I get it. You re exhausted of the political situation in Hungary, we all are, but saying that you don’t care about politics or that you don’t feel like getting involved isn’t a privilege we can rely on at the moment. Elections are coming, and given the political climate and how our basic rights are being taken away, everything we do is about politics, so in this article we explain you why you should care.
Now, there is no such thing as “I don’t get involved in politics”
I personally believe that everything is political. A campaign about love, a book about diversity, a non-profit about rainbow families, a magazine for an LGBT demographic… everything we do within our community is political because they are about equality, human rights and standing up for ourselves.
It is not political in a way that it is making people choose a political party, or it is supporting a political candidate in specific; it is political because politics are much more than Fidesz, the opposition, or any of the political games going on.
Politics should be about the people… about us.
Politics are about Hungary and its people. Even if we were living in a country with a healthy political situation, all of the different communities present here would still need to be represented and recognized. But we’re not, we are reaching a place where there will always be a new enemy of the state… everyone is a target, including you. Whether you like it or not, you are at the center of the political strategy at the moment.
The goal is to make people think
So how exactly can we get political? The easiest and most effective way is to engage in conversations. They may be uncomfortable or it may be difficult to reach a point in which you feel motivation to start the discussion with your family, classmates or your colleagues. But conversations are a great way for people to be able to break down everything going on at the moment into smaller pieces that are easier to digest and process.
Conversations help people understand their feelings and where they stem from. It can also help people to see from your point of view when you explain them how everything going on is affecting you as an LGBT+ person.
Conversations are political because they make people think, they trigger questions and feelings for people to be able to comprehend how they relate to a problematic issue or even a solution. Our goal is not to convince people about anything but to help them answer questions about the anti-LGBT rhetoric in Hungary and the increasing threat for queer people by the Hungarian government.
From underrepresented to misrepresented
Up to a couple of years ago, the LGBT conversation was actually very quiet in this country. The government was so busy targeting other minorities with their hate campaigns that actually nobody was talking about the LGBT community, or at least not in the way it is happening now with changes in laws and the constitution. As I usually say it, we were that “group of people under the carpet” that people knew was there but didn’t really deal with… we were definitely underrepresented everywhere.
Unfortunately, the government and their supporting media have turned us into the enemy and have caused massive misrepresentation of our community, to the extent of generalizing and portraying LGBT+ people as pedophiles, perverts incapable of parenting, and going against traditional family values – all of which are false accusations.
This is why it is up to us to start leading those conversations with the people that surround us and to help them understand how the next elections represent a real danger for our community. We need to become spokespersons and speakers who lead the dialogue and the debate on how to help and improve Hungary for the LGBT+ people in our society.
We need to get political by voting next year, encouraging others to vote and helping people making informed decisions on how the government’s actions are affecting you as a person. People are much more likely to be able to comprehend the severity of this by listening to someone close to them, than by simply reading the news or seeing a political campaign.
We got a few months, that is a lot of time for a lot of conversations!
Germán Henao
