What does living
in an authoritarian country
and a frog have in common?
I'm sure you've heard
about the metaphor of the boiling frog
that gets slowly cooked
until it dies without even noticing.
Well, this is what Hungary
has felt like for the past 13 years.
After 40 years of state socialism,
we started out with a lukewarm
democracy in the 1990s.
It was not a democratic paradise,
but it was a more or less
functioning democracy.
In 2010, a right-wing
government came to power,
and they have been elected
three more times since then.
This government has taken the most
dangerous aspects of our culture
and made them the main pillars
of their politics:
nationalism, racism, homophobia,
a disdain for poor people
and the general fear
and suspicion of "others."
Today, Hungary is in the gray zone
between a dictatorship and a democracy.
This did not happen overnight.
The heat was turned up under us slowly,
but with a very firm hand.
I can't count how many times
I have heard people say,
"They will not go that far.
This will never happen."
We said this before they made
homelessness a crime in the Constitution.
We said this before they passed
one of the most anti-worker labor laws
of Europe, nicknamed the "slave law,"
which allows an extreme
exploitation of workers.
We said this before they turned our LGBTQ
friends and family into internal enemies,
reduced same-sex couples
to second-class citizens,
and banned sexual education from schools
in the name of protecting children
from pedophilia.
And we also said this before they fired,
censored and intimidated teachers
for telling the truth about their wages
and working conditions
and teargassed high-school students
for protesting for quality education.
But in the end, all of these things
and many more have all happened.
Hungary is not the worst
country in the world.
It's a member of the European Union.
It's considered a high-income economy.
It has regular elections,
and it still has some independent media.
But it's definitely authoritarian
when it comes to how the government
relates to the people
and how most people relate
to the government.
A lot of people give up
and leave our country
not only for economic,
but also for political reasons.
I also often get the question,
"Why are you still here?"
But my answer is very easy.
This is my home.
This is where I belong.
This is where I was fighting
for social justice and democracy
before this regime came to power,
and this is where I will continue to work
for the very same things
after they are long gone.
If you ask government propaganda about me,
I'm a public enemy and the foreign agent
who is trying to destroy Hungary.
This is why they have been harassing,
smearing and targeting me
over the past 10 years.
If you ask me about the government,
they are a bump in the road.
A Himalaya-size bump,
but one that we will definitely overcome.
And I want to stop for a moment here.
I'm not talking about my country
to make you feel sorry for us.
Instead, I would like you to think
about the place where you live.
Do you have a say in how things
are happening there?
Do you feel you have power?
And I'm not asking you if you can vote
or if you have a constitution,
because we have both and we still
don't have democracy.
What I'm asking you
is whether it's ever possible
to achieve change from below.
Democracy is not a noun, but a verb.
It only exists if we do it.
This is the slogan
of the School of Public Life,
an activist school that I co-founded.
In this school, we believe that democracy
is not about consent, but about dissent.
It's not about being a big, happy family
where everyone loves
and agrees with each other.
If there is conflict, struggle and change,
there is a space for democracy to exist.
It's always in the making,
and we are the ones making it.
When I go abroad and tell people
that I'm from Hungary,
I get some sad looks.
And the question,
"Oh what's the name
of your dictator again?"
(Laughter)
And yes, our Prime Minister has become
a symbol of anti-democratic leadership.
But there is also another Hungary.
This Hungary is hardly visible
to the outside world.
And you may never read about us
in The New York Times,
but it's there
and it's made up of many,
many people and organizations
working for social justice,
environmental justice,
workers' rights and quality
public services,
among many other things.
In fact, many Hungarians are not aware
of this other side of Hungary.
And this, I believe,
is a real obstacle to change.
What you see around us as your reality
determines what you believe is possible.
If you only see fear and passivity,
you will not be able to imagine
anything beyond that.
But if you experience alternatives
to social and political oppression,
you will be able to not only imagine,
but create a different
future for all of us.
Let me give you an example
of this other Hungary
that's especially close to my heart.
"The City Is for All" is a pioneer
of the Hungarian housing movement,
where homeless people
and their housed allies
work together for housing justice.
What makes this group really special
is that it takes the message
"don't talk about us, talk with us"
extremely seriously.
In this group, many homeless people
gained back their self-confidence,
sense of belonging and political identity,
all of which are essential for all of us
to exercise our rights as citizens.
In this group, people
like my friends Gyula, Jutka,
Jani and Erika have all become
movement leaders,
even as they were living in self-made
shacks, homeless shelters,
rented rooms or even on the street.
And most importantly to me,
this is also the community
where my own political journey started.
In 2011, activists of The City Is for All
occupied the mayor's office
of the 8th district of Budapest.
With this sit-in,
we tried to stop the violent
criminalization of homelessness
by the chief anti-homeless
strategist of the government,
who also happened to be
the mayor of the district at the time.
I was one of the organizers
of this protest, and in the end,
we were all dragged out
of the building by the police.
With a very unexpected turn of events,
today, I work in the very same building
that we had occupied
more than ten years ago.
I walk the same corridors,
and I have meetings in the mayor's office.
But how is this possible,
how did this happen?
In 2019, a progressive candidate
from a local grassroots organization
challenged the anti-poor mayor
in the local elections.
And to everybody's biggest surprise,
including our own,
he won.
I was on the mayor's team,
and today I work with him as the head
of the Office of Community Participation.
(Applause)
The mission of this office
is to create a new relationship
between the municipality
and local residents.
A relationship based on mutual trust,
power sharing and respect.
This is the complete opposite
of what the central government is doing.
Let me give you an example
of this new relationship.
In our district, there is
a small community garden.
A year ago, it was surrounded by a fence
and there were plans
to build a luxury condo there.
Everybody thought
that it was private property
because of the fence.
But then came a group of active citizens
who discovered that the fence
had been built illegally.
They started to lobby the municipality
to pull the fence down
and give the land back to the public.
They were adamant and,
from a bureaucratic point of view,
really annoying.
But in the end, they reached their goal.
The fence was pulled down,
they created a garden
which is now sustained
by local neighborhood residents.
This is a very small everyday example,
and this is exactly my point.
Democracy emerges out of the everyday
struggle that we call politics.
It's created both
from above and from below.
Those in power have to be open,
responsive and responsible.
People, on the other hand,
have to be smart, organized
and focused on getting what they need.
This is exactly what the story
of the garden is all about.
Let me give you another example.
In Hungary, the central government
is all about concentrating power
and resources for its own interests.
People have absolutely no say
in how they spend public money.
But things are radically
different in both Budapest
and our own small 8th district,
which are both led
by the Democratic opposition.
A few years ago, participatory
budgeting was introduced
in both the city and the district.
Participatory budgeting means
that local residents
get to directly decide
how to spend a certain amount
of the municipal budget.
In reality, this means that politicians
give up some of their power
because they believe
that local residents know best
what they need.
And they really do.
Local people often vote on things
that elected representatives
are otherwise reluctant to do.
People in Budapest have used this power
to build new bus stops, crosswalks,
public toilets and even launch
new social and cultural programs.
I know, you may be thinking now.
"I have never had the say in how
my city spends my tax money.
So why are you complaining about Hungary?"
But remember, I'm showing you
a small island of freedom
in the middle of a country with less
and less political oxygen to breathe.
By opening up the municipal
budget in Budapest,
we are modeling, learning
and teaching a new kind of politics
that builds an alternative
to authoritarianism.
Let me go back to the boiling frog.
Have you ever felt like this frog?
And why is the frog not doing anything?
And where are the other frogs,
and why are they not doing anything?
(Laughter)
You can't just be sitting around
and wait for democracy
to work miraculously on its own.
It will not.
And you can never wait for somebody else
to make democracy work for you.
They will not.
Only you can make democracy work
by standing up,
organizing and pushing the boundaries
of what's possible politically.
Just like we Hungarians
have to fight for our own freedom
and rebuild our own democracy,
you all have to do the same,
no matter where in the world
you are sitting,
in lukewarm or even boiling water.
Enjoy your democracy when you have it,
but don't ever get
too comfortable with it.
Remember the frog
and never take the temperature
of the water for granted.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Chloe Shasha Brooks: Tessza,
thank you for that beautiful,
powerful talk.
I have one follow-up question for you.
There is a sentiment in your talk
that I really love
that's shared by others here today.
This idea, actually, I'll quote you.
You said, "If you asked me
about the government,
they are a bump in the road,
a Himalaya-size bump,
but one we will definitely overcome."
I'm wondering how you keep that sentiment
alive and how that affects your activism.
TU: So I think one of the most
dangerous forms of oppression
is when they oppress your imagination,
when you are not able to imagine anything
beyond what's actually happening to you.
And one of my missions,
I think, in life, is
well, I have a really strong personal
and political imagination.
So one of the missions in my life
is to try to teach other people
to acquire this ability to imagine,
to imagine that things can be different.
And for example, we do this
by trying to show Hungarians
that they have a really rich history
of social movements.
That change was actually brought about
in Hungary through social movements.
And we are also helping people through
our political work and education work.
We are trying to show them a different
version of what's possible,
and helping them to inhabit the space
that exists between what is now
and what could be,
and trying to teach them
the way to get there.
CSB: That's really amazing,
thank you so much for your talk.
TU: Thank you.
(Applause)