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Hungary steps out
Jan 3rd 2012, 15:45 by A.L.B. | BUDAPEST

  THE symbolism was telling. Inside Budapest's Opera House, Hungary’s  great and good were knocking back sparkling wine at a gala event to  celebrate the inauguration of the country’s new constitution, which came  into effect on January 1st. Outside, on Andrássy Avenue, tens of  thousands of protestors demanded its withdrawal.
Brushing off  the demonstrations, President Pal Schmitt hailed Hungary’s new "basic  law" as a brave new dawn. It may well be, but probably not the kind that  Hungary’s rulers are hoping for. As the blog Contrarian Hungarian  reports, protestors are increasingly taking control of the streets. The  Andrássy Avenue march was just the latest in a series of public actions  against the government's growing autocratic tendencies and its  relentless centralisation of power.
Monday’s protests were  significant as well as symbolic. This was the first time that opposition  parties—the Socialists, the Democratic Coalition and the green-liberal  LMP—had joined forces with street activists. Peter Konya, leader of the  Hungarian Solidarity Movement, welcomed what he called “the long absent  co-operation between civil groups and parties of the democratic  opposition”.
Gabor Ivanyi, a Methodist pastor, told the crowd  that “There is no truth where laws are passed forcefully, without  consultations, where people live in fear and where people are not  equal.” Mr Ivanyi is one of 13 former dissidents and liberal politicians  to have signed a letter calling for the European Union to intervene and  protect Hungarian democracy.
Government officials deny that  Hungarian democracy is in danger. How, they ask, can this be so when an  enormous crowd is free to demonstrate outside the very building where  they are celebrating? In 2010 the right-wing Fidesz party won a  two-thirds parliamentary majority in a free and fair election, they  argue, and the government is simply fulfilling its mandate of radical  change and renewal.
But as the government brushes off  requests from the EU, the IMF, the European Central Bank and the United  States to reconsider key legislation that may be in breach of its  international treaty obligations, such arguments sound increasingly  unconvincing.