Protests and demonstrations have been very much in the news lately, from the vast numbers supporting Palestinians (or Hamas) to Gay Pride events. But a large and family-friendly “Peace Walk” on June 1, numbering between 100 and 200,000 in Budapest, Hungary, has been ignored in Western mainstream media.

Why would CNN or the BBC ignore something this big? The answer is simple: it doesn’t fit into their narrative.

Some background is needed to appreciate why Hungarians were so enthusiastic about the Peace March.

The event was organised by the CÖF-CÖKA, or Civil Union Forum Movement. First, a word about the meaning of ”Civil” or ”Civic” in Hungarian. The Hungarian word is polgár which means ”burgher” or ”citizen”, but its meaning is very significant in Hungarian.

From the middle of the 16th century, for 150 years, Central Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and its population was severely reduced by war and slave-taking.

Later, members of the Habsburg dynasty were elected as kings of Hungary but they did not observe to the country’s constitution, provoking many uprisings. These rulers held Hungary back, regarding it as an agricultural storehouse for their broader empire. Hungary’s leaders wanted to modernise, but they were frustrated by this policy.

Then came the Revolution and Independence War of 1848-49, which saw Hungary defeat the Austrian Empire but experience defeat at the hands of the Russian Empire.

After the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, which Austria lost, Hungary’s liberal leaders demanded autonomy from Austria, resulting in the “Austro-Hungarian Compromise” of 1867. This created the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy -- Austria and its territories were ruled by the Emperor and the same man ruled Hungary as a king. Official letterheads bore the letters ”K.U.K.”, or Kaiserlich und Königlich.(Imperial and Royal.)

With the Compromise, Hungarians ruled Hungary (the historical country, not the present one) and were able to industrialise, modernise and create Budapest and other impressive Hungarian cities. This period was known as the polgáriasodás or something like ”becoming civic”.

In Hungarian, therefore, the term ”Civic Democracy” means the same as ”Liberal Democracy” does in English. (In conservative circles the word ”liberal” is not a compliment, for it implies that one might have been a Communist collaborator.)

Therefore, the Civil Union would be called a ”Democratic” or ”Liberal” Union in English, if the organisation were in an English-speaking country.

Media distortions

Interestingly, the few news outlets that did cover this march got it wrong. Voice of America (VOA)  said that its organisers called the demonstration a “peace march”. But CÖF events have been called “Peace Marches” for years --  this is the tenth one. The article ignored what the march was about and concentrated on party politics.

Even Reuters claimed: “Tens of thousands of Hungarians marched through downtown Budapest on Saturday in support of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban”.

This is very coloured language. The hundreds of thousands became tens of thousands. Orban became a “nationalist Prime Minister”. Is he a “nationalist”? Compared to what? The average American? I doubt it. Reuters goes on:

“Orban, in power since 2010, hopes his Fidesz party, which is not affiliated with any grouping in the European Parliament (EP), will benefit from a rise in far-right support across Europe as he prepares to take over the European Union's rotating presidency in the second half of the year.”

“Far-Right” according to whom? If holding on to the country’s 1000-year-old Christian heritage, rejecting unlimited migration, rejecting the LGBTQ ideology; and resisting being dragged into a Europe-wide war is “far-right”, than chalk me up as “far-right”! Has US President Joe Biden also become “far-right” after signing an executive orderlimiting the number of illegal migrants into America?

As the classic American journalism textbook author Melvin Mencher wrote in his News Reporting and Writing: “One of the best preventatives for imbalance and lack of fairness is the advice a senior copy editor gave: ‘Eschew adjectives’”. The reporter and editors at Reuters clearly failed the “balanced and fair” test in this case!

Hungarians as a whole, and CÖF in particular, were not acting because they are” pro-Putin”, but because of recent statements by Western leaders that sound very much like calls for widening the Russia-Ukraine war.

A century of tears

To understand Hungary’s reluctance to bang war drums and the popularity of CÖF’s Peace March, it is necessary to know that for Hungary, the 20th century was disastrous. Hungary did not wish to get into World War I. Its Prime Minister, Count István Tisza, voted against going to war, to no avail. In World War II, Hungary succeeded in staying out of the war until 1941 but was forced to participate by a combination of a Soviet air attack and Nazi German pressure.

After World War I, Hungary was partitioned; many towns and cities were cut in half much as Berlin was during the Cold War (and remain so today). Three million Hungarians were separated from their kith and kin by international borders and subjected to brutal treatment by the ”successor states”, invented by the Western Allies.

The states were similar to those African and Middle Eastern states which had nothing to do with the realities on the ground. The key Allied principle was to avoid asking the people what they wanted. Woodrow Wilson’s “self-determination” was a joke. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia have disappeared, but minority rights are still largely ignored, notably in Ukraine.

World War II was far worse. Hungary had 250,000 killed and wounded soldiers; Nazi Germany killed more than 500,000 Jews and many other civilians. When the War ended, the killing did not. The Soviets deported between 600,000 and 1,000,000 men, women and children from Hungary, of whom fewer than half ever returned. During “liberation” by the Soviet Red Army 700,000 women were raped.

No West European nation had anywhere near such serious and tragic losses.