What's up with you?!
Podcaster Anna Kiss talks extremism, corruption, and staying sane when politics is crazy
In Hungarian, miközöd means, “What’s up with you?!” It’s also the name of a popular current affairs podcast by Anna Kiss. Kiss is Hungarian and lives in Cluj, a city in Romania. Over 1 million ethnic Hungarians live in Romania’s Transylvania region. In 2022, Anna Kiss started Miközöd in her dining room with just her computer and a 100€ dictaphone. She was soon sending shockwaves through Transylvanian Hungarian public life, where few dare to address controversial topics like corruption, gender-based violence, and sexual abuse in powerful church institutions.
Today, Miközöd has over 10,000 subscribers and Kiss regularly posts videos and interviews with leading activists, intellectuals, and politicians. With her direct and sarcastic style, Kiss has become one of the best-known public affairs commentators in Transylvanian Hungarian public life.
On January 27, I had a chance to interview Kiss on Zoom. We talked about what why she started podcasting, and from there she taught me about why it’s important to breaks public taboos, how churches benefit from public corruption, and how she stays sane in our crazy political atmosphere.
I translated the following excerpts, which have been edited and condensed for clarity. The full translated interview is available upon request. The interview recording is below.
On what got her into podcasting
Miközöd began because, basically, I thought that Transylvanian Hungarian public life was very dry, quiet, and empty. More concretely, in the preceding years there had been several news stories that highlighted a lot of very serious problems in the community. For example, I’m thinking now of the child abuse cases that took place in Csaba Böjte’s group homes. [I’m thinking of] the sexual exploitation that children living in those institutions suffered, perpetrated by the children’s caretakers.
At one point in this affair, there was a confidential judicial proceeding and a judgement against the abusers. And then Csaba Böjte himself said [the accusations] were a lie. He totally tried to to undermine and discredit the victims, in multiple forums and platforms all the way to the point that Hungarian government propaganda went after the Transylvanian Hungarian journalists who reported the story.
On public corruption and Transylvanian Hungarian churches
[Ed.’s note: On January 13, the Hungarian Unitarian Church gave the János Zsigmond Religious Freedom Award to the Speaker of Hungary’s Parliament László Kövér in a ceremony in Cluj.]
This wasn’t a government-level decision [to give Kövér the award]. It wasn’t a state-level decision. What you need to know about these systems of relations is that the Transylvanian Hungarian elite is developed and integrated with the Fidesz elite to such a degree that there is a system of clientelism. [Ed.’s note: Fidesz is Viktor Orbán’s ruling party in Hungary.] And through these personal relationships everyone tries to spread the wealth a bit, first here and later a bit more there, and so on. There are these personal networks and through the networks there are levels of intercession.
Truthfully, I don’t know if Laszló Kövér is very tied into the Unitarian Church, but I hypothesize, in my opinion, that this was a public gesture. What the articles said was that they give the award to those who have supported the Unitarian Church’s existence, development, and so on. It’s obvious that they’d honor someone with this award who supports the church with considerable sums of money.
In my opinion, it’s a public gesture because the church can’t really do anything, Transylvanian Hungarian churches can’t do anything other than make these awards, organize these public relations events, and then invite people to them. That is to say, they are publicly admitting that they are maximally committed, that they are completely subordinating themselves. And on some level it points to the future as well, that is to say, they’re expecting further financial support, too.
On breaking the silence about church sexual abuse
The culture of silence that we live in, which characterizes our attitude toward these tragedies and stories, dictates that they shouldn’t be revealed and shouldn’t become visible unless absolutely necessary. To the degree that it’s possible, [the culture says] take care of it privately before it gets out.
I think it’s connected to a feeling of shame and disappointment, that we didn’t notice these things and we didn’t do anything about it. Of course, we don’t see our leaders making an effort to take responsibility either. If such things happen, then someone should step up and declare, “Hello, this was my mistake. I didn’t pay attention.” Over the last ten years, we’ve never seen this kind of response. No one has said, “I’m sorry, this was my mistake.”
On the community level, this is important because, or rather I see the reason for this being that we live in a minority, and we’re surrounded by the Romanian majority. And when something bad happens inside, we’re fast to say and it’s easy to say, “We’ll take care of this ourselves.” Or, “There’s only a few of us, we’re oppressed, and we have to stay together and stay close.” Or, “We aren’t allowed to tear each other down or drive each other apart, if we do, then what’s going to happen to our community?”
And then we absolve and excuse our own abusers. That’s what I see happening more often.
On easing ethnic tensions
I don’t see a lot of potential for positive movement because last year RMDSz found out that they can achieve success by adopting Fidesz propaganda and Fidesz’s campaign strategy, which is very much based on heightening fear. And I do not see them ever giving this up now.
[Ed.’s note: RMDSz is the main Transylvanian Hungarian political party.]
RMDSz’s main purpose has been to protect the power of the political mainstream that has dominated Romanian politics over the last 35 years. Even now they’re in a governing coalition together with the National Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. For me, the big question is when will the Romanian parties – the mainstream parties – adopt this method, the campaign strategy that the RMDSz already tried out. So I don’t think that here there is a lot of movement in a positive direction.
On the rise of the far right
The problem is very complex. Entire social classes are in the kind of situation today that they feel it necessary to vote for [Călin] Georgescu because he will create change. And this mentality is also present in the Transylvanian Hungarian community.
[Ed.’s note: Georgescu is a far-right candidate for president in Romania.]
Just in the last few days, I listened to Viktor Orbán’s recent interview on Kossuth Radio, after he arrived back from his vacation in India. And right around then, I also had to translate one of Georgescu’s short videos.
I sat there at my computer and listened. I mean, I understood what he was saying. And I tried to translate it from Romanian in Hungarian. But I can barely translate this because it’s just lunacy. What he’s saying has no meaning whatsoever. Even if I put it into context, I can’t translate it, because it’s just total bullshit. This is what came to my mind as I was listening to Viktor Orbán’s speech. Truly, he thinks people are idiots.
On staying sane when politics is crazy
I’ve certainly felt panic myself sometimes. But what I’m striving to do through Miközöd, and it’s our plan also, is this: We’re simply trying to talk about these questions. We’re trying to break down this pile of problems into smaller parts so that we can talk about it. What I’m doing also is organizing communities, so that there can be people who not only think and speak, but also do something about these issues. It’s a battle on multiple fronts.
For example, here in Transylvania there is no NGO or movement that focuses on the protection of women’s rights. There are Romanian NGOs, but there is no Hungarian version that focuses on this issue. There is no Hungarian-language NGO where, for example, a woman who is suffering domestic violence can call for help. This is a major problem and we’re trying to turn our own resources and talents toward working on it.