You know you’re in a strange place when you can smell tear gas from your front porch.

Yet, in Budapest, on October 23rd, 2006, that’s exactly the situation for me.

Today, a holiday commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the streets of Budapest have turned violent again. Thousands of citizens, mostly young men, are on the streets of Budapest doing their best to keep the thousands of police from making them go home. The police, for their part, are equipped with tear gas, water cannons, and riot gear. In other words, the situation is tense. And, for some reason, the police feel the need to push the protesters out of the streets.

Of course, underlying all of these protests are the events from 1956. Exactly 50 years ago, on October 23, thousands of protesters marched to parliament to demand changes to their government. The people were terribly oppressed: hungry, overworked, shamefully underpaid, living in fear of their own government. Finally it was too much. Across the Danube, on the 22nd, about two thousand students met and, in a radical move, elected to form their own student government, apart from the official one. But, they didn’t stop there. They formed a list of demands that included freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and, most importantly, the removal of Soviet troops from Hungary. The following day, the students and thousands of others marched together to parliament to deliver the demands. One side group went to the radio station and demanded that the list be read over the radio. They were turned away and the first shots were fired. Not with rubber bullets, but real ones. Over the course of the next several days, thousands were killed and injured in a horrible bloodbath.

In what can’t be a mere coincidence, this weekend marked another milestone in Hungarian history. In fact, just yesterday a wise man told me “this is truly an historic weekend in Europe.” That wise man was none other than David A. Bednar, newest apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elder Bednar was here in Budapest to preside at the first Stake Conference in the history of Hungary. Meanwhile, President Hinckley was in Finland dedicating the Helsinki temple. Elder Bednar’s message to the hundreds gathered at the Sunday conference session centered around faith in Christ. We’re all ordinary people, he said, but with faith in Christ we can do anything.

Indeed. But the power of the ordinary person seems more distant in a world full of tear gas and rubber bullets. And, I can only imagine, more distant still when those bullets are real. But, on the other hand faith, in a crisis situation, becomes more apparent than before. Choices become clearer, the line between dark and light is more apparent.

A world full of lies, violence and desperate people can’t bring happiness. Yet, as Elder Bednar reminded us, ordinary people with faith in Jesus Christ can change the world.

Following the conference, I attended the baptism of a wonderful woman from Peru named Doris. It was a beam of light in a frustrated city. Just a day earlier her twin sons had been baptized back in Peru. Truly a miracle.

So, as the tear gas guns keep us awake tonight, we can rest in the light of the Gospel that is shining down on Budapest. It’s not all rubber bullets and tear gas. Miracles truly surround us.
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See all of the articles in this series:
Freedom Popcorn in Budapest
Riots, rubber bullets and miracles in Budapest
Arbitrary distinctions: A surreal visit to Auschwitz
Lessons from the Berlin Wall

Tonight we met up with a group at the Opera and saw Pucini’s Madame Butterfly. It was a fantastic performance in a wonderful space. I highly recommend it to anyone who is able to attend.

But I still feel strange after that moment at Auchewitz-Birkenau, the moment when I walked through the main gate and saw the overwhelming size of the place. I feel guilt. Not guilt from the acts of another human being, but guilt for the simple fact that I was born when and where I was born. Had I been born 40 years earlier to a jewish family right here in Budapest, I might have been one of those innocent little boys that was sent on a horrible train ride from the Budapest ghetto to Poland to my death.

In Krakow I flipped through a picture book of Auschwitz. One picture showed a family walking past the camera on their way to the gas chambers (thinking they were showers!). There was a little boy at the front of the picture. Probably 5 or 6 years old, wearing light colored shorts. I can’t get the picture of this little boy out of my mind. I can’t imagine the horror he was about to go through just minutes later – told to strip naked then herded into that horrible “shower” room. I can’t imagine.

Consequently, I have been thinking about the inequity of it all. Why did that little boy suffer such a fate, while only a few years later I was leaving Birkeneau in a comfortable cab ride, and going to the opera a couple of days later. What luxury!

There must be some purpose in it, or at least a lesson to learn, but I’m still trying to work that out.

On Oct 25th, 1956 the gathering in parliament turned into a bloody conflict with more than 50 people killed.

The radio station in Pest was the scene of the first violence in 1956 Budapest. I’m on the scene, 50 years later, although I’m not able to get too close.

Exactly 50 years later, things get ugly on the streets of Budapest. Tear gas, rubber bullets, running, water cannons–everything you’d expect from a riot – including makeshift wooden barricades!

Exactly 50 years later. The static in Budapest started at the Technical University on the Buda side of the Danube.

Things get ugly. Water canons, rubber bullets. Two injuries that I saw myself. At one point, a tank which was on display was started by the protesters and driven into the streets toward the police. (Photos by Scott Lunt, October 2006)

This morning we tried to go to parliament but got pushed back to our school by hundreds of riot cops. (Photos by Scott Lunt, October 2006)

Budapest, Hungary. Lies of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsani are leaked to the public, spawning riots in the streets in September, 2006. These photos are of the following protests in Parliament Square, a week after the riots. (Photos by Scott Lunt)

Budapest, Hungary
Oct 2, 2006

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Lying politicians, economic struggles, frustrated citizens, tents, bread lines, riot gear, burned out police cars, and… a popcorn stand? Wait a second, there’s a protest on!

Yet, amidst the spectacle of it all, the popcorn fits.

First of all, it’s capitalism at its finest. Your head of state, Ferenc Gyurcsany, the newly re-elected Prime Minister of Hungary, lies to get re-elected, then gets busted bragging about it. The citizens, incensed, throw a riot, burning up a few cars and storming a TV station. Later, once the smoke clears, the injured are counted and the reports make CNN headlines. Then tens of thousands come in from around the city and country to voice their concerns in Parliament Square. Someone’s got to be there to make a forint or two. Protesters need popcorn.

Second, popcorn goes with entertainment, like a night at the movies. There is a sense of Hollywood in the air here. It seems that there are as many people taking pictures of the crowd as there are people chanting “Gyurcsany must go!” Grab a tub of kernels and enjoy the show.

Third, there’s a feeling of tired satisfaction, the way you feel at the end of a long day at a theme park—when you could use a half-eaten bag of greasy popcorn. Sure, your prime minister behaved inexplicably. Sure, it’s going to be a long three and a half years ahead (we know the feeling). But, at the end of it, the people will vote, the votes will be counted, the winner will take office, and the losers will go home.

Fifty years ago, in October of 1956—when, for a few exhilarating days, Hungary was a democratic state—the formula was very different: the public was incensed, protesters stormed a radio station, a few days of sweet liberation followed, then came a horrible Soviet backlash with 2000 tanks and lots of real bullets. Thousands were killed, many of them unarmed demonstrators, and tens of thousands fled to other countries. Then came the worst part, 30 more years of hard-line communist rule.

Yet now, living with democracy, protests over egotistical politicians are all part of the ride. In a way, Hungary is just now finding its democratic wings. These protests are a coming of age. In a country that has had its share of political struggles, to say the least, Hungary is at a tipping point. Not a tipping point between violence and peace, but between ideologies of the East and West.

A former Warsaw Pact country once under the wing of the Soviet Union, Hungary is in a bit of a geographical no-mans land. Only three of its seven neighbors are full EU members. Communism is not that far away, both geographically and historically. Even as an exchange student here, I can still occasionally feel the bureaucracy left behind by communism (not to mention the intimidation of the Metro police officers).

On the other hand, I can feel the fresh air of democracy. Citizens feel empowered, lively political discussions abound, people can protest, and the press is relatively (although not completely) free.

At the protests, I pulled aside some young Hungarians to get their thoughts. They were energized and hopeful, not violent and dejected, which struck me as a far cry from the desperation of 1956. Today, anyone in the crowd could step in line, take the microphone and speak their mind to the crowd without fear of repercussions. (Well, almost anyone—an employee of state-owned Magyar Television convinced me that if his boss saw him at the protests he’d be fired without discussion.)

Although the protests continue, they are fading. The protesters will eventually go back to work, and Gyurcsany will likely continue his foibles for 3 more years. In Hungary, democracy is maturing, ripening. A lot has changed in fifty years. After all, in 1956, there were no popcorn stands.

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Scott Lunt is a BYU graduate student studying in Budapest, Hungary at Central European University. This is the first in a series of articles exploring democracy in Central Europe.

More photos are available at: Budapest Protests.

See all of the articles in this series:
Freedom Popcorn in Budapest
Riots, rubber bullets and miracles in Budapest
Arbitrary distinctions: A surreal visit to Auschwitz
Lessons from the Berlin Wall