Nothing to celebrate

It's unknown whether it was a shot glass thrown against a wall or a brick thrown at a police officer. It's also unknown who threw the object, whether it was Marsha P. Johnson or Sylvia Rivera , both Black trans women and sexual dissidents. But what is known is that one of them threw a glass, a rock, a brick, and then everyone else came . That night of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar in New York that until then had served as a secret haven, began the revolution that continues to this day.

From the genealogy of brick, of Paris is Burning , of the street, of the cobblestones, of the margins, of the laws of dangerousness, of the prisons, of the pirates and the whores and the hoes, of the insults we constantly throw around, of the blows from which we recover, of all this fury and all this violence exerted on us and on our bodies for years and years and years, that's where we come from. With such a tradition of resistance , I don't know what Orbán expected to happen when he banned the LGBTQ+ Pride march this Saturday in Budapest.

We all know what happened: the city was packed, with those 100,000 people taking to the streets, even though fines and criminal penalties had been announced. Even though the bridges had been filled with facial recognition cameras to make it easier for the police. And even though a Nazi demonstration had been allowed on the same route. Because what Orbán did do was encourage conflict. Then he said he didn't want clashes and that the police wouldn't act. But acting also means leaving the thugs out front to smell their prey. Acting is pulling the triggers so others can shoot .

Early Monday morning, 56 years after that first revolution, and next to the legendary Stonewell Inn , a symbol of resistance and rebellion, there was a shooting in which two teenagers were injured after the Pride marches. "At a time when our city should be celebrating members of our diverse LGBTIQ+ community, incidents like this are devastating," wrote New York Mayor Eric Adams on X.

From Trump to Orbán . This is the new politics of attrition and confrontation, of the endless incitement of hatred, which is so similar to the same old politics. Orbán's supposed justification for banning the demonstration was the protection of children. Orbán and the far-right leaders should be reminded that children are only protected in a world where there are no wars, no repression, no beatings, no shootings, no murders for being who you are.