Shafi: Long frozen under the grip of Viktor Orban, the winds of change are finally blowing in Hungary. Just months after his election, Prime Minister Peter Majar is leading an astonishing cleanup job, sweeping in anti corruption legislation, potentially removing the current president, and plans to clamp the super rich with the wealth tax. It would mean Hungary would become the first current EU member to introduce a new wealth tax since the nineteen eighties. But that is just half of the story. There is another untold side of communities under the shadow of oppression, swapping ideas and moving money, keeping independent media and grassroots organisations often deemed far too radical for the government afloat. This is the story of how everyday people through the act of giving, forged a political resistance from the margins of society. Hello and welcome to And Some Change. I'm Shafi Masadiq, the news editor at Alliance magazine, where we hold the world of philanthropy to account. What even the hell is philanthropy, you may ask? Good question. Because it really is an opaque sector where money, power and ideas flow. But rather than centering grants or fundraising, we'll look at change itself. How it happens, who drives it, who pays for it, who benefits, and who gets left out. altogether. We won't sidestep the difficult and sometimes taboo topics, or question the very systems we've inherited. Systems that can constrain, erase, or oppress. There are no easy narratives. The reality of trying to make the world a better place is a messy task. But There are always shards of light if only you just look close enough. The energy of change in Hungary is palpable.

Gyuri: there is no more of such state propaganda which was you know pumping you know negative images and negative messages into the society. So Fidesz was using the the 20th centuries, s 20th century propaganda, you know, elements like the television, radio, and billboards and printed newspapers.

Shafi: That's Juri Hamuri. He lives in Budapest and works for the Roots and Wings Foundation. He, like so many others, is emerging from years of working and living in survival mode.

Gyuri: every day there was a message that we are under some kind of attack and there is a a constant threat which is you know looming in in the shadows. and just waiting for you know the the Hungarian government to collapse Orban system to collapse and then you know everything is going to hell basically

Shafi: Soon after Jordi spoke, something remarkable happened. Hungarian public media channels, once close to the former regime that had previously pushed discriminatory anti-migrant sentiment, displayed a blank screen and an apology before returning to air once again. I sat down with both Juri and his Hungarian counterpart, Thamas Chaulski, a trustee of Global Fund for Community Foundations, to dig a little bit deeper into how years of local resistance finally cracked open wider political change.

Tamás Scsaurszki: a number of psychological sort of things emerge. One that many organizations feel that they have had huge losses in the last 16 years. And we can't just sort of ignore them. And what I mean losses, you know, like I mean losses that many many talented people left. The sector, you know, looked for work outside. They were disappointed. Many people feel who remained in the sector that 16 years, you know, it was half of their working life. You know, this was destroyed. You know, this was destroyed. They lost a lot of opportunities to contribute to society, to improve the life of their communities. And I would say that the last thing that is emerging now, and we started talking about, is that, you know, that compared to our neighboring countries, you know, other European countries, we really lost 16 years. You know, we are so back and we are behind that somehow, you know, we have to reconcile this change. And and this this change is really affecting people.

Shafi: For the first time in years, Hungarians understood that collective action was possible. Much of the mobilization that ousted Orban unfolded outside of formal institutions, in what is referred to as the Thesa Islands, thousands and thousands of small volunteer-led groups working outside the traditional party politics system. You see, what emerged back in April actually started from the bottom up years before. It started with ordinary people coming together to talk, swap ideas, and move money into causes they truly believed in.

Gyuri: there was this slow process of you know people who were not satisfied with you know where hunger is going just start to talk each other to they started to learn you know what is happening in fact in in Hungary. So they invited, you know, people to their locations into their own, you know, small local group groups of people to learn about what is happening in Hungary from a societal point of view, from economical point of view. And and gradually they understood, you know, the how desperate the situation in Hungary from many aspects. And they started to ask themselves, you know, what can we do? And the answer was that we have to do something, you know, which is our scale because we cannot challenge the government on a national level. We cannot challenge the government on a municipal level, because municipalities has no power right now in Hungary. So what is our level where we can act? And that's a local level. So they started to organize, you know, basic charity. first in you know in their own environment and then they started to connect with each other, these small groups of people called Tisa Islands. And they then, you know, they started to go out from their own local environments and talk started to talk to people, especially in more rural areas or smaller villages.

Shafi: But here's the catch. In many parts of the world, civil society groups, that's the fancy word to describe people who organise without the aim of making a profit and are independent from the state. They, along with the help of funders, often act in political spaces. In Hungary, the script was flipped. Civil society's legitimacy only came from being far removed from politics to avoid confrontations with the governing elite. Meanwhile, The general public were quietly giving themselves for change. Independent media, civil society and activists were kept afloat, and sometimes flourished thanks to crowdfunding. Without the state, people looked to themselves.

Gyuri: many smaller organizations had no other means but to turn to their immediate, you know, circles, the the local citizens. So this is something which is not necessarily highlighted that there was this transformation over the years, which was you know forced by the government. But at the same time it shows that the general public also understood that if they want to keep some kind of you know free institutions, they have to do something on their own own and maybe we can say that the first step in this process of you know you know challenging Orban's government started with philanthropy. Some basic philanthropy and some basic charity.

Shafi: The story of Hungary to outsiders has only really been told through the eyes of Viktor Orban and his cronies. But there is another side. A quiet revolution of everyday donations from communities, energizing all sorts of organisations, from feminist groups to foundations helping migrants. I asked Tomash whether it was fair to say that the story of Hungarian resistance could be found through informal giving practices and the building of community foundations, places where essentially donations from individuals, businesses and other groups are housed.

Tamás Scsaurszki: We have to be able to tell stories, not just Orban stories, but the other stories. And for instance, this picking on what Yuri said, this small donations, you know. of people and I would say everyday people like 10, 20, 30 pounds, 30 euros monthly or or or regularly, what really kept many issues and many organizations important to people alive and and afloat. And I think that's that's very very important to to understand that the that the i their importance, the small donations' importance has been growing ever since the Orban government got to power. Just the non-profit information and training center conducted a survey on fundraising among NGOs. It's not a representative survey, but more many hundred organisations. reply to this survey last year and they confirmed that even in the last three years when Hungary experienced you know an economic downturn has increased. So you know so really this quiet revolution of small donations is happening and I think it really sort of keeps keeps important organizations you know, afloat and working. And I just want to say two things. One, that it's not just money, you know, it's it's a way to communicate with your public. It's it's credibility, it's really, you know, to be responsive to what your your constituency, what your audience wants. And it's a two way communication and I think it's very important. And this is the second thing, this is a huge shift from The era prior to Orban, when, you know, we used to call it the application phase, when all organizations could do is to write an application. You know, write an application to a big donor. This is a huge shift. And I just want to say that, you know, this is this is a positive story emerging out of this really dark age of 16 years.

Shafi: Just a year after Viktor Orban came to power in 2010, the first community foundation was established, forcing some decision-making power away from the top and back into the hands of local people. Today, Hungary has 11 community foundations.

Gyuri: one which was you know intentionally destroyed during the sixteen years was trust. You know, trust between Individuals trust between communities, trust between individuals and institutions. So there's the that that was one of the major major goals of the Fidesz government, destroy trust. And therefore, you know, these organizations, community foundations, having you know a more difficult path to take because they that that's basically their currency, trust. So it was a really difficult job to, you know, from from one person to another to to explain people that you know they can be trusted. They are not like you know other institutions in Hungary. They are transparent and and they are going to support local causes from you know pe from the local local local money they they are receiving or fundraising. So it was a really difficult task to convince people to trust them. But I think that what's coming is that you know we have to start rebuilding trust or we have to develop you know the infrastructure of trust, let's say. And and they can start operating, you know, as they were intended. So to reach their full potential, you know, it's gonna be much easier in this environment and hopefully you know the legal environment is also going to change because I would like to highlight you know the work of the new government just has started and you know we have a lot of of issues to to resolve.

Shafi: Hungary's oligarchs, long in the pocket of Orban, are now sitting nervously. Some have already handed their assets to the state. Why? Because there's talk of a wealth tax. If so, Hungary would become the first current member of the European Union to introduce a new wealth tax since the nineteen eighties. It is a remarkable turn of fate. Especially given that it's a centre-right politician ushering in a policy usually reserved for much more progressive circles. The wealth tax already has popularity behind it, perhaps justifiably so. The top 1% in Hungary own about 35% of assets. That includes Viktor Orban's son-in-law, who has an estimated 245 million in his pocket. Meanwhile, ordinary workers pay welfare contributions of eighteen point five percent, while the VAT rate is the highest in the EU at twenty seven percent. The result an unjust tax system burdening the poorest with little in return. Critics say wealth tax would ultimately be a barrier for philanthropists giving to charitable causes. The proposed wealth tax has most certainly ignited a new debate not seen or heard since the 1990s. For Jori in Budapest, philanthropy from the wealthiest, as done in the US, doesn't necessarily create a good society.

Gyuri: What is the relationship between wealth and you know legitimacy or accountability what we talked about. So how do we relate to this kind of status what what these people are having and yes a very big portion of wealthy people in Hungary got wealthy because the Hungarian government favored them or put them there. So it's not their achievement essentially. It's, you know, they are oligarchs, you know, they are puppets in this sense. And, you know Hungarian society doesn't necessarily want them to have an opinion or say in what's going to happen in the society. So there is, I think the debate not is not necessarily about taxation in this pure sense. It's more about, you know, where we want to go as a country, what's our relationship to accountability, trust, participation, and you know, maybe we can find the space for philanthropy and tax web. Discussion in this bigger framework. So, and I also don't necessarily see also that that wealthy people played such a role in supporting civil society or developing civil society. If they did, that was really in secrecy. And As far as I know, they supported only causes where they were somehow in impacted by that cause.

Shafi: The future of Hungary is up for grabs. But there's certainly more hope and optimism than ever before. Keep an eye out on Hungary's race against the super-rich being played out against the backdrop of a record number of billionaires and our first trillionaire. One thing's for sure: the levers for change from ordinary people can lay the seeds for momentum that appear years later. Thank you for listening to Ansome Change, a podcast by Alliance magazine.