by Frank Furedi, Roots & Wings (Photo: Pixaby)
On the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution it appears that large chunks of Europe have become estranged from the values of patriotism and freedom
Maybe it is because we are just about to observe the 70th anniversary of the October 1956 Hungarian Revolution that my reflections on the riots unfolding in France during the past two weeks have been frequently disrupted by my memories of what I saw and experienced in Budapest seven decades ago.
As a 9-year-old child living in Budapest during the 1956 Revolution, I witnessed levels of violence that were far more lethal than that experienced by French people in recent times. Outwardly these two events – separated by seventy years – share certain characteristics. Both events erupted spontaneously and caught the ruling authorities unaware of the scale of the challenge that confronted them. In both cases the anti-authority mobilisation was initiated by young people taking to the streets. In both instances the mobilisation led to confrontations with the authorities, attacks on symbols of power and the escalation of initially peaceful demonstrations into violence. In 1956 as in 2026 students played a central role in initiating the protests, and the authorities struggled to contain the unrest.
Yet these superficial similarities conceal profound differences. The Hungarian uprising was directed against a Soviet-dominated communist dictatorship that denied its citizens fundamental political freedoms and national independence. The French disturbances have taken place within a constitutional democracy, where citizens possess the right to organise politically, protest, vote and campaign for changes in government.
More importantly, the two movements have differed in their objectives, political imagination and relationship to society. In Hungary, the revolutionaries articulated a vision of national liberation and political self-government. In France, the protests have emerged from grievances about education, living standards and the perceived failure of public institutions. Although these grievances have generated widespread mobilisation, the violent disturbances have not been accompanied by a comparably coherent programme for transforming the political order.