Gáspár Békés is Secretary and a Founding Member of the Hungarian Atheist Association and a persecuted secular journalist. Here we talk in-depth about secularism, Humanism, youth rights, and religion, in Hungary.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: This is an interview with Gáspár Békés. I want to start by taking a step back in the narrative. What was some background for you, and how did you become more interested and involved in the Secular Humanist outlook in the community?
Gáspár Békés: I always enjoy this question because I think there is a fundamental misconception about atheism or at least an argument that’s being used against atheists or humanists, in general, is that they are militant atheists who are pushing for a cause. People don’t have a problem with the average atheist who is, of course, quiet and the problem is just the militant atheist. This is socially problematic because everybody’s born an atheist or a non-believer, and they’re usually indoctrinated into a particular religion. Most atheists do not think about religion in general as a question. So, I was such an atheist myself and after a while, it became clear to me that some of society’s greatest injustices are connected to established religion or organized religion.
My main focus is always on youth rights. So, from a young age, I experienced or witnessed much abuse in the education system in Hungary, my country of origin. I have seen how this had a detrimental effect on society. So, I’ve noticed that unless we educate our children in a particular manner in the school system that makes them responsible citizens while respecting their rights and nurturing their human rights, we will not have a sustainable society. We will not have a critical mass of critically thinking people who can establish and, of course, maintain a democracy and all of its advantages. I realize that when we deal with children’s rights. One of the worst intersections of children’s rights is when it meets the privileges of established religion. So, the difference of handicap of children meets the advantages of established religion, and that’s how we have, most more recently, 330,000 victims of the Catholic church in France or how we had mass graves in Canada or how in Hungary people get sentenced for harassment by the court when demanding an investigation from the church after being molested by a priest as a child.
So, over the years, it occurred to me that established religion has a detrimental role in society and that it is a fundamental hindrance to progress in society, especially in Hungary, where the regime is using established religion as a weapon to further its illiberal and despotic agenda. So, over the years, this resentment gradually grew in me, and my resolve grew. I felt like I needed to do something. In Hungary, the secular scene in general is in its early and developing stages, and I wanted to be part of this movement.
Jacobsen: As we both know, there’s a very long trend now for journalists, independent and not, undergoing harassment, stalking, and abuse of various forms. I’ve experienced it; I don’t talk about it. You’ve experienced it very publicly in Hungary. Why are journalists being targeted in such a significant and pervasive way worldwide? How is this manifest in Hungary right now?
Békés: Well, it’s an interesting question. I want to ask, though: do you mean journalists engaging in secularism or journalists in general? I think there’s a difference.
Jacobsen: That’s an important point. Let’s focus on journalists in general, and then we can narrow it down to journalists doing secularist work.
Békés: Okay. I feel like it’s often mentioned that the media is the fourth pillar of governance or power, and journalists have the responsibility and authority to report on societal matters; they influence people and society. Therefore, controlling them or, in a way, exploiting them is, of course, always an essential agenda for many political groups or political parties, governments or regimes. Unfortunately, in many cases, journalists are not granted the same protections as other public figures, such as politicians. Therefore, it seems the easiest way for many stakeholders is to threaten or harm journalists. Journalists who focus on very progressive or fringe topics are often freelancers and, therefore, have even less protection than regular journalists. However, we have seen very established journalists suffer harm legally or physically in Hungary or other countries as well.
Jacobsen: How did the Orbán government come into power and begin to make a change towards the highly nationalistic?
Békés: Well, there’s the basic version of the actual events that happened over a short period, and of course, then we can look at the societal background of it of how they rose to power. but the During the 2008 economic crisis, there was a severe mismanagement of governance by the Social Democratic Coalition. This advanced the crisis further in Hungary, and this government made many mistakes, including a semi-public acknowledgement of widespread corruption, which resulted in protests and the resignation of the Prime Minister. Then, in the 2010 elections, the Orbán government won in a landslide victory, achieving a two-thirds majority. With this two-thirds majority, they had the power to change the Constitution and any law they deemed necessary, and they very publicly announced that this was the beginning of a new era and a “peaceful revolution of the voting booth”.
They abolished the Constitution and put a Basic Law in its place, which has been amended nine times in the last 13 years. They started very early in the first year of their governance to change the law on education, media, elections. They made every effort possible to solidify their power. They completely changed the media landscape as well. They embezzled vast amounts of public funds so that they can have control of the media by buying media outlets en masse, using the public broadcasting services as their party outlets, and, of course, use EU money to fund this indirectly.
So, in a way, it was a relatively quick process, and it’s an often under-reported fact that when they changed the education law, they explicitly targeted young people and young people’s groups. So, they abolished the veto power of student councils, they abolished most national student bodies and advisory bodies, and they mandated that all children have zero freedom of religion and that children’s faith is decided by their parents until they’re 14, which is, of course, unconstitutional. It’s against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Still, they put this in because, from a very early time, they had this concept that they would use religion and religious institutions to indoctrinate children into a Christian mentality, which they thought would be equivalent to raising supporters of the government or regime. After all, at this point, I wouldn’t call it the government; I would call it the regime, and I’ll get back to the reason why.
So, that’s how they move to power practically, and of course, there are many different milestones they went through over the years, 13 years to be precise, but this is the short version. And then after this, they won consecutively two-thirds majority because, for example, they use so much public money to campaign for their party that it just exceeds everything that anybody else spends. So, to illustrate, most recently, there was a news article about how the governmental party funds just one of its propaganda sites with five times more money than one of the leading parties spends on advertisement in the Spanish elections.
Jacobsen: Wow!
Békés: So, the money is just insane; it’s just vast amounts. We have the highest amount of Church funding per capita from the state in the EU, which is another question, but in a broader term, I would say that this has resulted from a lack of actual regime change after 1989. I would say that after 1989, we had an opportunity to fundamentally change how we operate and design certain societal services and systems such as education, healthcare, academia, governance, and different things. I would say the compromise was in 1989, but not much changed. The common denominator was dislike of the Communists, but that was it. All the politicians were very complacent; they were comfortable leaving things the way they were, most notably the education.
So, the education system, which comes from this personal model of education, meaning very top-down, very authoritarian, not focusing on critical thinking, was left in place. So, yes, a few things changed, and it wasn’t communist propaganda anymore, but I would say the modus operandi remains. So, children were not taught their rights, they cannot exercise their rights, if they try to exercise their rights, they will be reprimanded, at times abused physically,mentally, emotionally, or verbally by teachers. There are several official reports of how teachers are abusive, and nothing is being done about this. This on top of student-on-student violence of course. So, the system is still very much based on violence.
Due to this, people growing up lacking critical thinking skills or the knowledge of how democracy functions or what democracy is, or why it is important to them. Millions weren’t equipped to participate meaningfully in elections. But when the elections came, and the Orbán government won the first time with a two-thirds majority only by a few hundred thousand votes, and I would say if those few 100,000 people had been young people who were better educated, it would have made a difference. So, we could have avoided this situation because the regime government, regardless, was blatant about what they wanted to do with Hungary, so it wasn’t a big surprise what they did. This is what people wanted ultimately; this is what they voted for, and of course, the first elections were fair. The remaining ones were not, but the first one was. So, people voted for this, which could have been avoided by a few hundred thousand people who were educated after the regime change – we had more than 20 years.
Jacobsen: How are these people self-identified as Christian nationalists mobilizing not just in Hungary but in Europe generally and in some of North America as well, where in North America there’s a more specific movement of white Christian nationalism? However, it can be different in Europe or Hungary. How is this manifesting and getting steam, so to speak, within a Hungarian context in the European context?
Békés: I can talk more about the Hungarian context, but I also have some insight into the European one. In the US, of course, it’s like Evangelicalism, and in Hungary, Evangelicalism, the word itself, for example, means something entirely different. Evangelicalism is just an average denomination of Christianity, like a protestant denomination. It’s a good question because, first of all, there’s a difference in terminology between the Americas and Europe in this sense. So, Evangelicalism doesn’t mean the same thing, but Christian Nationalism is a clearer term. The issue is also connected to race in Hungary or ethnicity, to be more exact. I wouldn’t say it is as clear that this is part of the agenda, but certainly, there is an undertone. So, of course, the Orbán regime’s policies involve racism as well; mostly racism against migrants or people of colour, but of course, a bit of anti-Semitism is present as well. So, these are all obviously in the playbook of white Christian Nationalists in both places.
The Hungarian regime is fueling a lot of these groups, and it’s pushing this type of agenda. So, there’s government support for Christian Nationalism, although mostly indirectly. It’s unclear how much far willing to go in their support, for example in terms of supporting violence, but what is clear is that they openly support established religions and churches. So, the lines are a bit blurred because, in Hungary, I would say the established churches are pretty extreme. Despite this, in general I would say that in Europe or other places, the political discourse focuses on white Christian Nationalism.
In contrast, the existing churches are already doing extreme damage, and the only difference is that they are established, right? So, we are used to their views or their erosion of democracy or fundamental human rights, and white Christian Nationalists are just a new wave of independents who are perhaps sometimes more extreme than established churches, but ultimately, are they?
I would say established churches are more innovative. Established churches know that they don’t have to overthrow the government; they have to collaborate with the government to gain favours, gain immunity from any criminal proceedings and just live their lives. It’s the best scenario even in France, considered one of the most secular states in the world. A state inquiry recently found that over 330,000 people were molested by the employees of the Catholic Church, and if this was any other organization, this would mean the disbanding of such an organization or very severe prison sentences for the people involved on all the different levels. None of that is happening, and none of that will happen even in one of the most secular States. So, the question is, do they really need to be in power specifically do they have to have an avatar of a Christian Nationalism like Trump to achieve what you want? That’s the scary part. It’s already here.
In Hungary, I would say these groups are a bit overrepresented because the government is pushing an extreme amount of funding into religious groups and churches. The country’s main foreign aid program, for example, is called Hungary Helps, and it predominantly, almost exclusively, helps Christian communities around the world, mainly the Middle East. So, for example, rebuilding churches. When the earthquake happened in Turkey recently, the regime was quick to announce that they are helping to rebuild the Catholic church in Turkey, which is the most tone-deaf thing I have ever seen in my life. The whole concept shows that someone’s life is more valuable based on their religion. It’s entirely against the principles of Humanism, and yet it is happening.
The whole agenda is that Hungary helps communities locally, so they are less likely to migrate somewhere else, which is, of course, just completely illogical because most migrants are not Christians but Muslims, or non-religious or from other denominations. So, the share of Christians in migrants from the Middle East is minimal.Thus, even if building back churches wouldn’t make much of a difference, but this is the agenda anyways. Domestically, the situation is even worse; for example, all the churches in Hungary are publicly funded; even the priests’ salaries, not just in Hungary, but in the entire Carpathian Basin, like in Romania and Slovakia. The regime is building churches in Mexico with public funding and all around the world. I know, for example, Trump was also trying to do a kind of Christian aid program. And these despots learn from each other.
The CPAC conferences and bilateral meetings are not just for a show; They learn these different tactics and presenthow to further their agenda to each other.. So Christian Nationalism, in a way, is embedded into the governmental system. There are other groups as well, but there is less pluralism than in the USA.; for example, mega-churches don’t really exist. There’s only one mega-church in Hungary and they are embedded within the government, made an ally very early on.. Interestingly enough, the Prime Minister’s son started a modernEvangelical group ; Their views were not extreme as far as I could tell, and they were gaining popularity a lot because it was mostly youthful, a lot of music, faith healings, all the bells and whistles you usually put on at this kind of show, and yet they just disappeared.
So, my idea is that the established churches just considered this as competition, and they asked the Prime Minister to shut it down, and I think he did. Now, Orbán’s son is a soldier in the military, and his past of youth Evangelism is behind him, as it came to a very abrupt end. There’s a lot of power dynamic and power play behind the scenes of how religion is managed; it’s very much a top-down control. In contrast, in Poland, the church helped elect the government but, in turn, asked for a ban on abortions, and they did it, showing a bit more balance in the relationship. In Hungary, so far, they wouldn’t dare to ban abortions. Here it’s completely top-down, and of course, the churches do whatever Orbán wants without question. In return, though, they gain complete immunity. It was actually explicitly said that there would never be an inquiry into church sexual abuse.
Jacobsen: Oh, Wow!
Békés: This is despite mounting evidence documenting the church abuse cases over the decades.. There was a book which was a bestseller about this in recent years, written by a Catholic who uncovered more than 40 victims alone. Instead of doing anything, the church tried to fire her from her job in Austria, and there was a considerable hate campaign against her by the regime’s media outlets, just like me. So, it’s interesting to see that in Hungary, when they cry blasphemy or when they criticize someone as an atheist, it’s not really because they’re an atheist; it’s because they challenge the powers to be, and if you’re a Christian criticizing the same thing from a secular perspective, you could get the same type and amount of hate. So, this shows that it’s not faith dividing people, but rather it’s support for secularism, or support for authoritarianism .
Jacobsen: Sure. I mean a side question: Canadians who have a concern about Christian nationalism in Hungary may only know about it because a controversial figure in Canada, Jordan Peterson, had a closed-door meeting with him. What happened there?
Békés: Wow, good question. We don’t’t know, do we? Peterson is an intelligent guy at his core. Still, he uses this intellect to sell merchandise, sell himself as a celebrity, and cater to a right-wing agenda. One of his most recent works was this analysis of the Bible trying to fit into modern society with other wisemen. Of course, it was all theologians and religious people. It was just a circle jerkof pseudointellectuals. Obviously, there has been a lot of like debunking videos or materials on this whole series. Rationality Rules is one of the channels I watch, for example, and he does a great job at picking apart his arguments. I highly recommend it. This is my go-to thing to see when I want to, for some reason, look into the theological or philosophical aspects of religion, which I usually don’t because, honestly, I don’t want to. Thus, I don’t usually engage in faith debates, whether whichever god is real or not. In that sense, I’m just as much an atheist as most of them who simply don’t care about this. Everybody’s faith is their own; I only care about how it manifests. So I don’t really care where a person’s morality or values come from, if it is in line with fundamental human rights. But of course, when Christian Nationalists push for an agenda that’s fundamentally illiberal, that’s a problem.
So, anyway, Jordan Peterson is part of a extensive network. He is a sensation in Hungary as well, the regime is using him as an external source of validation abroad, as its image is severely tarnished. in general. This is just a tip of the iceberg because in closed-door meetings, everybody knows that Orbán is just a hack. They’re a Trojan horse of the Russian, hence they’re not taken seriously. This has severe practical consequences; for example, I don’t think any intelligence is being shared anymore with the Hungarian regime. Hungary has become the laughing stock of Europe not just because of the regime’s views, but because they cannot be taken seriously; they’re just a loose cannon. Any source of validation from abroad is helping their cause because they’re starved for attention. Jordan Peterson, for the right amount of money, is happy to provide.
Same with the Pope. He came here twice in recent years. I usually call it Catholic Pride, and they spent 80+ billion Euros to have a huge procession for the Pope, and they bused in people from all around the country so that they can fill in the rows. They bring in all the students from the religion, from the church-run schools to pump up numbers. What’s really concerning though is that almost the entire spectrum of the opposition’s politicians and public figures didn’t dare to criticize the visit of the Pope, and everybody was like, “Oh my God, this is so great,” praising the Pope for his tolerant and progressive views. The Pope is not a liberal, however. His views are more extreme than any far-right party; for example, no far-right party in Hungary would ban abortion or would say that women cannot be in a position of power, and yet the Pope says so and yet is still seen as this great leader. At least Jordan Peterson says what he is, and he is treated as such by the opposition.
Sowhat did Orbán and Peterson talk about? They’re both pretty intelligent people who are very cynical, and of course, they know what they’re using their power for and their influence for, and I think they have a great understanding of that. Perhaps this was a genuine conversation about their mutual respect for how they manipulate people.
Jacobsen: How is your case going right now regarding the appeal?
Békés:Well, it’s a very long case, even for Hungary. So, to compare, another lawsuit which had similar circumstances, although not connected to religion, was already finished about a year ago. So, my luck and unluck was that after my first trial, after the appeal, I went to a secondary court. This higher court sent it back to the lower court because part of the ruling they didn’t find satisfactory, and they didn’t see that it was explained well enough in the verdict. Last time, I had to wait 3-4 months to go to the higher court, now it’s eight months for some reason.
The law says you are supposed to have a trial, I think, in three or four months, but this is more of a guideline than a rule. . So, my subsequent trial will be in March of 2024, so currently, there’s little going on. So far, we have presented a position paper; of course, City Hall submitted one as well. it. Most recently City Hall stated in an interview that it was always their goal to have this case proceed to the Supreme Court, so that they can establish precedence on how government officials have to behave and how they have to restrict their freedom of expression, which is, of course, ridiculous, because this was never their intention.
It is very well documented that the decision to fire me was made in a rush, as they committed a number of legal mistakes.. If there was an actual idea that they wanted to improve public service by restricting people’s fundamental freedoms, they would have done it differently. They would have needed a lawyer specializing in employment law. The lawyer representing City Hall is a very close confidant of the mayor, and that is his only good quality. He is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law, thus theory and not practice. He is one of the worst public speakers I have ever heard; he cannot formulate sentences correctly, and he has a speech impediment. It’s more important for them to have somebody who’s a trusted ally than anyone who’s good at their job.
The case has become a massive problem for them. Despite this, they push on with a trialwhich is just another excuse to cover up their blatant abuse of constitutional law, their abuse of power, their severe discrimination and then just to put an ideology behind it like, “Oh, this was our big plan.” Not even the case law of the supreme supports it, as multiple other officials have won similar cases. So, I’m pretty confident from a legal perspective, although we know how justice and legality can often diverge.
You never really know how cases go in Hungary because the courts are… well, they’re not entirely free. The Supreme Court, for example is certainly influenced by the government, but the lower courts are more varied. In this case, it’s hard to even tell the political agenda of the regime because, even though they started the campaign against me they might use this as an opportunity to punish City Hall, which is in opposition to them. They can be very cynical about this; whoever remembers that they started this; they can say that this city hall discriminates even its own allies, and they just push it through the media, advertising how there is no moral difference between them. So, they might want me to win. We don’t know, or they might not even care. I don’t know, but of course, on the other hand, they can also say, “Yes, we should further lean into the illiberal Christian agenda, and punish those people who speak out against it.” So, we don’t know; it’s hard to tell how influenced the courts are, and it’s hard to know which way they would be swayed.
Overall, my case is progressing well, as far as I can tell. There have been three court trials, and I have won all three of them. As I said, one was partially sent back, but only one-quarter of the ruling was to be re-examined. Three-quarters of the ruling entered into force, which is already detrimental to City Hall because for example, it is now confirmed that the written reprimand I got a day before my firing was unlawful. Of course, no inquiry followed this by City Hall even though their leading official was submitting illegal documents. In addition, I am now officially a progressive liberal by designation, which means that I support secularism, pacifism, and children’s rights as was defined by the case.
The law says that as a city official or a public official, you can even be a part of a party. You cannot be the spokesperson for a partyor hold office there, but other than that, you can be free to express your political views.. Despite the law being pretty straightforward, there is an ambiguous clause thatsays you cannot make a statement or engage in conduct that reflects badly on the public image of City Hall, which, of course, never happened in my case, but they’re still using this fairly vague clause to keep the trial going. They’re saying they didn’t fire me for an article I had written years prior , despite the mayor confirming thisin two separate interviews.. Still, in the court, they used a different argument, which was that I was fired for Facebook posts that I made during my time there, and these Facebook posts were the target of the campaign against me, which is false.
In my posts, I was merely reflecting on the issue, and trying to explain that the statements by the propaganda media were untrue. Of course, my secular beliefs are completely in line with contemporary, even my viewson baptizing children. I just interpreted the law as it should be interpreted. In 1991, Hungary adopted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which explicitly stated that children have a right to religious freedom and belief. So, if you’re baptized into a religion, that freedom is taken away from you.
Jacobsen: That’s correct.
Békés: Even if symbolically, but it’s taken away. This argument is not even new; I didn’t invent this. The Baptists invented it. The Anabaptists and the Baptists have been saying the same thing because, actually, in the Bible, nobody is baptized as a child. Even Jesus was baptized as an adult. So, if the most holy person as a human being is baptized as an adult and no child is baptized as a child, what is the argument there? So, if it was a fake hysteria, of course, and interestingly enough, many people in the comment sections-which is, of course, no statistic-, were defending my point of view as Christians.
Recently I think public opinion is turning more in my favour. A fairly positive interview came out a few days ago, and it was good to read many comments and messages from people learning about this case and condemning the mayor very harshly.
Jacobsen: What is likelihood of the Orbán’s regime surviving in the long term?
Békés: It’s a good question, and you mentioned me phrasing it as a regime. I think that’s at the centre of this question. The reason why I use regime is twofold. On the one hand, I use it because it’s not a democracy anymore, and it’s not a democratic government; it’s a post-democratic government. They changed most of the major laws; they want to stay in power forever, and declared Hungary an illiberal and Christian democracy. So, they believe that their rule is the only legitimate rule, and they make it impossible for any party to win in a democratic election. They did this very gradually, butvery openly after a certain point. That’s one of the reasons why I call it a regime.
The other reason I call it a regime is that calling it a government would imply governance. They’re not governing, which is the scariest part because if you look at other authoritarian regimes, dictatorships like China or Singapore, there’s a vision, right? There’s a direction. I mean, say at the top, it’s just some rich old dudes who are governing, gaining power, gaining money, doing whatever they want. Sure, but ultimately, there is a vision. It doesn’t exclude them from caring, at least to some extent, about their citizens or the country or upholding their rule for their children. So, there’s an idea of at least self-sustenance, and there’s seemingly little of that in the Orbán regime.. I’m not exaggerating. They don’t care, and there are clear examples of how much they don’t care. When solidifying their power and restricting freedoms, they do whatever they can, but when its’s about running basic social services, they do nothing; they make zero effort. And I’m going to tell you a few examples.
Healthcare: we have the secondhighest death rate per capita of Covid-19 in the EU. We have the highest death rates of preventable deaths in the EU. We have the sixth-highest obesity rate in the world We perform the most amputations per capita in Europe. We no longer have a Ministry of Health, because they abolished it. Still, the person responsible for the mandate was a Christian Nationalist, and he said that if we would just adhere to the Ten Commandments, we could prevent 90% of deaths from diseases.
Jacobsen: Huh?
Békés: He said that yeah. He was the leader of National Oncological Institute, while Hungary has the highest death rates from cancers per capita in the EU, so his resume wasn’t exactly inspiring. So yeah, they don’t care, all they want is the loyal people in positions of power. There are a few useful puppets who help run the system who either believe that they can change the system from the inside or claim that this is the only way they can support their families. I’m sure some people believe there’s still some sense of governance, but there isn’t. People with COVID-19 died for many reasons. Still, one of the reasons was that the state of health in general is very low because there are no prevention campaigns for obesity, smoking, or alcoholism. The second reason was that there were not enough doctors and nurses. So basically, people were starved to death. There’s not enough staff, so that’s the only way they can be managed is by heavily sedating them, and seldomly feeding them, leading to weight loss. My uncle died this way. He survived Covid, but he lost about 30 kilograms. He was starved to death by staff in a public hospital. That happened to many people. He was 69 years old, so not very old. We have one of the lowest life expectancies in Europe. We have the highest percentage of alcoholicsin the entire world: 21.2%. So every fifth person is an alcoholic.
Jacobsen: Holy shit!
Békés: It’s wild, and of course, it’s part of the plan because making people addicted means they can be more easily manipulated. Sometimes they forget themselves and just bluntly state the truth; in 2018, the foreign minister said that it is the government’s job to keep wages artificially low. He really said that, and they won the election regardless. Was it a bet with his buddies like, “We can still win the elections even if we tell it straight to their faces”. Wages are very low in Hungary because that’s how they can manipulate people with handouts before the elections. As for the economy, purchasing power is extremely low in Hungary, because this way the regime can rely on cheap handouts and manipulations of the market conditions to gain favour. We have the highest inflation rate in Europe; we recently had more than 40% inflation rate on food. They are sometimes doing some crude tuning to the system, but most of all, they don’t care, and another example would be the education system. About 20,000 teachers are missing from public education because the job is so underpaid, and the working conditions are so bad. All the governments before didn’t care about education much either, but this government or regime cares even less.
They abolished the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Environment as well. So, they install these central authorities on school districts, which, basically make it impossible for schools to do anything on their own: if they want a roll of toilet paper, they have to go through the central authority in every municipality. Still, the central authority has no real experts and often has little money. So, it often happens that there is no heating in a school. During the energy crisis, the government mandated that a school can only be 18°C warm. So, imagine 10-year-olds sitting for 6 hours in 18°. It’s extremely low, and most schools didn’t even reach that. Many schools were like 15-14 degrees for entire days. They don’t care. Twenty thousand teachers are missing. You know what they’re doing? They’re firing teachers who are striking because, of course, they made legal strikes impossible. The law now saysthat you can strike, but you have to be in the school and be with the kids,and you have to get the agreement of the central education authority on your strike. Of course, they never do, even if this is unlawful.
Therefore, people who strike have to resort to civil disobedience and are then fired. All the teachers who participated in this, which is a few thousand, will probably be fired at the end of the year. And there are already thousands of children saying that if you go to school in Hungary today, you will not be taught by a professional, like if you go into chemistry class and there’s no chemistry teacher. Schools simply fake it. There’s like a literature teacher going in or a physical education teacher; they’re better off with Wikipedia at this point. This is not just one school but public education in general. Even a regime should care about education because that’s how they sustain their rule, but they don’t care. The only thing they do is finance the automotive industry, and more receintly , it’s battery factories from China. They promise tax breaks and that they don’t have to abide any environmental regulation practically.
Some people already died in these factories due to unsafe conditiuons, and rivers are already being polluted, but they just change the laws so it would seem legal.. For example, there are no requirements on public hearings anymore in Hungary. You can post a link as a municipality on a website so people can just write to you, and that’s it. This was due to a previous hearing going badly regarding a new battery factory. They just changed the law, problem solved.
There’s a state of emergency in the country for six years. First in relationto migration, then it was COVID-19. Now it’s the neighboring war. So, the parliament is technically suspended. They can pass laws by decree. They don’t need the parliament. There are some parliamentary sessions of course for show. The regime’s people usually don’t go to debates if it is not mandated by law. They just go in to vote, and whenever the opposition is proposing anything, they don’t show up. There’s not even a pretense of caring about the democratic process. Whatever is mandatory, they might do it, but that’s it.
As forthe question of how long this will last. It could last for a very long time because they have soaked up EU funds so much, and then they just distributed it to their entire families and oligarch systems so deep down that it’ll last generations. Maybe after a consolidation period of decades, there might be a better chance for another run at democracy eventually in an organic way, which has happened in other countries, or we are running towards an entire collapse of the system because basic services are not working as mentioned.
As basic services continue to break down, eventually, it might come to a boiling point where people just revolt en masse. Of course, such a thing is hard to predict. There wouldn’t be social unrest if you could. There were many protests over the years, but they weren’t huge. One hundred thousand people were present at the largest, 1% of the population. So yeah, people already proved the point that they don’t care or they don’t have the power, or they don’t have the agency, the knowledge to do anything about it. Protests are mostly in bigger cities In small villages, not many are mobilizing. I don’t know how long this will last, but it is unsustainable for sure. So, if it ever comes to the point that this fails, it will be a point where the basic services are broken down to such a degree that Hungary would basically be like a quasi-failed state. It’s not too far. At this point, we’ve already lost about 20 years of development.
All the other countries in the region have developed way further. They have progressed way further than we have in terms of quality of life, economy, and other indicators.
Jacobsen: Some of the first things that tend to happen in these situations are women’s bodies becoming subject to governmental questions. How are Reproductive Rights or access to abortion in Hungary right now?
Békés: Well, I’m glad you ask because we are engaged in this with the Hungarian Atheist Society. Abortions are not banned. Abortions are restricted in a way that you cannot have an abortion via a tablet-induced abortion; it’s possible to have to have a surgical abortion. They invented some excuse why it was deemed unsafeeven though it’s still a medically supervised procedure. More severe is the fact that sterilization is banned in Hungary; it’s illegal as an adult to be sterilized even by their own free will. A small disclaimer: you have the right to sterilization after the age of 40 or if you have three children, but other than that, no. This is the strictest restriction on sterilization in the entire European Union, and they introduced this in 2014. It was done without much backlash,, for two reasons.
First of all, when it comes to women’s rights, women have a wider range of contraceptive methods available than just sterilization, hormonal and non-hormonal ways of contraception. Of course, I’m very well aware of the challenges of contraception for women, especially when it comes to oral contraception. Still, they have options. But for men, the only options are the condom or sterilization. Just a side note for condoms: condoms don’t fit men. I’ve done much research and published articles on how the standard condoms from most leading manufacturers do not fit 50% of men. They are brands that manufacture a wider rangebut they are not being sold almost anywhere except sex shops.
So, they took away the only other option that men had, and the reason why they risked it was because at the time there were no mens rights organizations in the country. I’m not talking about this alt-right, incel perspective, but a genuine organization for men’s rights that is an ally to feminism. The regime was always pushing in a direction against the least resistance. So, that’s why they’re using religion as well, because, for some magical reason, the opposition doesn’t dare to criticize the government on religious matters, or anything wrapped in a religious packaging.
For example, there’s a new law in Hungary that the churches can ask for any public building, and the state has to give it to them for free. I’m not exaggerating, this is actual law. Priests are public servants, yet as a public servant, they can discriminate based on gender, sex, and religion. How can this be? Well of course churches are exempt from the anti-discrimination law, that’s how.
Jacobsen: It’s so bold how they do it.
Békés: Yeah, of course it is and, in this sense, when it comes to religion, they’re very bold and this is interesting because Hungary is one of the least religious countries in Europe. It’s crazy; most people don’t believe in this and even hate this aggressive effort. Most articles about some religious propaganda, are met with laugh reactions by the thousands online, and this is resentment is supported by statistics. People are mostly secular; they don’t care about the Church; There’s no social backing to thisyet the regime is still pushing. Despite this, when it comes to restricting freedom of contraception and bodily autonomy, religious sentiment plays a role in the regime’s decisions, thusChristian Nationalism plays a role in a way. The regime has this pro-natalist argument that you have to have more children and support families and what not. Of course, nobody wants to have multiple children in an economic situation where they can’t support them. People are not stupid. It doesn’t matter how many public handouts they get. If you know your wage is so low that you cannot support a family, you won’t have a family at all, or maybe just one child.
So, birth rates are not going up; they have been at it for ten years, and it’s not going up. Remarks from regime politicians also don’t inspire women too much. The Speaker of the House once said that those women who are in the opposition parties, are not worth calling women anymore, and he will call them by the number two, as national ID card numbers for women start with 2.
Jacobsen: Wow.
Békés: Ccontraception is not supported by public insurance. We have the highest value-added tax in Europe: 27%. So, it’s practically the most expensive to have contraception in Hungary, and if you look at the current purchasing power parity, it’s even worse. I would say they try to restrict reproductive rights whenever they can, but they’re not pushing too far with that because, as I said, Hungary is not a very religious country. Even in Poland, where the government banned abortions, knew it was going to be unpopular. religious extremists don’t have the fraction of that kind of support in Hungary. So, I don’t think they will push for an abortion ban anytime soon.. Do they have an agenda to do it? Of course. And that’s why they banned sterilization. So, I’m now in the process of gearing up toward the lawsuit against the government regarding sterilization. I will sue the government for restricting, well, in this case, my own autonomy It’s my body and my choice.
What’s more, is that vasectomies are reversible with about 92% success rate in 15 years. And of course, even if it isn’t, you can still extract sperm surgically. You can still have children if you want to. So, it’s just to restrict your freedoms. I don’t have the money yet, but it’s going to be a coalition of NGOs. So, I’m not sure how much money we’ll need. I’m currently in the initial stages of planning, calculating work hours lawyer costs, legal fees etc.. I think if we can have a positive outcomeeven at a Hungarian court because proportionately, if abortions are not banned, then this cannot be banned, right?
Jacobsen: Yeah. Do you want to cover any other subject matters in the interview today?
Békés: Well, I mean, I think secularism, the opposition, and the political parties in Hungary are always very important in how counternarratives are being formed. In Hungary, the biggest problem, I would say, is that even though most people are secular and most people are not religious, there’s little agency connected to this. Yes, there is the atheist organization: I’m a proud member and secretary of the Hungary Atheist Society, but I wouldn’t say it’s a huge organization. Secularism is something that we should all support and cherish, yet when you ask people about secularism, they might not know what it means. Still, when you ask them if they agree with the separation of church and state in the sense that churches shouldn’t be publically funded or if the church should be able to ban reproductive rights, they will mostly say, “No.”
So, people are secular; they just don’t realize it. Another problem is that the opposition parties are completely rolling with this illiberal Christianagenda. So, they’re not criticizing the government on this matter, and a good example was August 20th, which is the national day, the biggest celebration of Hungary, originally called State Establishment Day. Now it’s called St Stephen’s Day. Steven the First was the king of Hungary who established the Christian state of Hungary, although the state was already established. It’s a bit of a historical colorization. Still, nonetheless, he was the first king of Hungary, and now we have to celebrate this as a Catholic holiday as it was renamed St Stephen’s Day. St. Stephen doesn’t say anything to non-Catholics, as they don’t believe in saints.
Even one of the progressive opposition parties in Hungary, which is supported by young people, thus hip and fairly liberal, posted a picture of a statue of St Stephen and said, “God bless you, Hungary.” So much for secular terminology.
Ss said, there’s this law where churches can gain ownership of any public building, and one of the local MPs went to a public hearing about this . She also posted about this, saying that “Oh, because of the government, e public property is being stolen” But she was using the passive voice, thus she did not indicate at any point that it was the Catholic Church who was stealing public property, because she is a devoted Catholic herself. I asked her “Didn’t you forget to mention who is doing the stealing?” to which she replied that she said she won’t offend the Catholic Church by saying this…
The entire party shared this post on its page, which is ridiculous. So, they refuse to acknowledge the role of churches or organized religion in the regime’s illiberal agenda, and there is no organized movement from the opposition parties to push back on this. In my case, when the so-called liberal, opposition mayor fired me, which is a prime example of how religious fundamentalism gains ground in general. It seems that it’s more important to cater to religious fundamentalists who have no public backing then to follow the law itself, because they fell for the illusion that everybody is supporting this type of fundamentalism in Hungary. One of the campaigns we’re trying to organize in now with the Atheist Society is to collect money to have a representative survey on secularism because there hasn’t been one before. There are so many surveys on how many people are religious, but not on this. It doesn’t matter because how many Catholics there are on paper, if we ask them about condom use, most of them would say they used one before. In terms of policy, faith is secondary compared to opinions on practical questions. Surely, denomination has some influence on certain policy areas, but our common values are more deterministic in today’s world.
Yet if it would be up to the Catholic Church, contraception would be banned, and that’s a fact. They say contraception is immoral. Abortions would also be banned because even this Pope said abortion is murder. That’s why they should never be let near any government.
Most people enjoy fundamental human rights, and many people have for centuries because of the Enlightenment. That is the common denominator, and whatever threatens these rights, will be fought against by religious people and atheists alike, and the opposition parties must fight against it as well, even if it comes from churches or religious ideology.
We cannot change the regime directly. Elections are rigged, and there is no point going into a parliament to make meaningless speeches. However, if the regime resigned today for some weird reason, we still wouldn’t be prepared to make a democratic system more sustainable. As said, the opposition’s policies on key topics are weak and vague, including secularism. Thus, we must fight for what we can change, and therefore encourage the opposition parties to take a stronger stance on this, along with other issues such as educational reform. This is the only way we can have a chance at a sustainable democracy in the future.
Jacobsen: Gáspár, thank you for the opportunity and your time today.
Békés: Well, thank you. I hope it was consistent and useful.
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Photo credit: Gáspár Békés.