I’m off to India to participate in the Global Voices 2006 Summit. Hope to see old friends and find new ones.

Last year I came back energized and full of great impressions. This time the cultural environment of the summit location (New Delhi) will hopefully also add to the porbably again exciting athmosphere of the event. Can’t wait! And I don’t have to wait too long now

This time you are in for a treat

I have come across two English language blogs that are although very different in many ways I found both very well worth of noting. They address very different point of views of Hungary, one is written by a Hungarian, the other is not and so on you will see.

The first one is ran by Edward Hugh and called Hungarian Economy Watch. Hugh left a marvelous and insightful comment recently on Hungarian Accent. He is a macroeconomist and it is great to know that people like him take the time to care! Thank you Hugh!

I myself wrote a lot in my the previous posts about the scandals and burning questions of Hungary. BUT Hungary is NOT only about scandals, problems and painful things! I love my country, I love to live here. Budapest is a great metropolitan city, there are sooo many things happening in culture and business that it is just to be here and near .
If you have friends who visited Hungary they can and will confirm this .
If not, here is another English language blog source for you, called Budapest Hungary. Its about what to see, where to go and what to do here. Not sure where to go for your next vacation? Check it out and you will know Hungary is the place to visit. And if you coma and want to meet me just drop me an email .

Technorati Tags:
Economy
Tourism
Hungary

If you ever read my blog you know I always limited the expression of my own opinion and was try to show what Hungarian bloggers are writing about. This (hopefully once time) I’m going to make an exception.

I want to write about four topics: the violence, the lies, the media and the path ahead.

Most of the protests were not as violent as some of the most covered incidents (e.g. the siege of the Hungarian State TV) would imply. One of the largest dailies in Hungary recently had an article that organized criminal activities are behind the continuous violent activities. The first day events might have been spontaneous (or not?), but the upcoming are events are organized and there seem to be little clue about how is the “puppet master” behind all of this. Some seem to recognize the fanatic and bounder fans of certain soccer team and one of the assumptions is that they just seek trouble. I don’t not and for the time being I don’t care whichever theory is true. Why? I think violent actions have to be put to a halt! They are undermining every effort of peaceful protestors. As a matter of fact this could also be the reason for it, I can’t know. So based on pure speculation any side can be behind the violent actions and I have a doubt we will ever know the truth about it. Anyhow these should be stopped.

The Prime Minister in his incriminated May speech had a remark about the upcoming economical restrictions:
“There are going to be protest. It is allowed to protest in front of the Parliament. Sooner or later they will get tired of it and go home.”
Eventually and sadly he is going to be right, but in a slightly different context. I bet that the protestors’ persistence of not giving up is also at least partially powered by these sentences. They want to show that they do not give up. It is almost ironic to see how differently the two major political sides see the reason of the protests. Left wing tries to focus on the restrictions and how inevitable these are, as if this would be the main reason. If that would be the case, people would have been on the streets months ago. Right wing tries to shape our vision to see a country-wide consensus of impeaching of the government which is again a strong shift. The country is divided again and I think one of the most disgusting and worst sins of politics is when they try to force conflicts on citizens just to get a necessary amount of voter support. This is so lame and so unfortunately and tragically typical of the Hungarian political landscape in the past two decades (or it might even date back much-much longer…).

On the other side there is an aspect the Prime Minster desperately tries to move attention away. In his speech he clearly admits that his government under his first term and during the elections was lying . Under normal circumstances if a country leader admits in a recorded “testimony” (even if it was only a close-audience party speech) that he won the elections by lies this should be the Watergate case of Hungary. So it seems for some reason these are not normal times. And yes, probably these are not normal times. What shook me even more are two words I heard this week in the news about the recent meeting of the Prime Minister and the Ambassadors delegated to Hungary. The spokeswoman in the radio interview was referring to one of the PM’s statements, when he was assuring the Ambassadors that he wants a Hungary of “less lies” . I might be wrong, but for me this does not mean a Hungary without lies. Less lies means we will continue to lie, just … ehm… less. And this interpretation really troubles me. I don’t know if there is any proper way to ensure accountability of politicians and to give responsibility in what they are doing. It would be a sad and disturbing statement that in our democracy accountability and responsibility do not exists. So I guess the only logical conclusion can be that at top levels there is none who would have interest in building such a control mechanism and that the will and well being of people (i.e. seen and considered only as voters) is only important until they vote and then for four years we do not care.

The other interesting thing is the media response and I want to concentrate on one channel: the Hungarian State TV. For years now, they are struggling to get higher viewer ratings. And then finally came a once-in-a-century opportunity: the protestors go there to present their petition. This was such a rare occasion of grabbing the attention of gigantic portion of the viewers. I mean isn’t one of the most important competitive edge of a media source at this level is “you heard it first hear”. Even if they do not allow one of the protestors to read it, one of the anchors could do it. What bad would have happened if they would have read the petition? It has been widely presented by other channels in a short time. And the country did not exploded because of a short petition. If contra-protestors bring their contra-petition lets read that too. Party neutrality is NOT declining access to public attention, but to give the opportunity to all sides to respond. And this mediated conversion would have happened live, “only on” that TV channel. The short-sighted leadership of TV channel foolishly has missed to grab onto this opportunity. And they paid a terrible price: the siege and all the damage in the people, building and in valuable historical archives. An avoidable price in conclusion of an incompetent leadership decision … again.

So what’s ahead? The quick economic actions are required. There is no doubt. There are no other quick-win opportunities that to turn to tax increases and benefit restrictions. I just hope that when they planned the program they also had growth in mind in mid-term. To set out a fire we should not sacrifice THE future, but as we cannot undo past what we can do is to sacrifice part of present FOR THE future.
I think new elections would not help either. The actions to somewhat balance the budget deficit are urgent and unavoidable and new elections could possibly endanger and definitely delay that. I think resignation of the Prime Minister would also not solve too many things as I do not see any viable alternative figure in the government who could manage to do the reforms, not a single one. What I would like to see is probably trivial throughout this entry. I would like to see peace returned to Hungary. I would like to see the governmental intentions clearly for bettering the Hungarian economy. I would like to see a highly accountable country leadership structure, where they accept and face responsibilities. And I would like every politician to please STOP LYING… for at least 5 minutes please. I know I’m such and idealist.

Tags:
Protest
Hungary
Lies
Accountability

Not long after I started this blog I wrote that it is not easy to chose topics which could be really interesting to an outsider about Hungary. These past weeks have proven me wrong. And I think I’m not very happy about it. First an intro of what is happening and then a few reactions from Hungarian blogs.

This time (two days ago) it started with a leaked speech recorded back to May at a party forum. The Prime Minister was speaking. And although there are a few way you can read some of his statements there was clear enough sentences about how much they lied to the public in the past 4 years, also that they cannot be proud of anything from their previous governmental period except that they were able to win again with lies.
The style of the speech (i.e. usage of swear words) is also disturbing to hear from a Prime Minister.

Instant political reactions are naturally very different on the two major sides.
The Prime Minister tries to point to the fact that at least finally someone “bravely” stepped forward and is promising to work to solve the economic problems via strict and honest actions.
The opposition party leader (who have just spoken live on TV in an interview about this affair) of course focuses attention much more on the responsibilities of the past 4 years. Also claims that honesty is questionable as the confessions were not addressed to the nation, but only to a close party group.

The question has been raise instantly about who might have leaked the tape. Whether it is a provocation of the opposition party before the upcoming (in two weeks) municipal elections. Or is the Socialist party brave enough to use this as a method to drive attention away from the very strong and painful taxation and other actions that were taken.

But that is not all and probably not the most important aspect. Thousands moved to the Parliament to protest against the Prime Minister (requesting resignation) and somehow yesterday things got out of hand, when a smaller group of protestors move to the building of the Hungarian State TV. They wanted their petition to be read on live TV. (The petition was demands for the resignation of the Prime Minister, the rethinking of the economic restriction program, the impeachment of the government, immediate new elections.)

But officials denied their request. Police forces were unable to handle the situation and the “siege” was successful. Outsides cars burnt, inside the building and equipment are damaged.

If some of you are surprised about the fact that why they wanted to get into especially in the building of the state TV, this is an iconic factor dating back to the revolutions of 1956. Ironically enough, even the state TV used this factor a few months ago in its marketing campaign: “if there would be a revolution which TV station would You want to take over?”. I’m sure this was not the answer they were hoping to get.

I was watching the live TV coverage of the siege and I have to say I agree with those who say that only a small minority of the mass have turned to violent actions. Many have stayed far away from trouble. I have heard opinions that this small minority of violent protestors were part of a political provocation riding the wave of the people’s anger because of the aforementioned Prime Minister speech.

what do some of the bloggers write about in this situation?

En1 writes that if the Prime Minster were a responsible leader, he would step forward and announce his resignation, because for this matter he is the only responsible.

Korbely’s opinion is that these violent mob actions should not be confused with a revolution. Instead these are illegitimate actions for any cause and are much similar to a violent soccer-fan-war than a revolution.

Toros writes that the Rector of one of the largest Universities of Hungary (ELTE, Eötvös Loránd Science University) declared today an extraordinary Rector “holiday” for protective reasons because of a “planned event of an unidentified non-university organization”.

There are opinions about the media coverage also, especially about an opposition-party-close news TV called HirTV.

Kond is worried about freedom of press. Because HirTV has been banned from the covering. Especially as CNN and BBC has also used their previous coverage about the siege, so they should be treated with respect in protection of freedom of press.

On the other side Bakura writes that the siege coverage of HirTV was in his opinion disgusting as the coverage were cheering for the mob.

Today the 5 parties of the Hungarian Parliament have singed a common statement of disproval of violent protests. Still as I write these lines according to news there are more people on the streets and police forces are on a much higher readiness state. God help us to get over this crises soon, without any further extension of violence.

Tags:
Lies
Riot
Hungary
Prime Minister
Impeachment

The quote is from our Prime Minster and I have this strange feeling that under no circumstances and in no reasoning situation should anytime the current Hungarian Prime Minister make a statement like that. Of course he did not mean everyday citizens; the story is much more complicated. It was a huge communication failure of which the opposition party took obvious and quick advantage of. But we’ll get back to this by the end of this post, let’s not rush so ahead.

But where did all of this started? About a week ago the new government revealed its plans about the upcoming actions to balance the budget. They proposed taxation changes (personal and corporate), and my estimate is that almost all families are affected. I’m not even trying push all the details of the package to you, but you might check out the critical post of Pestiside.

So knowing this whole story effects many people I was wondering what responses I would find in the Hungarian blogosphere. Here I a few I selected to share with you:

Bakura quotes a poll of an online Hungarian financial magazine, where readers could would how they feel about the proposed governmental package:
(Total 5 395 respondents)
Strick and fair (18 %)
Strict and unfair (54.3 %)
Soft and fair (2.5 %)
Soft and unfair (12.2 %)
Somewhere this, somewhere that (8.7 %)
I don’t know (4.3%)

Bakura adds his own comments:
“Fair or not? This is hard to decide. I would like to see how anyone would try to make fairer such a package consisting of many activities. Now the everyone will pay principle will be realized and they try to calm down the poor with the solidarity taxation of the richer. This will not succeed.”

Megmondós responds to the proposed action that would lift the taxation rate for small entrepreneurs in the entrepreneur’s simplified taxation system (referred to as EVA in Hungarian):
“Based on the announcements and news of the recent few days (week): they want to cancel this taxation option. But they are afraid of doing it directly. So they rather scare enterprises away form it.”

Urbangeri points beyond the actions themselves:
“The restrictions were necessary. There is no doubt about that and the Forint is still failing despite of the corrections. Of course the American interest rate raise is also thickly involved in this, but what is shit is shit, namely in this case the budget.

The problem is that this is not enough. The restrictions only worth something if real reforms and structural changes are started. Social structural changes. Because the structure is also in our head.”

I wrote earlier about the blog of our PM. It is still active and running (despite some of the concerns that it would slow down after the elections). He contributes very long entries, and from his recent relevant post I picked two sections which I think are important messages:

“I know that nobody likes to pay more taxes or pay more for the gas, electricity and I also know that this is huge burden for many. The illusion is still alive, that to solve the budget problems it is enough to say: “Go ahead and cut the costs even more”.”

“There is not other way: discuss, discuss and to listen to each other. Paying attention to suggestions and if there are good ideas, those have to be built into the program. This is not a question of prestige for me.”

Now get back to the initial point where I started. At a meeting (the same day his post I was quoting from was born; the blog entry was earlier) our PM had a meeting where a group of entrepreneurs tired to (according to the statement of the PM’s spokesman) “blackmailing” him that they would move administratively their company to Slovakia as the taxation system is much favorable there. This was the moment Mr. Gyurcsány very rushed out with the statement, that yes indeed they can leave Hungary behind, but in that case how the pensions is going to be paid? [Henrik’s note: I think he has a point there as in a free economy they could not stop the entrepreneurs from moving their operation to offshore countries anyway (even if it is just to Slovakia). BUT I do believe that even under this pressure and in a tense discussion he should not say these words as such. ]

And of course the news TV close to the opposition party, took great and quick advantage of the PM’s statement by cutting the few discriminating sentences out of context and showing it in a way that to me feels like if the PM would address his words to a much wider audience: if you don’t like the restriction, feel free to leave Hungary. And of course it is far from the original statement’s intention.

Very-very edifying indeed from many perspectives. I can’t promise that this was the last time you read about the war on budget deficit in my blog.

(The referenced blogs are in Hungarian, except for Pestiside)

Tags:
Restriction
Communication
Deficit
Taxation

Hey all, I know its been a rather long pause in the operation of this blog. There was a reason and I’m not goint to share it with you .

BUT, like it or not I’m back.
And yet at a very exciting moment, when the new Hungarian government has proposed some new regulations (in my reading mostly taxes to gain more revenues and much-much less cost cutting) in a desperate movement to balance the badget. I can’t wait to collect some feedback from bloggers and share it with you. Expect it coming soon

I have received questions before on why I do not cover more of the ongoing election. The reason is simple, and I’m going to share it with you later in this post. But as this blog is mainly not about my opinion, I though to do a quick experiment. The following research is not meant in aany way to be scientifically totally correct nor fully representative of the Hungarian blogoshpere. It’s a simple analysis I made to satisfy my own interest in the hope of bringing something interesting to you too.

Most of the votes were already processed on Sunday evening. So on Monday evening I though to check the latest updated 50 blogs of one of the largest blog hoster in Hungary (around 8-9pm) to see whether on average people do or do not comment about the results. I was surprised to see that out of those 50 blogs only 6 actually mentions the election at all! 2 neutrally commenting, 1 hating politics in all aspects and 3 seemed happy with the results.

Now I thought, maybe I should check the entries that were created on the night of the election results (Sunday). How rapidly Bloggers are commenting? So I checked 50 blogs that were last updated on Sunday evening around 9-10pm (by this time more-or less a fairly well processed results was available). This time in my sample of 50 only 3(!) blogs had entries on the election, 1 being happy and 2 generally hating all politics. So maybe the people who were interested either do not blog or were still watching the results and political analysis coverage and interviews.

My last hope was to check blogs that were updated on Monday morning. By that time people knew the end results of this first election round and I selected an early hour in between the two previous time spots (8-9pm). This time the picture was dramatically different. The majority (appr. 70%) of the 50 blogs that has been updated at this period still had zero reflection about that even an election actually took place. But the remaining 30% (7 times the number of Sunday evening and 3 times the number on Monday evening) had all opinions fairly well covered. Seen happy voice, said voices, political hating voices and neutral commenter voices too.

Again I’m not planning to draw any conclusions based on the above, still I found the results interesting.

Personal comment:
I promised to give you the reason why I did not write too much about election and the campaign. I have a pretty straight forward opinion about the current Hungarian political landscape. And instead of trying to put into my own word in English I use a quote from a South Park episode where there is an election for a new mascot for the school team: “the most fundamental rule of elections that you will always have to choose between a douche and a turd”… And before you ask: yes, I did went to vote, I do think it is important, I just had to accept the fact that all I can choose from are douches and turds.

Tags:
Election

The Hungarian Prime Minister (PM) started his own blog on the last day of January. The post long posts are coming with daily regularity. Originally many people were a bit skeptic about how this happens and if the man behind the blog is really Ferenc Gyurcsány. But after more than two weeks the shocking part is now gone and it is more conversational style with the entries receive hundreds of comments. If you wonder how the PM have all this time to write all the - sometimes several page length – posts, he also gave the answer to this, admitting that he records the messages on tape and his staff puts the script up in the web with the pictures. So I though it would be interesting to see how the Hungarain blogosphere reacted to the newcomer blog. (We’ll also get to the Hugh Grant part a few paragraphs later, keep on reading ).

Pollner on Mediablog quoted the first entry of the PM and added only one small question, regularly asked in the first days of operation of the PM blog:
“Is it just a passing adventure, or has Hungarian politics discovered the blogosphere?”

On Parlamentblog Déli Riporter wrote:
“He writes he was convinced that the blog is needed. We certainly agree in this. The Prime Minister of Hungary in power should write a blog.”
Though in a comments Déli Riporter admits he still considers this just a campaign move.

Pocakos points to the fact that the left wing oriented leading daily (Népszabadság) offered online space for the PM blog [Henrik’s note: as our current government is also left wing at the moment], but he instead chose the site of a foundation to run it on. With his always precise journalist point of view Pocakos asks two questions:
“Would Népszabadság Online (NOL) think about providing a blog space to the head of the any government in power even without political relations? And would the head of the any government in power would blog on NOL?”
He also states that he thinks “Gyurcsány as the head of government made a wise decision not to take this offer.”
Finally he also raises the question of the future of the blog, looking into a further horizon: “Will Ferenc Gyurcsány’s blog run with such intensity after the elections – even perhaps in opposition side – on the webpage of this foundation?”

After the first two weeks of the PM, Sztahanov wrote:
“You can say what you want, but I think he does a good job, especially in the light of the history of Hungarian business/corporate blogging up to now.” He also adds “it is apparent that it is somewhat taken seriously. Well, we’ll see what’s going to happen with it.”

Something interesting also happened lately, which made it through even to international main stream media, where you can read more about the Love Actually scene with our PM edited inside it as a wedding surprise gift to the government spokesman.

Pestiside (in English) offers and insight into what they think “it all actually means:”. You can predict the style of the entry even by the opening statement: “Okay, we’re back again - and not a minute too soon, because it seems that in our absence a lot of you have lost your friggin’ minds.”

Bajla writes from his actor point of view:
“I might even live to see that we we’ll dance together with our colleague Feri [Henrik’s note: Feri is a nickname for Ferenc] in one of audience attracting the musical comedies. It might not be all that bad, they might even raise the funding of theaters and the salary of actors.

My only suggestions to this colleague is to quickly change the glasses to lenses, because it is bad manners to garishly appear on theater stage with glasses.”

Also this would not be a true Hungarian story if there would be no counter blog involved . Someone started a fake-Gyurcsány blog (called “dA ReAl GyUrcSÁny FeRcsI blog “) with a pinch of unhidden dislike of the PM and lots of sarcasm).

[Henrik’s note As the campaign progresses for the upcoming elections in April I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to show some more interesting reflections from the Hungarian blogoshpere.]

(The referenced blogs are in Hungarian, except for Pestiside, which is in English)

Tags:
Campaign
Blog
PM

This is a sensitive issue, so maybe many of my friends now think I should not write about this, but I think I have to. I guess all of you heard of the recent critical events, which started with a cartoon (featuring Muhammad, which according to Muslim religious laws is forbidden) published by a Danish newspaper. It of course caused waves in the Hungarian main stream media and the blogoshpere also. I’m going to pick a few remarks from the latter field (as that is the role of this blog). This time I’m not going to put in my entry the links to the individual other blog posts as most of these has some of the controversial pictures up and I have decided to respect the will of those who do not want to see these. [Henrik’ remark: yes, deciding not to link to these is also a way of acting according to my right for freedom of expression and if you don’t agree, go ahead and criticize me . Also if you really want to it is quite easy to find these entries based on the reference I give about the authors.]Still the opinions below do show the diverse opinions present in the Hungarian blogoshpere about this case.

In a blog called ParlamentBlog the author [Henrik’s note: who is as far as I know reports to this Hungarian blog somewhere from Scandinavia, according to his email address, probably Stockholm] gives a background on the story referring to Scandinavian news sources. He also adds:
“After the spread of the boycott there are more and more somewhat frightened reactions which try to ask for more discretion and understating from the ones standing on the side of freedom of expression – as the pictures have been published by more European newspapers since then –. When there is a decision between principles and money, then the West always chooses the latter. (If I recall correctly, about 10 years ago, we were protesting against the Pacific Ocean nuclear tests of France with the boycott of French wines – that is us, Scandinavians).”

Ses’s blog only had a few line neutral introduction of the story and a link to a Guardian news article about it. But more interestingly Ses invites his readers to comment on the story, by saying: “I think what happened is very edifying, but I would be curious about what do you think about the action and the reactions.”

[Henrik’s remark: many comments arrived, I have selected three opinions from different sides, the debate is very intensive, with supporters and strong statements on both sides]

Methan commented from one of the extreme (maximum freedom of expression) point of views:
“The point is that if I want I can amuse with my Prophet and also with their Prophet. And none should use the argument that it is forbidden for them to picture theirs, because it is not forbidden to me. I tolerate that it is forbidden to them and I promise I will not force any Muslim to draw Muhammad. But they should tolerate that it is not forbidden to me, so I will draw him if I want to. And I held this position in connection with Christianity too.”

Ali on the other side wrote:
“What I think is that a smart man do not play with the sensitivity of others, even if there is no law to forbid such an action. Even so, he tolerates others sensitivity point. And the stupid can be sent to the Middle-East as sandbags.
Also this original post could fit without the picture illustration, because this way it is already a categorical statement of opinion.”

Kontiki added the following comments:
“ Firstly, that current post-Iraqi political situation the West do not has the moral advantage to make fun out of symbols of other cultures. Could have we really laugh if at the end of the 1950s there funny cartoons from socialist block would make fun out of Hungarian symbols? And little cynically I can say: as caricature cartoons are the part of European folklore, so is fatwa for the East.”

Bajla wrote in his entry after a passionate introduction of the story:
“…And now in Denmark they desperately calculating the export loss of Denmark in connection to the Muslim trade boycott applied in Muslim countries because of the cartoons. According to a quick analysis, if the boycott lasts for a year, this little joke could cause a loss of 1,1 billion Euros and the loss of 11thousand jobs in Denmark. So the Danish newspaper quickly apologized from the Muslims, but the Danish Prime Minister does not consider it necessary for the Danish State to do the same, meanwhile he said that he hopes the apology of the newspaper will to make the Islamic leaders to come around.”
Bajla ironically adds:
“This prideful western attitude is really cool behavior to aid the already not too friendly relationship. Good luck western civilization!”

(There are also lots of comments on this blog debating the issue.)

Para-Kovács debates with Bajla in his blog entry:
“Allah is great, but the freedom of press is greater, thus I cannot agree with Bajla colleague, who thinks it was a bad decision from the Danish newspaper to publish these cartoons and I think he also considers a mistake the reaction of other newspapers including Magyar Hírlap when these republished the pictures.
My opinion is that if we fall into this trap, then tomorrow will come a tribe what has an age-old taboo of forbidding making pictures of human beings and onwards we will be forbid to publish photos.”

Trau also has a very long analysis entry about this topic at his blog, which starts as:
“I’m abashed at this. I always new that the point of view of the European press - to say – can be very flexibly changing, but I am totally abashed at how in two days things changed from “a Danish newspaper teasing Muslims” to “a battle for the freedom of press”.”
Trau writes an overview of the original reactions of the blog world back in last September, when the pictures were originally published and why the current Middle-eastern political situation and the attitude of the western world could have lead to the present blow of the issue. He also covers how the official Danish communications changed since last Octobers about this (from a /freedom of expression is not negotiable/ point of view in October to asking Danish citizens in January to use their freedom of expression in a way that do not heat hatred toward Muslims.) And also how the opinion of the European press has moved in a matter of days from a seemingly apologizing attitude (in the first days of this debate at the end of January) to a resistance to apologizing and fighting for freedom of expression (a few days later).

Finally a few words from the blog of Merkoffo:
“That the western world makes fun out of another religion (culture) is not funny at all. There has been cartoons and shocking exhibitions etc. about Jesus, but these has not been made by Muslims, but by people knowing the western culture and knowing, practicing its religion. If they do it from my side, I can understand the background motivation, it is not irredentism, rather rebelling, or a try to make other think, or artist extravagance etc. So I cannot agree that it is possible to do anything with the freedom of expression. Self-austerity has to be shown!”

(If there would be links in this entry, the referenced pages would be in Hungarian)

Tags:
Muhammad
Cartoon

I have returned from London and I feel energized and inspired by all the excellent people I have met at the Global Voices 2005 summit. Of course Rebecca and Ethan did a marvelous job in running the whole thing, a BIG thanks to both of them and everyone who helped them (I can only call by name Catherine Bracy: a BIG thanks to you too Catherine!!!).

There has been interesting discussions about the past, present and more importantly about the future of this excellent initiative. A project that thanks to the most excellent work of the founders starting to mature enough to survive almost alone on the work of the volunteer based organization (without the day-to-day extensive involvement of Rebecca and Ethan of what I do remember even from earlier 2005 when humble me was still at the Berkman Center with them).

I would also like to point to some of the great bloggers I met there not giving a complete list, rather choosing a few based on my subjective opinion and trying to show the diversity that was present. And I apologize from those who I do not mention here, but I urge every reader to go to the participant list and Global Voices and watch the movement of all the other brilliant bloggers too from all around the World.

So I would like to especially thank:
- to Sokari Ekine for sharing her most wise opinion on Africa, Europe and how these two world area like and apart,
- to Mohamed Marwen Meddah for giving me a better understating of the Arabic World,
- to Jeff Ooi for transporting me to Malaysia via our interesting conversation during the Friday dinner
- and again all the other great people whom I met, talked to and really inspired by!
I’m looking forward to continue reading your stories and meeting you online and offline in the future.

[Links as you probably realized are all pointing to the GV 2005 coverage articles of their blogs, but please look at the rest of their most interesting peaces of articles too!]

Beside learning so much about the planet we are living on, I have also understood something fundamentally important about my own mission. Earlier I already wrote about what people advised me to write about on Hungarian Accent. That is because I have asked people to tell what they would be interested to reading about Hungary. And people regularly asks me what I think are the most interesting of my post they should be aware of. Now what I realized is that none of these questions really makes sense to ask. If the readers could tell me what they are most interested in, that would mean they know everything special about Hungary, which is a very strange premise to assume. Also I should not and cannot decide what is interesting to whom, deciding it is a step the reader has to take, my role is to inform and speak to my best. Now all this might seem trivial to you, but you should also take into consideration the fact that I’m not a professional journalist, nor a writer. I’m your average guy who would like to believe that even though – fortunately – there is no revolution or disaster in Hungary currently (which happenings main stream media usually picks up and discuss), there are still pieces, themes and stories from my country that should be given a chance to be discovered by the English speaking netizens. So I’m officially free of my previous frustrations of trying to show things that I would think are the most interesting and rather really talk about just what is happening here. Simple as that.

If you are interested in detail about the content of the discussions of the Summit (and you should be), I would encourage you to go and visit the official blog and summit pages.

(The referenced blogs are in English)

Tags:
GV2005
Global Voices