Art Forms Join Forces Against Racism in Budapest for Anti-Racism Day
Roundtable talks, a film screening and the opening of an art exhibition with live music were on offer at the joint event of three Hungarian NGOs on the occasion of the UN Anti-Racism Day on 21 March 2017 at the European Youth Centre Budapest, a regular location for NGO-s to host Human Rights related events.
The UN declared 21 March the international day for the elimination of racial discrimination in 1966, to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre that happened six years earlier in the Republic of South Africa. On the infamous day the police of the apartheid regime shot 69 unarmed protesters at a demonstration against limiting the free movement of blacks within the African country. The memorial day is a national holiday in the Republic of South Africa and several NGOs worldwide also organize programs and campaigns on this day with an anti-racist message.
The program called “Anti-Racist Day 2017” at the European Youth Centre Budapest was co-organized by the national campaign committee of No Hate Speech Movement, a campaign of the Council of Europe, Hope for Children Hungary and Subjective Values Foundation, in cooperation with the National Youth Council. The five-hour event was opened by László Milutinovits, Educational Advisor for the Council of Europe at 4pm, followed by a series of
presentations. Bálint Josa (No Hate Speech Movement campaign committee) told the audience about the means and importance of countering hate speech, Lilla Nedeczky (National Youth Council) addressed the role of anti-discrimination in the advocacy of youth interests and Marcell Lőrincz (Subjective Values Foundation) presented preliminary results from the shadow report of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) on racism and discrimination against migrants in Europe, to be published in May 2017. The findings of ENAR were discussed by civil activists Attila Mészáros (Jövőkerék Foundation), Diana Szántó (Artemisszió Foundation) and political analyst Andrea Virág (Republikon Institute) at a roundtable event after the presentation session.
As part of the program, a painting exhibition by Péter Nyári Sárkány, a Hungarian painter of Roma origin, was opened at the European Youth Centre Budapest, including a guided tour by the artist himself and a music program by a Roma duo, consisting of Lajos Kispaci Balogh and Gusztáv Csompi Balogh. Nyári Sárkány’s works, evoking the radical formal experiments of the avant-garde, recurrently reflect on the three identities that have been crucial for him in different stages of his life, due to his connection to Roma traditions and to both Jewish and Christian religions. The exhibition was on display at the European Youth Centre Budapest for a month.
The dialogue between multiple religions and cultures is also at the focus in the film And Europe Will Be Stunned (2007-2011) by Israeli-Dutch video artist Yael Bartana, presented at the European Youth Centre Budapest as a special screening event of the No Hate Film Club, a regular program of the No Hate Speech Movement. In Bartana’s cinematic work, which attempts to re-imagine Polish national identity in an inclusive way, a fictional political movement invites 3.3 million Jews to settle down in Poland, filling up the void left behind by the Jewish population of the country that mostly fell victim to the Holocaust or was forced to leave the Poland after WWII. At a roundtable after the screening, film historian László Strausz, anthropologist Richárd Papp and poet Márió Z. Nemes examined the concepts of interculturality and cultural hybridity in a Central and Eastern European context.
