the takeover of a theatre by a Jobbik-supporting former actor, and a counter-protest organised by the extremists right of Jobbik (but also attended by squads of the Jobbik-close paramilitaries). Although the latter wasn't declared to police, nothing was done about it. Police only closed off the protest area with metal fences – but that didn't achieve much in terms of protection, as those wanting in at the main entrance had to pass the extremists, and police didn't keep provocators from entering. The latter were led outside only once verbal scuffles turned into physical scuffles.

Here is the protest (with my back to the entrance of the theatre); the main contingent of the extremists was shouting on block away along the street in front.

Here is one of the provocators when police came to lead him outside. Previously, he and his three companions kept clasping when no one did (and not clasping when everyone else did) and shouted towards police to detain anyone who came up to him; police only acted when there was a little pushing-around, and there was no detainment.

In a leaked speech in 2008, Orbán told political science students that, once in government, he will follow the example of between-world-wars head of state József Horthy and send the far-right home from the streets after giving them two slaps on the face. Well we are still waiting for that. (And back during WWII, Horthy released the local fascist Arrowcrossers from prison after a year, then, after the Nazis got wind of his intention to change sides, he saw his country come under Nazi occupation, and when he tried to change sides in the war again, the Nazis chose to blackmail Horthy to hand power to the Arrowcrossers by kidnapping his son. Not the historical example a wannabe strongman should cite...)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}