by DoDo
Mon Sep 25th, 2006 at 12:29:57 PM EST
A quick update on the Hungarian troubles (the right-winger protests and riots against PM Ferenc "I lied!" Gyurcsány). As the riots subsided already by Thursday, and only the nonviolent protests of the far-right continue, here is some less directly scary stuff.
Promoted by Colman
Here is a placard on a lamppost before the parliament:
The small letters above mean: "If this would really be the scum rioting on Kossuth Square, then on this lamppost would hang:"... The name belongs to a left/liberal radio reporter, other lampposts bear the name of his collagues.
I wrote that the 'revolutionaries' formed a 'national guard' to prevent 'provocations' (e.g. violence from their midst). Here are four of them behind a speaker on the tribune:
Looking at this potential embryo of a paramilitary, I somehow wish back the football hooligans of the first days...
But government politicians are not to be outdone, so Gábor Kuncze, boss of minor coalition partner Free Democrats, a liberal party, declared that police should have attacked and dispersed protesters on the first day...
Another scary thing is: who get 'street credit'. Now the 'hero' is this guy with obvious national-pathologic signs:
I wrote earlier that the right-to-far-right has a long-running protest culture, of which the present events are only the last wave. Also that this peaked previously four years ago, when a bridge of the Danube was closed off, an action meant to kick-start a revolution, but which ended in police action several hours later. The above non-gentleman 'earned' his prominence by having been the only one arrested (for simple disobedience) in the course of that police action, and then being released quickly.
In the four years since, he grew into a main figure at the protests. And on Monday/Tuesday night, he participated in the violence at the state TV building, and also in the damaging of the Soviet war heroes memorial in front of that building (for the removal of which the far-right long protested). For the latter, an arrest warrant was put out for him. If that alone wouldn't raise his outlaw hero image, so far (five days passed) he escaped arrest -- he even made repeated 'daring appearances' at the Parliament protest, last time on Saturday, in a ski mask...