Rewire your mind, rewire your country

When people ask me where I’m from I tell them, ‘I’m Hungarian by blood and suffering and European by values’. Having lived most of my adult life outside of Hungary, where societies embraced pluralism, cooperation and ordinary people initiated change from the ground up, I always strived to learn and enjoy seeing how things evolved for the better. This is why it is especially painful to see my home country in a state of depression, isolation, on a path of self-destruction and ultimately slow death without an obvious solution.

But there are people, who still fight for change and keep hope alive, actively looking for the answers in the face of a brutal state capture. These are civil society leaders, often faceless and unknown, who have already been carrying an incredible burden and now face even more pressure than before to lead the way to create the desire for change from the ground up, and a shared vision to aim for in the absence of a credible opposition. 

I am one of them. I know how difficult it is when you also need to fight for your own survival without sustainable funding, increasing red tape in a hostile environment, while motivating your team and community. We are democratic entrepreneurs, changemakers, who require a lot of energy, discipline and infinite self-belief to keep going. It is also a very lonely journey. 

Unfortunately, in the case of Hungary a democratic culture was never embedded in our society and we are paying a huge price for it now. Even now the importance of civil society is underestimated, just when we need it more than ever for systematic change and it is being targeted by the Orban regime.

On 12 December, Orban's supermajority passed the “Sovereignty Protection Law” which targets any organisation or person it suspects of serving foreign interests and jeopardising Hungary’s sovereignty. This mirrors similar Russia-style “foreign agents” laws whose real objective is to deter and intimate civil society and the media.

But the problems of Hungary don’t stop at the border. Ukraine is engaged in an existential fight against authoritarianism. Democracy is at a crossroads across the continent; authoritarians are swaying courts, and propagating fearmongering narratives through capture media, while the economy is working in a way that undermines democracy, concentrating power in the hands of a few. We need bold and systemic solutions that can only be addressed together but the EU seems unwilling to do this. On the same day Hungary passed its new sovereignty law, the EU adopted its own foreign funding directive which will be deeply harmful to democracy, while doing nothing to stop its stated intention of exposing covert foreign interference in policymaking. 

The next two to three years will determine the course of the next few decades for democracy in Europe. There is a narrow window of opportunity to defend the democratic values from the bottom up by improving the way civil society works together, turning hope into action and selling a positive vision of democracy. 

We need to co-create that vision from the ground up with our communities and make it happen. Our job is to help people ‘dream what they should be dreaming and demand what they should be demanding’. 

This is why we at Unhack Democracy along with Thomas Coombes, founder of Hope-based Communications are starting the REWIRE incubator, which will give 15 participants from across Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria the training and tools needed to build new powerful stories to become better at selling MORE democracy. 

Our new method draws on psychology to help activists focus their work on their values and their vision of the world they want to live in. We will support participants to embed a positive behaviour change within themselves, their organizations and wider societies by introducing inspirational ideas, and to manage stress better.  

If you cannot see, you cannot become it. 

If you are a civil society activist in Bulgaria, Hungary or Poland with a bold vision for your community apply to the REWIRE incubator by 23:59 CET on 16 January 2024 to become the change you want to see. 

The incubator is co-funded by the European Union.

This program was co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.