The major political tendencies of the pre-war period: bourgeois radicalism, social democracy, and Catholicism, manifested themselves in the women's movement as well. In their own way, they took a position on issues like intra-family relations or prostitution.

In the EU, thousands of women coming from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union are forced to engage in prostitution. This phenomenon that became overwhelming after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is explained by the rapid impoverishment of the population. A report from Le Monde Diplomatique provides a close view.

The Parliament will have to modify the law on abortion by the Summer of 2000, according to a decision of the Constitutional Court. A ..solution" that violates human rights may well emerge, although the current regulation could also be challenged from this perspective.

Through football, like the sea through a drop of water, the fundamental questions of society can be analysed. One reason is that football is a game that moves large masses and it is basically a democratic game. This sport is, however, an imprint of the distortions and degenerations of the transition society and its political system.

In 1999, the 50^th anniversary of the foundation of the Council of Europe gives a good reason to examine human rights. Now in the current issue of Eszmélet, we address social rights, more specially human rights concerning private life and sexuality. It is, of course, not a pure theoretical question – it is involved in many actual political questions both in Hungary and abroad. Such questions are discussed in this issue as the right for abortion or accepting homosexuality as ordinary human behaviour.

Sport is our second topic, of which relation to politics is of no less interest, especially the status of football, a frequent topic of our quarterly.

Table of contents

1. Hegyi Gyula : The social Europe. real chance or empty slogan?
2. Baráth Erzsébet : Who talks about undertaking here?
3. Yves Géry : Fresh met from the East
4. Andor László : Sex and politics in Amerika
5. Mark Findlay : The politics of ‘cruising’
6. Susan Zimmermann : The Hungarian women’s movement and the ‘sexual question’ in the early 20th century
7. Alekszandr Latisev : Lenin and Inessa
8. Graham Baugh : The sexual contract
9. Sut Jhally, Bill Livant : Sport and cultural policy
10. Andrei Markovits : The other American exceptionalism
11. Krausz Tamás : Sytem change and football in Hungary
12. BAL : Protest against the NATO attack in Yugoslavia
13. francia értelmiségiek : Stop the bombings!
14. Immanuel Wallerstein : Bombs away!