The recent outlawing of Pride has suddenly made it clear to many that the right of assembly is being actively restricted in Hungary. Those who had not previously been concerned about authoritarian tendencies have now sounded the alarm: social media are abuzz with profile photo-swaps and posts defending democratic rights, huge crowds are demonstrating in the streets, and more and more people are using a word they had not used before: ‘fascism’. And rightfully so.
Over the past decade, the Hungarian government has gradually dismantled democratic checks and balances, centralising power while introducing a series of disenfranchising measures through countless constitutional amendments and legislative packages that have made it impossible for critical NGOs and universities to operate. Direct and indirect state terror has taken many forms, from criminal intimidation of protests and strikes to inhumane treatment of refugees and criminalisation of homelessness, while deliberately dividing society – for example, by pitting the working class against the middle class, and Roma and queer communities against mainstream society. Oppressed groups struggle to survive in isolation from each other, with no real prospect of coming together to challenge the increasingly powerful state tyranny.
This internal discord and lack of social solidarity not only allows the government to openly ally with external oppressive regimes, but also reinforces the ideological construct that holds society together: the impression of being under seige by both internal and external enemies.
The general apathy has now had not only domestic but also serious foreign policy consequences: while the majority of the world’s countries condemn Israel’s war crimes, the Hungarian government received Netanyahu on 3 April 2025 and announced its withdrawal from the ICC – thus openly opposing the institution of international criminal law.
Nationalist propaganda – with its scapegoating and populist promises, exacerbated in times of economic and political crisis, follows a familiar historical path. It creates the appearance of ‘liberating’ fascism, claiming that only the government can effectively protect society, including capital owners, from internal and external enemies.
It is of no surprise, that many people at home and abroad openly refer to Orbán’s regime as a “fascist” or “Nazi” regime: the late Republican Senator John McCain, for example, called Orbán a “neo-fascist dictator” as early as 2014, and Martin Schirdewan (Die Linke) noted that “every year, Europe’s largest neo-Nazi demonstration takes place in Budapest”, while a former Orbán adviser called the prime minister’s “we don’t want to become mixed races” statement “a pure Nazi speech worthy of Goebbels”. New Statesman author John Ganz compared the current Hungarian prime minister to former fascist and Nazi leaders such as Joseph Goebbels and Miklós Horthy.
However, this ban of Pride is not the first restriction on the right of assembly or political repression. The government had been gradually restricting the possibility of organised protest for years through various legislative amendments and police licensing practices.
The crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests became particularly spectacular because the authorities were able to use open repression without any serious social opposition, thus opening the way for an even stricter dismantling of the right to assembly. Ever since Israel began its genocide in Gaza, pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been regularly obstructed or banned in Hungary.
The Supreme Court – which itself is also under severe political pressure, and is unable to act as an independent body – has issued a separate decision classifying a pro-Palestinian rally as advocacating terrorism and dismissing it as an unauthorised assembly.
This means that in police practice the organisation of and participation in such demonstrations is now criminalised. Organisers of demonstrations are threatened, harassed and some activists – many of whom are refugees or students from the Middle East and North Africa – are even threatened with deportation.
These violations have, however, not triggered widespread solidarity actions in the Hungarian political community and society. The result is the complete silencing of the anti-Zionist movement and the total silencing of public discourse, not only on the streets, but also in the media and in social space.
The liberal and pseudo-leftist circles who are now outraged by the ban on Pride has so far remained silent when the freedom of assembly of others has been restricted. Protests against restrictions on the right of assembly are therefore not a general reflex to defend rights, but a selective, politically targeted indignation.
The saviour who never stood up for queer rights
Paradoxically, the discourse around the ban on Pride is emerging as a consensus around an oppositional bloc that does not actually represent the interests of the queer community.
The opposition political bloc is currently presenting Péter Magyar as Viktor Orbán’s only significant challenger, even though he has not previously thematised queer rights in any way. Péter Magyar’s political character is based on a nationalist, populist and Trump-style anti-elitist redemptive narrative, devoid of any critique of the system – not a radical alternative to Fidesz’s policies, but a variant of them.
Péter Magyar does not talk about the structural causes of social inequalities, does not take a stand for minority rights, and his political communication completely lacks a decolonisation approach, a thematic approach to the situation of the Roma community, a defence of the rights of queer people or the vulnerability of workers. On the contrary, it supports the maintenance of the southern border fence, which is a clear sign that it is planning an anti-migration policy. Although the opposition crowd sees him as a depository of democratic resistance, his current political programme is not a comprehensive social alternative but a personal power project.
As many have already recognised – but fewer taken seriously – Peter Magyar is a blank slate on which desperate opposition voters can project whatever they want. As the opposition has burnt out in recent years and has been unable to create a new political alternative, Magyar has become the “saviour” who has come out of nowhere to give hope to those who don’t really want radical change, only Orbán’s replacement.
The movement of Péter Magyar is particularly dangerous because it does not offer a real political programme, it does not represent a clear ideological position and it does not reckon with its own NER past [NER (Nemzeti Együttműködés Rendszere) – The System of National Cooperation, is the self-proclaimed name of the Fidesz system based on its political declaration from 2010]. Not a single proposal for systemic change can be linked to it, which suggests that its primary goal is not social justice or the rebuilding of democratic structures, but merely the seizure of power.
This dynamic is particularly familiar to those who study populist political strategies: Magyar is a populist political actor who understands exactly how Hungarian society works and manipulates emotions accordingly. He positions himself as neither a classical right-wing nor a left-wing politician, but as a “saviour” on whom everyone can impose their own hopes and political expectations. This is not a new phenomenon – it is a characteristic of neoliberalism and authoritarian regimes that, in the absence of any meaningful alternative, a ‘saviour’ (see Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Javier Milei) always appears, whose policies consist of empty promises and rhetorical tools to fight the elite.
Not much more encouraging is the Momentum Movement, whose politicians are now spectacularly in favour of Pride, while they have clearly sided with Israel on the genocide in Gaza and have never raised their voices against the suffering of the Palestinian people. This behaviour fits in well with the selective sensibility that characterises the liberal-conservative opposition: defending democratic rights is a core value only as long as it does not conflict with their own political interests or the expectations of their Western partners. The mainstream political consensus that is now forming in Hungary is not a genuine democratic resistance movement, but a power-oriented coalition based on selective principles that ignores systemic social oppressions.
How did the elite of the opposition contribute to the development of fascism?
In the context of the Pride ban, many say that it is “a prelude to fascism” or that we are witnessing “the further hardening of an authoritarian regime”. But this is wrong and misleading. What we are witnessing in Hungary today is not the beginning of fascism, but its full unfolding.
Fascism does not appear overnight, but gradually takes hold, becoming the norm through small concessions. And perhaps most importantly, it was not only Viktor Orbán and his political circle who built this system, but a social milieu that allowed it to mature, normalised it and even actively supported certain aspects of it.
There are plenty of examples of tacit consensus between the government and the opposition elite on pro-fascism issues in recent years. For example, when the Black Lives Matter movement led to a worldwide upsurge in discourse on the structural analysis of racism, the dominant Hungarian opposition intelligentsia and press reacted dismissively, disparagingly or ironically, with one of our leading opposition intellectuals comparing BLM to the Islamic State. The so-called DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) policies and social justice measures have been denounced as “positive discrimination” by both the government and the opposition.
The opposition has denigrated and demonised the words “woke”, “cancel culture” and “PC-terror” even more than the government. The dominant part of the Hungarian opposition press and intelligentsia, like the government, has created a moral panic about Western progressive movements, often making ironic or dismissive statements about them.
Both sides also marginalise the transgender community: when Fidesz institutionally restricted the rights of transgender people, the opposition intelligentsia and press did not show any real solidarity with them. The topic in fact was often met with mockery or moral panic, especially during the Paris Olympics, when they united in their denigration of boxer Iman Helif.
And there is more: while the government utilises targeted ethnic oppression policies (e.g. segregation, legal discrimination), the opposition has regularly failed to address the structural oppression of the Roma community.
More importantly, there is an absolute lack of critique of capitalism. A critical approach to economic injustices is still a taboo subject for the Hungarian opposition, and leftist discourses on the structural problems of capitalism are consistently dismissed or silenced, demonised, and even quite incomprehensibly conflated with Trumpian and Orbánist policies, being called “communist”, while government officials call the anti-communist opposition Bolshevik.
The repression in Hungary is not an isolated case
I want to make one more point: many people still believe that the Hungarian political process is isolated, that the decisions of the authorities are independent of international trends, and that this regime exists in a bubble, different from other authoritarian regimes in Europe. This is a serious mistake.
The fascism that has unfolded in Hungary is part of a global trend and is closely linked to developments in the Western world. When, for example, anti-Zionist demonstrations are banned in Hungary, this is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of an international wave of repression that has swept across Europe and the United States over the last year and a half. In France and Germany, pro-Palestinian demonstrations are being dispersed in a series of crackdowns, and in American universities, police are brutally cracking down on students demanding the withdrawal of Israeli investments. These are all manifestations of the same phenomenon.
These events follow a common logic: neoliberal democracies and fascist states alike are defending Zionism while criminalising those who speak out against the Palestinian genocide. The geopolitical-economic reason for this lies primarily in the fact that Israel is a key player in the global power structure: a strategic military ally, a high-tech and arms exporter, and a servant of Western economic and security interests in the Middle East.
Since a critique of Zionism would indirectly challenge security and military regimes closely intertwined with transnational corporate interests and Euro-Atlantic hegemony, it is in the common interest of the political elite, whether neoliberal or far-right, to suppress movements that challenge this structure. Hungary is no exception and the Hungarian liberal opposition refuses to see the danger of this – which is a huge mistake. In fact, the opposition itself is involved in defending and normalising genocide, and it would be hard to find a more fascist characteristic than that.
The politics of small concessions
It is not solely Viktor Orbán’s fault that we have come to this. Hungarian society, including the masses critical of the government, has for years been helping to ensure that criticism of Zionism disappears from public discourse. When Fidesz and the opposition alike normalised unconditional support for Israel, when they condoned the branding of all pro-Palestinian speech as antisemitism and rationalised genocide in their own media products, just as the government did, they were in fact embedding the principle that they could “get away with a bit of fascism”.
This cannot be without consequences. Because there is no such thing as letting in a little fascism while preserving other freedoms. Society’s passivity in the face of the crimes of Zionism has contributed greatly to the re-emergence of fascism in Hungary.
If a regime can be made to restrict freedom of expression and assembly in the interests of an oppressive ideology or power, it will do the same to any other oppressed group. Criminalising pro-Palestinian protests was the first step. The measures against the queer community did not come out of nowhere, but are the logical consequences of a system that Hungarian society has allowed to mature over the years.
If Orbán were to be replaced tomorrow, but the system that allowed him to remain in power was left intact, the country would be back in the same cycle – just with different faces and rhetoric. Péter Magyar or any of the other opposition politicians currently seen as the odds-on candidates do not represent a structural change, but just another leader at the head of an unchanged system.
The politics of ‘less bad’ options is not a solution, but a means of maintaining the status quo. Such a strategy implies that no profound social and economic changes are needed, but that it is enough to change the composition of power.
In the long run, however, this will only create new problems, while society will again become disillusioned and drift towards another authoritarian leader.
But it doesn’t merely have domestic political consequences that society and the opposition routinely condone the sins of the authoritarian regime. In the long run, such concessions can also lead to a foreign policy tragedy – especially if the regime becomes an active supporter of global human rights violations. In doing so, it puts not only its own regime but the future of the entire country at serious risk.
The price of complicity
The active complicity of the Hungarian government in the genocide in Gaza is no longer just a moral issue: it could have serious foreign policy and legal consequences. The fact that Netanyahu was received in Budapest in his official capacity, while several countries are already demanding arrest warrants for him, is a clear violation of international law. Mr Orbán’s announcement that Hungary is withdrawing from the ICC is not just a symbolic gesture, but an obstruction of justice.
International law works slowly, but it works – especially once the global political tide turns. If a criminal trial is indeed launched in the Gaza genocide, the court will not only investigate the perpetrators, but also the supporting, complicit states, as happened in Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia. For complicity to exist, a state must deliberately obstruct justice – for example, by not extraditing wanted war criminals.
And Hungary is not merely a silent accomplice. For years, the government has consistently vetoed EU statements condemning Israel’s violations against Palestinians. The Pegasus affair, the Jerusalem embassy relocation plan, and the trail of bombings in Lebanon and Syria in the autumn of 2024 – which led to Israeli intelligence through a Hungarian company – all point to a complex, deep political nexus.
These moves by the government have gone unchallenged by the opposition – presumably because of the risk of stigmatisation associated with criticism of Zionism, as well as political and economic calculations. The only way to end the system of fascism and complicity is to create an opposition movement that does not react selectively to oppression but consistently and systematically opposes it in all its forms – socially, politically and globally.
Real resistance: who are the alternatives?
The real question, then, is not when Orban will be replaced, but whether Hungarian society can recognise its own responsibility for getting us to this point. And as things stand, there is little evidence of this, since in Hungary in recent decades there has been no broad social movement that has consistently and systematically confronted the various forms of oppression.
The rejection remains selective: there are political issues to which the opposition masses are sensitive, and there are those that are ignored or rejected not only by the right but also by the liberal masses. The replacement of a single political actor or the recovery of certain rights will not bring about a profound transformation unless there is a radical change in mindset, priorities and understanding of solidarity.
Real solidarity begins where all forms of oppression are rejected. Organizations and communities that not only fight for the rights of queer people, but also consistently stand up against all oppression, including victims of capitalism and fascism, are the only hope for human rights advocacy in Hungary today. These include the Crow Collective, Queers for Liberation, the Anarchist Student Movement, the Ecofeminist Collective and Feminist Action. If real change is to be achieved, it is not necessary to look for ‘less bad’ leaders, but to strengthen those communities that do not selectively stand up for justice.
Because the real question is not whether there will be a Pride parade in Budapest, but whether there can be a movement in Hungary that is not selective in its solidarity, that truly stands up for all the oppressed, and can bring about real change. Let there be a Pride, but let it also be open to anti-Zionist, anti-capitalist, anti-fascist initiatives – otherwise there is little point.
The Hungarian version of this article was pitched to opposition media outlets but has yet to be published.
