Screenshot: International Women’s Strike in Budapest organised by Rhythms of Resistance on March 8th 2017. Fair use.As queer-feminist activists we are used to dealing with the right-wing media’s attacks on our activities and communities. However, reading an article published on openDemocracy this April engaging in a similar kind of “critique” – was shocking. Not because transnational activism is, or should be, immune to criticism. Rather because the authors of “Virtue-signalling as a route to social status” engage in an under-researched, vehement attack on grassroots activist groups based in Hungary using misrepresentations of the local activist context aimed at burning the bridges of transnational solidarity meticulously built over recent years.
Therefore, we are writing this response to critically tackle several of the problematic claims the authors make and correct the falsehoods they have spread.
We contest the authors’ claim of an exclusive right to accurately represent the Hungarian context. We argue that this claim rests on two types of misrepresentation. First, they give an unsubstantiated caricature picture of local struggles. Second, their article misrepresents, sidelines, or straightforwardly denies the existence/importance of numerous cleavages, the salience of racism and a colonial past in structuring the current political context in Hungary. Finally, beyond the article’s effect in misrepresenting the activist communities we are part of and pitting political agendas against each other, this kind of argumentation is detrimental to a local context the authors persistently silence.
