Joseph Conrad once observed that to a sailor, all foreign shores are the same. Protest marches in cosmopolitan enclaves have a similar generic quality. In early June, thousands in Budapest marched down a boulevard named for a forgotten Habsburg minister chanting slogans in a language that is notoriously difficult for English speakers to learn, but the atmospherics of the rally would have been instantly recognizable to most Americans. And while the protesters enthusiastically booed Viktor Orban and brandished anti-Fidesz signs, this was not a march against the pugnacious Hungarian prime minister or his conservative ruling party. Instead, the crowd defied COVID-19 restrictions to protest the construction of a new Fudan University campus in Budapest’s ninth district, to be paid for by the Hungarian government via Chinese loans.
The uproar over the proposed Fudan campus, since withdrawn in the face of public pressure, is just the latest skirmish in Hungary’s culture wars, which combine proxy competition between the United States and China with political tensions on the European periphery. The protesters, who were overwhelmingly young, fluent in pop culture and internet jargon, and generally liberal in their political and social outlook, would tell you that they represent Hungary’s future. Weeks later, a similar crowd rallied in front of Parliament to protest a bill banning the promotion of homosexuality in K-12 schools.
For an American, the anti-Fudan University march inspired a certain feeling of homesickness, or at least easy familiarity. There were drum circles, dreadlocks, Tibetan flags, and air horns. Posters and costumes of Winnie the Pooh, banned in China because of his supposed resemblance to Xi Jinping, were brandished enthusiastically. One sign depicting Xi as Pooh and Orban as Piglet was decorated with rainbow colors, “because it’s pride month,” according to the young woman carrying it. Despite its tangential relationship to the Fudan controversy, the iconic rainbow color scheme was everywhere.
In many ways, the Hungarian culture war is a faint echo of its American counterpart. Last summer, the inevitable Black Lives Matter rally took place in front of the U.S. Embassy, although the connection between the Black Lives Matter movement and Hungary’s own ethnic problems remains obscure. Borrowing a page from the mayor of Washington, D.C., the mayor of the district where the new Fudan campus was to be located changed several street names around the site to “Free Hongkong,” “Uyghur Martyrs,” and “Dalai Lama.” Several months ago, the same district mayor erected a kneeling Statue of Liberty in transgender Pride colors, a sort of one-fell-swoop approach to fashionable Western activism. Naturally, it was soon vandalized.
Even the Euro 2020 tournament is no respite. Unlike many of its Western counterparts, Hungary’s soccer team conspicuously refused to kneel before matches. Before the team’s last match of the tournament in Munich, stadiums across Germany lit up in rainbow colors to protest Hungary’s recent bill banning the promotion of homosexuality in public schools.
For many younger Hungarians, these disputes are way stations on Hungary’s journey toward “the West” — a difficult and often bumpy ride, to be sure, but one that is both inevitable and desirable. The flag peddlers at these marches, usually gypsies, have intuited the financial implications of this view. They almost always sell Hungarian and European Union flags together. Quite a few American flags were also in evidence.
Even the Fudan march’s route seemed to reflect expectations of continued progress. The protesters started at Heroes’ Square and made their way past leafy embassy courtyards to the House of Terror, which commemorates the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Hungary. Outside, a series of displays celebrate Hungary’s accession to NATO and the EU. “We made it!” reads one such plaque. A few blocks later, protesters would pass boutique shops for Gucci, The North Face, and Apple, although Hungarians have so far declined to adopt the American practice of looting upscale retailers in the name of social justice.
Will Hungary, and Eastern Europe, inevitably be absorbed by the Western borg? From its protest culture to its coffee shops, Budapest suggests that yes, resistance is futile. But the situation in 2021 is more unsettled than when Hungary and its neighbors eagerly scrambled into the EU. The appeal of Western liberalism in Eastern Europe has always been overstated. For many Hungarians, and Poles and Czechs, 1989 represented the reassertion of national sovereignty against the latest in a long line of foreign occupiers. It was also a long-awaited “return to Europe,” in the words of historian Tony Judt, a cultural and historical reunification rather than a comprehensive ideological triumph for political liberalism.
One homemade sign at the Fudan rally read, “32 years ago, Fidesz would have been against this s***,” a reference to Orban’s and Fidesz’s origins as young anti-Soviet dissidents. Thirty-two years ago, there wasn’t much of a choice. Since then, liberalism has become more hectoring, more consumed by niche culture war disputes, less tolerant of dissent, and ultimately less attractive to outsiders. Courted by, and in turn courting, Russia and China, Orban suddenly has other patrons. The Hungarian prime minister’s own invocations of “illiberal democracy” as an alternative model are a sign that Hungary is keeping its options open.
One illiberal alternative looms particularly large. Before they reached the Gucci and Apple stores, the anti-Fudan protesters marched past the Bank of China offices and an imposing Huawei billboard in Oktogon, a major commercial artery in downtown Pest. Over American protests, Huawei is building Hungary’s new 5G network. Meanwhile, Chinese COVID-19 vaccine shots have flooded Eastern Europe, thanks in part to the EU’s dilatory vaccine procurement efforts. Dubrovnik, a tourist hub on Croatia’s Adriatic coast, will finally be linked to the Croatian mainland with a bridge constructed by a Chinese company.
A cursory glance at the anti-Fudan protest suggests that Hungary’s future still lies with the West. The aesthetics of the march, from the rainbow flags to the brands the protesters wore, are all evidence of the U.S.’s massive cultural footprint. The youthful demographics of the protesters also suggest that Orban’s brand of conservatism is living on borrowed time.
However, the Western companies that dominate Hungary are either upscale retailers or legacy brands coasting on reputation. While iPhones are highly sought after, cheaper Huawei devices are everywhere. H&M, the ubiquitous Swedish clothing company, has a licensing deal with several elite American universities to sell branded sweats and t-shirts, but more and more Eastern Europeans are opting to study at Chinese universities. Based on the popularity of its T-shirts among Hungarian teenagers, NASA seems to have transitioned from space exploration to a full-time marketing operation. Even the faux-vintage rip-offs of American style — “Detroit: The Motor City” — recall the glories of a bygone era.
Hungarians often insist that they are part of Central Europe and not Eastern Europe, a none-too-subtle reminder of their historical and cultural links to the rest of the continent. But the Great Hungarian Plain, the westernmost tendril of the great Eurasian Steppe, has always been a peripheral zone. Before the Hungarians arrived, a Romance-speaking remnant called “Keszthely culture” produced sophisticated material goods and Latin inscriptions for centuries after the fall of Rome. Without an imperial patron, it was eventually wiped out. The utter distinctiveness of the modern Hungarian language, which shares almost nothing with its Romance antecedent, is proof that many cultural practices that once seemed permanent are deeply transitory.
Whether they realize it or not, the idealistic students who marched against Fudan University have made a bet on the staying power of Western liberalism and American hegemony. As the political and economic institutions that underpin Western power recede, it is unclear if it is Orban or the students who have gambled correctly.
Will Collins is a high school teacher in Eger, Hungary.
