Two Years of Silence
By Samu Bánfalvi, 01.10.2025
“The Hungarian artistic community is diverse. We have our disagreements and see the world differently, but we all agree that incitement and hate speech have no place among us. We consider it unacceptable and protest that, hiding behind the false guise of inclusion and freedom of expression, Sziget Festival has invited a band whose values are contrary to the festival’s decades-long tradition.”
Excerpt from the open letter of Hungarian artists to the organisers of Sziget Festival concerning the invitation of Kneecap (own translation)
“I don’t care about the belated tears of the executioners’ assistants.”
György Petri: About Parcel 301 (A 301-es parcelláról, own translation)
Nearly three hundred prominent Hungarian liberal intellectuals (along with a number of rather surprising figures) have intervened. Kneecap, an Irish rap trio, although the festival officially distanced itself from so-called cancel culture, will not perform at Sziget Festival of Budapest, because — according to the Hungarian government’s position — their entry into the country poses a national security risk. The danger has been averted. Opposition politicians, including András Jámbor1 shared his views on Facebook: condemning violence and censorship, justifying their earlier silence with the usual arguments — a courageous gesture. Klára Dobrev2, leader of the successor of the socialist party, distanced herself from Sziget even before the government’s ban, writing among other things this deeply true statement: “Inviting someone like this is not only choosing a performer — it is choosing a value. And we also choose values when we remain silent. Or when we speak up.” Many others could be quoted. The contradictions and deliberate distortions are so obvious that even “exposing” them seems like an unworthy task. This is not what this is about. Yet still: it is an important issue, no matter how insignificant it may appear.
I admit, there is great sorrow and anger within me. And, of course, not only in me: in all those who still have enough humanity to be outraged by the brutal killing of tens of thousands (currently estimated between sixty and a hundred thousand) of victims.
There is great sorrow and anger within me because it is not true that it is too late. For nearly a hundred thousand people, it is already too late. Not to mention the immeasurable trauma, the children left orphaned, and the centuries-long consequences of a people being devastated. It is already too late. The governments of Europe have failed. But Hungary’s situation is striking even in an international context: here, any demonstration showing solidarity with Palestinians is considered an act of supporting terror. Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, who deemed the ban on Pride unacceptable, unconstitutional, and discriminatory, also remained silent. Apart from a few isolated groups of the actual left, no one seemed to care.
In many countries across Europe — and not only in those whose governments are currently spending huge amounts of taxpayers’ money to support Israel’s ‘policies’ — the protests by students have gone on unbroken for two years, often defying serious criminal or institutional sanctions. This has never happened in Hungary. Outrage was not provoked even when Israel’s mass-murdering, fascist Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu (against whom there is currently an international arrest warrant), visited Hungary, where he was personally welcomed by prime minister Viktor Orbán.
The majority of the Hungarian liberal intelligentsia also seem to share the government’s point of view on this.
Yet it is worth speaking about the cowardice, political illiteracy, and hubris that materialised concerning this — otherwise politically insignificant —matter. Not only because it reveals a permanent confusion among much of the intelligentsia regarding the role they should play; it also shows in the way they treat a petition, backed by (nonexistent) societal authority, as a miserable political tool. Yet, this issue runs deeper. When one aims to understand why (European) students and the young left persist in resistance despite knowing not only the desire for solidarity, shock, and the alleviation of unbearable helplessness, but also the generational disappointment, disillusionment, and the anger and sorrow of those continuously betrayed and deceived, felt worldwide by many today. Their idols, ideological forebears, politicians and parties they voted for (whether reluctantly or not), the writers they read, the directors, musicians, and poets whose work they loved, their teachers, and often their parents or former friends all defend or support the scandal — that is, are traitors. And this is painful and infuriating. And a very lonely feeling.
This is therefore the response to the characteristic and telling argument that the left’s antisemitism is shown by being overly concerned with the Palestinian issue, as opposed to, say, the situation in Congo — which, of course, is a cynical argument and cannot be taken seriously from the mouths of those who, as we see, remain deeply silent in both cases.
The question naturally arises: what do our political opponents want with their self-revealingly weak arguments and moral relativism?
The opportunity for yet another empty and categorical silence. The most characteristic feature of pro-Israel voices in Hungary is the call to remain silent, which they usually do not attempt to achieve with words. Ours: shock and anger. Theirs: suspicion.
They try to cast suspicion on solidarity to pave the way for silence. And to enjoy the soothing quiet. Let us observe their arsenal of arguments, which almost without exception seeks to prove the hypocrisy of the opponent (those defending the innocent), or, in the “best case,” to question or deny the scale of the humanitarian crisis (that is: genocide), almost never (unless we consider the far-right, typically anonymous ranting in outlets like Neokohn) directly legitimizing the massacre — which is, of course, still a victory for the Netanyahu government and its supporters. For as long as the discussion is not about ending the killing, but, for example, about the alleged antisemitism of an Irish rap trio, or the idea that the left is essentially equivalent to the far-right (horseshoe theory: just a few days ago I encountered two comments with exciting neologisms: “Islamobolshevism,” “Islamofascism” — presumably similar in meaning), everything can continue as usual. During this time, the real conflicts do not come to the fore: ethnicism, Zionism versus anti-racism, anti-fascism; power as the guarantor of moral legitimacy versus the liberation of the oppressed as the only proper political aim. This is further illustrated by the fact that while the “struggle” unfolds at family tables, around roundtable discussions, and in the trenches of Facebook comment sections, almost none of this sentiment appears in the Hungarian public discursive spaces, the press, etc. — except for rare cases.
It is difficult to refute, difficult to argue with what is never actually said, what is not accessible in public forums. This is by no means a minor point: it matters if later there is something to refer to, something to read back on, so that we are not powerless when we want to retell the many vile deeds to the generations that follow us.
Ghassan Kanafani (1936–1972), Palestinian writer and resistance activist, in his first novel Man in the Sun, writes about three Palestinian men fleeing to Kuwait, hiding in the water tank of a smuggler’s car at a checkpoint. The tank, heated to scalding by the sun, traps them inside — the three men suffocate while their driver is held up. The novel concludes with this question: “Why? Why didn’t they rumble? Why, why?” Echoing among the sand dunes. They did not make a sound because, in unconscious hope, they expected someone would open the lid, and that the lid (the novel makes it clear: this is an illusion) would open onto a more merciful world.
Now they are rumbling. It can be heard clearly. What in the novel was Kuwait — the possibility of escape — has vanished. By now, mere survival has become the primary concern.
In response to the question a reporter asked Gaza’s children — “What message would you send to the world? — one boy replied: ‘Tell them I was here. And this was my name.’ We cannot allow, as has so often happened in the past, that after a tragedy, the only realistic form of resistance is the memorization of these names, their written preservation, and care. Palestinian literature, like the literature of the oppressed, has always been: not a memento, but a rumbling.
At this point, our cunning opponents are surely already formulating the question: alright, alright, but do you condemn Hamas?
Of course. The same logic must be applied to them as to the government of Israel: one must never, not for a moment, assume that they are identical with the people in whose name they make their decisions. This is perhaps the gravest error one can — and often does — make when assessing the situation, and correspondingly the most powerful communicative and strategic weapon in the Netanyahu government’s arsenal. Not only because this allows any attempt at resistance to be labeled antisemitic, but because the internal opposition — the voices of those Jews and Arab Israelis who have been protesting continuously for two years, risking prison and public scorn, burning their conscription orders publicly, those who have, for at least two years, not felt at home in their country — are pushed to the background by artificial noise. Yet it is primarily them to whom we should pay attention, besides the suffering, bombed, shelled, and starving Palestinian population. And we should especially share in the grief they feel for their Israeli fellow citizens, while at the same time recognizing that grief can only be true and pure when it stands alone — not instrumentalized, and above all not used for vile multiplication. That is to say, the deaths of Israeli citizens massacred on October 7 are not the loss of the State of Israel, but of those who consistently refuse to ignore the suffering of the innocent, and in this, they compromise on nothing.
But — returning to this humiliatingly pathetic affair, in which, unfortunately, the names of numerous public figures and artists appeared3 — people who are important to me (to many, to us), and whose work in other aspects remains fascinating and profound — I want to once again give voice to my astonishment.
Dear Signatories! Dear Those Who Distanced Themselves! Dear Silent Fellow Citizens! You didn’t really think that with this you could exile this historical scandal from Hungarian public life, did you? You didn’t really think that we wouldn’t talk about it, write about it, read about it, think about it, did you? You didn’t really think that you could empty it again, cushion your quiet, so that not everyone would hear your well-articulated silence, did you? Did you think we would forget?
Consider what it is that you are defending.
There isn’t much time left.
(This article could never have appeared in Hungary. It was translated from Hungarian with the help of Márton Vida and Zétény Cseresznyés.)
András Jámbor (1986) is a Hungarian member of parliament, a representative of the left-wing movement Szikra, founder and former editor-in-chief of Mérce, an anti-capitalist, left-wing portal.
Klára Dobrev (1972) is a Hungarian politician and lawyer, a member of parliament, and, since the resignation of her husband Ferenc Gyurcsány in 2025, the president of the Democratic Coalition (DK). Until the emergence of Péter Magyar and the Tisza Party, DK was the strongest party behind Fidesz, though without any real chance of changing government. The Tisza Party has practically devoured its voter base, and as of now even its entry into parliament in the 2026 elections is uncertain. They characterize themselves as a left-wing party, but there is little evidence to support this.
Mihály Takaró (1954) is a far-right literary historian who referred to Nyugat—the journal that was the most influential platform of modern Hungarian literature in the first half of the 20th century—as a “Jewish rag.” Takaró’s support for Israel may at first seem unusual, but only if one does not consider antisemitism from a historical perspective. Naturally, from Takaró’s point of view, the problem with Nyugat was not that it published authors of Jewish origin; here “Jewish” is synonymous with modernity, just as Nazism regarded the Jewish people as the embodiment of communism. (See Gaspar Miklos Tamas’s excellent article on this: Mérce, 2017. Soros Izraelben és Magyarországon [Soros in Israel and in Hungary].) This makes it easier to understand how antisemitism and support for Israel’s genocide can coexist. Of course, this does not apply to all fascists: the situation has posed a difficult dilemma for the far right. On the one hand, many hate Israel for classic antisemitic reasons (though, as is evident, they are not unified in this), while on the other hand, anti-Arab sentiment is also characteristic of these groups. Added to this is the fact that the far right abhors weakness, worships hierarchy and power, and thus, by its very nature, finds it difficult to side with the victim—especially when this would (apparently) mean aligning with the left.
