My friend John just got back from Hungary. I just found the following on his Facebook page recalling the love and compassion he was witness to in Budapest. I hope he doesn’t mind me reprinting it here, as it is genuinely one of the most beautiful, humbling things I think I’ve ever read. It also makes what can seem so distant on the evening news really hit home

[quote=”John E”]I have just got back from the Keleti railway station in Budapest where a few days ago clashes between riot police units and refugees took place. Impressions of the evening – sensational; crazy chase after the ball and jostling with syrian kids compensated me the last few days of contact with haters in the internet. Seeing the Hungarians sharing hot drinks, sandwiches and secondhand clothes I forgot about fascist and xenophobic sentiments prevailing in the cyberspace. Budapest is a party-city, so a individual natives (with hands in plastic gloves, indicating that they work as volunteers) sip beer with smiles on their faces, the girls handing out items of need wear mini-skirts: different customs do not pose a problem, and the phrase ”clash of civilizations” again seems to be incompatible with the reality – because after all, it belongs to the virtual realm, it echoes merely in the airwaves – but when a man stands in front of another man, face to face, looking into each others eyes these slogans are no longer relevant … Despite the harsh conditions (because the deeper the night, the cooler), a unique atmosphere pervades annd hits me acutely. It’s the first time I’m in this kind of situation, and I did not know what to expect. ”All we have HERE is given out of LOVE from the Hungarian PEOPLE, not its government” – says inscription on one of the boards. I like it this way! Throw TV in the trash, organize independently, get from the bottom to the top, act – and you can forget about both radicals and xenophobes from distant countries, as well as about those of our own backyard…[/quote]