Interview with the New Europeans
 door Sam Coleman
Hungarian students are ready for another
revolution, starting in courtyards and ending in the ivory towers
The ceiling is tattered, pieces of reinforcing steel and fiberglass hang precipitously
down from above, it seems like a large piece of structure may drop down and
slam into a table at any time or worse, on someone's head. Finding this place
was a chore: the back alleys of Budapest
are a notorious rat den of defunct street signs; piled cars and soot darkened
architecture with this neighborhood having the added charm of being a gypsy
area known for its pickpockets and domestic violence. 'You want to go where?'
the taxi driver asks incredulously when given the address. I explain sheepishly
that I want to find where students hang out in Budapest,
chill with them and hear their thoughts from another angle other than one I'd
find on a campus. The driver shrugs. 'Your business, but I tell you, that
area is a shithole and students, they'll swim in their own piss given the
choice. You'll see what I mean,' he ends with a cautionary wink.
Looking around, I see what he means. Just as this thought enters my brain,
clearly as day, a small puff of concrete exhales out of a crack. I scan the
rest of the ceiling—especially the area close to my head—for more evidence of
disaster. It should intimidate the crowd that drinks enormous beers from
oversized glasses, it ought to cause a pale alarm from these urban student
types who choose this and places like it as their haunts of choice. It
doesn't though, they seem completely oblivious to the dilapidation, to the
architectural neglect.
There are some hundreds of people here, most sitting and chatting,
debating with half animated grins, frolicking with Central European
reserve and they seem to be enjoying it. Budapest's
newest student craze is taking old courtyard buildings like this, asking the
city for permission to start a university club and turning the challenged
structure into a hip spot for entertainment and culture. 'The kért
(garden/courtyard) concept came about a few years ago, to give kids some new
possibilities from the typical government sponsored venues that we used to
have here in Hungary,' explains Támas Szábo, under secretary in the Ministry
of Education.
'They are also useful in that they are affordable compared to the
nightclubs that we have in Budapest;
this seems to be a good middle way.' The Kért clubs are all in Pest
and have a mix of culture, politics and activities thrown in, akin to a squat
but with a very focused idea of what they wish to attain. 'Look,' says Agnes
Radnoti, manager of Szoda Kért, one of the main venues in the summer as we
chat in the Szimpla Kért venue on Kazincky utca. 'What do you see?' she asks
pointedly. I look around: it's a four sided enclosed courtyard complex built
in the late 1800s, maybe early XX century, extremely run down with four
floors and an open ceiling, maybe 24 flats of around 80 sq meters each. Like
a moron I describe the physical impressions to her and she politely nods here
head all the while. 'Well,' she begins when I stop, wondering if that was the
intent of her question, 'I see potential, real potential
to make a change in the cultural landscape here. We turn these places into
galleries, into debate spaces, theaters, yoga rooms, there's so much here to
work with and with the right structures—committees, oversight and
participation—we're really forming a new urban ecology.'
The Kért gentrification is a metaphor for the grass roots changes that are
facing Hungary and even East
Europe as a whole. Gone are the days of heavy state supported
education based on ideology and soviet demands, now the emphasis is on how to
finance the new realities of life in the new Europe
and a globalized world with education being one of the main challenges. Like
the buildings that house the Kért clubs, academia must learn new and flexible
structures that allow a greater involvement of participation by all
stakeholders, not exactly a Central European trait.
Change, though slow, is coming. The 76,000 university students enrolled in
Hungary
have seen a rapid adoption of western European academic standards and the
government is actively pursuing a policy that decentralizes institutions to
make them more client related and student based. 'We're trying, that's for
sure. We give departments and universities the chance to show that they can
create new structures that work rather than ones we think should work. It's a
process but anyone can see that ten years on, we've made progress. It's
something we're proud of,' says Szábo. Hungary
closed 10% of their universities in the last ten years and have miraculously
maintained the free tuition structure that it enjoyed through socialism, an
achievement in most people's book.
'That's good, I think it's important that education stay free,' says
Martin Piroca (23), an agricultural student from Gödöllö, 'in that the
government has done well.' Others are more critical of these optimistic
platitudes. 'Hungary's
education is like a huge corporation, very bureaucratic, not rationale in
their financial buying. It's an ideology that's hard to break. I've been
studying in Denmark, the US and Spain and I find that we're too theoretical
here, even after all these years we need change, lots more,' says Réka
Miháltz, a pretty 27 year old studying anthropology at the Eötvös Loran
University.
Réka is talking with some of her friends, musing on how it feels to be a
student in this curious landscape of Hungary,
how it feels to be a New European. Talking in one of the side rooms of
Szimpla Kért, a wide open area that is tucked within the mirage of spaces and
nooks of the venue, Réka and crew are the exact kinds of students that are
making the new Hungary
and vocalizing what they expect from it. They are actively involved with
grass roots activism of various sorts, using all kinds of technology to keep
their coalition of like minded idealists together for causes and actions.
Education is an important topic to them. 'Look at what's happening to the
teachers here, they get paid crap. My mother is a university professor and
she gets paid 90-100,000 forints (euro 400); that's horrible, you need a
minimum of 150,000 forints in Hungary now and even kids getting out of
university get that much. How do you expect teachers to be attracted to the
profession that way?' Réka bemoans. Martin agrees. 'So many teachers have to
run a business on the side just to keep their finances in order, it's sad
really. And all the while classroom sizes are increasing, doubling even. Sure
education is still free here but let's be real; you get what you pay for.' A
third student named Gyula interjects with a cautionary tale. "In Romania
they are going through something similar and I tell you it's bad, they've let
it get to the point that they can barely heat the schools and my friends have
to bribe the teachers for better grades. If I didn't know my friends to be
truthful people I'd laugh and say these were wives' tales. But I believe them
and it makes me realize that while things in Hungary
may be bad, we have a chance to make it better. Many countries don't have
that chance, they're really trapped.
We talk further and it comes out that Réka, Martin and Gyula's group
(called the Young Greens though nothing to do with the political party) will
be taking over a Kért in the coming months. 'We have some ideas on how we'll
do things, it will be a cool Kért and of course we hope to inspire students
to realize that it's our world, it's our time,' says Réka with attitude and
defiance. I've just looked into the face to the New Europe and I find myself
grinning from ear to ear. This bodes well.
|