WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY HUNGARY News Journal Update - (en) Italy, Galatea: Hungary: between farce and tragedy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The "Líra Könyv" bookstore in Budapest was fined 12 million forints

(about 32 thousand euros) for the sale of the graphic novel
"Heartstopper" by Alice Oseman - which talks about the love relationship
between two male high school students. Law LXXIX of 2021 "on the
adoption of more severe measures against perpetrators of pedophile
crimes and on the modification of certain laws for the protection of
minors" prohibits commercial entities from displaying material
unsuitable for "persons under the age of eighteen years", or products
that can promote "homosexuality, gender reassignment and gender identity
other than birth."1 ---- According to Sára Botond, politician of the
right-wing party FIDESZ, as well as former mayor of the VIII district of
the city of Budapest and currently responsible official of the
Government Office of the Magyar capital, "the books[sold by Líra
Könyv]depict homosexual acts and have nevertheless been included in the
category "children's literature" - even if this is classified as
"literature for for boys" - and they were not in the unopened package."

The Budapest authorities have forced the store to cover up the material,
warning that in the future they will react more closely to violations of
the current legislation.

Minors and sexophobic and lgbtqiaphobic laws

Law LXXIX of 2021 was adopted by the Parliament with a FIDESZ majority.
Before and after the ratification it was widely criticized as: it
omitted the guardianship and protection of pre-adolescents; prohibited
the advertising of material considered pornographic to minors under 18;
equated pedophilia and the non-heterosexual community (LGBTQIA+). From
the conclusions of a Hungarian study conducted by Jäger Anett and Tigyi
Zoltánné, "Survey on the sexual behavior of secondary school students",2
it emerged that it was necessary to "[...]rethink and revise the sex
education program organized in[Hungarian]schools, so that young people,
regardless of gender and type of school, are equipped with an adequate
level of knowledge about sexuality. Religious schools should be no
exception to this rule, as religious beliefs no longer have a protective
effect on young people's sexual attitudes and activities. However, we
consider it important that this aspect of education is not only included
in the eighth grade programs, but also in the previous grades, taking
into account the results of research on the sexual habits of adolescents
and emphasizing the relationship between reason and emotions.[...]"

With good reason, therefore, sex education, books and literature
concerning sexual orientations and genders play an important role in the
acceptance of sexuality among children under 18 - especially if they are
realizing that they are attracted to their own gender or want to change
it. These cultural tools, therefore, can be a support for those who are
not heterosexual. But with a law where everything that is not
heteronormated is penalized and criminalized, "absurd" dynamics can be
created within educational institutions where lu ragazzu, for example,
could ask teachers what genders and sexual orientations are - without
receive an answer as the school staff fear, and not wrongly, of
transgressing the LXXIX law of 2021. This state of affairs therefore
promotes a permanent state of fear and embarrassment where people under
the age of 18 are unable to express themselves how they would like and,
consequently, should accept heterosexuality as the only form of existing
relationship and unsafe sexual practices. In this way, government
hostility favors a conservative and reactionary politics, where the pawn
will be paid by women, LGBTQIA+, pre-adolescents and adolescents, etc.

Lgbtqiaphobia as a mass distraction

The approval of such a law serves to divert media and public attention
from a series of ongoing economic and political speculations.

Orban's increasingly marked departure from the orbit of the European
Union - criticized for how he supports Putin and exploits and uses
anti-migrant propaganda for electoral purposes - has meant that Hungary
is drawing closer, economically speaking, to China . If we look at the
issue at a geographical level, we see how the so-called Visegrad bloc
countries (Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and, precisely, Hungary)
are increasingly establishing relations with China.

According to the press conference of the Ministry of Commerce of the
People's Republic of China (May 6 this year), "trade and economic ties
between China and Central and Eastern Europe have grown in the last
decade, despite the recent challenges such as the COVID pandemic and the
slowdown of the world economy. So far, two-way investment between China
and Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) has reached nearly
$20 billion.[...]In the first quarter of 2023, China's direct investment
in Central and Eastern European countries increased by 148% compared to
the previous year.[...]Since 2012, Chinese trade with Central and
Eastern European countries has grown at an average annual rate of 8.1%,
while Chinese imports from these countries have increased by an average
of 9.2% year-on-year , according to the data. Two-way trade reached
$33.3 billion in the first quarter, up 1.6% year-over-year, showing a
steady and positive start.[...]The number of China-Europe freight trains
stood at 16 thousand units in 2022, an increase of 9% compared to the
previous year. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and other countries have become
key destinations for China-Europe freight trains.[...]"3

Regarding the Hungarian discourse, the economic agreements between the
Magyar and Chinese ruling classes have evolved compared to four years
ago 4: this can be seen from the omnipresence of Huawei in the Magyar
country and the railway expansion of the Belgrade-Budapest line - a
project in which the billionaire and politician of FIDESZ, Lorinc
Meszaros, a great friend of Orban and currently the largest shareholder
of the "Global Opus" (an industrial conglomerate inserted in the energy,
food and construction sectors) is involved as the winner of the contract.

But beyond these agreements and the privatization of arterial roads and
municipally owned apartments, Hungary is facing an economic recession
that has been going on for at least a year and a half now.

To distract a large part of public opinion from these economic problems
and trying to quell the various strikes (most recently that of the
teachers in the months of May-June 2023), Orban and his associates
appeal to identitarianism, precisely to the "heteronormative majority".
In this way, FIDESZ uses the LGBTQIA+ issue as a bogeyman to extend and
defend, as mentioned, the electoral base - following the example of
other countries of the Visegrad bloc and Russia on abortion, anti-trans
laws and so on -, and hides an economic disaster behind its doors at the
media level (and of which China will be able to do nothing but watch and
wait for a future government replacement).

Note

1 This provision was included in Act XLVIII of 2008 "on the basic
conditions and on certain restrictions on economic advertising
activities". Link in Hungarian:
https://njt.hu/jogszabaly/2021-79-00-00.0; English link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220103092634/https://njt.hu/translation/J2021T0079P_00000000_FIN.PDF

2Original title "Szexuális magatartás vizsgálat középiskolások körében".
Link:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292606821_Szexualis_magatartas_vizsgalat_kozepiskolasok_koreben

https://gruppoanarchicogalatea.noblogs.org/post/2023/07/15/ungheria-tra-farsa-e-tragedia/
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