Prime Minister Orbán’s speech that he gave on 23 October in front of the Parliament Building.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
A few minutes before this event, the first Hungarian Order of Honour, established following the two-thirds majority victory in 2010 was presented in Parliament. The Order of Honour may be awarded to those who have provided an outstanding service in the interests of the nation and have performed acts of heroism while showing great personal courage. The first recipient of the Hungarian Order of Honour is Mrs. Ilona Tamás, a school-teacher from the Balog Valley in Upper Hungary, who celebrated her 100th birthday this year. After the Act on Simplified Repatriation was adopted by Parliament, she reclaimed her Hungarian nationality, as a result of which Slovakia stripped her of her Slovakian citizenship. Honour to the brave! She is here with us today; let us greet her with affection!
– Mrs. Ilona Tamás: I'm glad that there are so many of us here. Thanks you for this great distinction; I don't really know why I received this award, [what I did] was the most natural thing in the world. I now bring you greetings from Upper Hungary and from my Hungarian companions who are in a similar situation in Slovakia, and with whom we are fighting to have justice. Through the power of the beautiful word, I would like to quote you just one sentence. In Upper Hungary in the Balog Valley, where István Gyöngyösi once lived, he wrote these lines in his poem entitled Murányi Venus, a present to Mária Széchy. If I could, I would imprint these words into the hearts of everyone. "Tis no noble mind that easily changes, wavering like reeds in the smallest of breezes, gold becomes pure where the hot fires glow, just as the rose midst the sharp thorns doth grow." This tells us everything about the path we must take; and it is the path I am taking myself. –
Long live Hungarian integrity!
Ladies and Gentlemen! Companions in Remembrance!
We have gathered here today to celebrate 23 October 1956, the revolution and the fight for independence. This Hungarian public holiday is a sacred one because is has been sanctified with the blood of those who have fallen for the freedom of Hungary. We, who are fierce believers in Hungarian freedom and independence, gather together on this day each year. We congregate and at this time every freedom-loving Hungarian from Kolozsvár [Cluj] to Los Angeles is here with us in spirit. We congregate so that we may remember with gratitude those heroes and martyrs who courageously, and not rarely with death-defying bravery, stood up against the foreign oppressors and their compatriot mercenaries who took up arms against their own countrymen. They fought against armoured vehicles, tanks and heavy artillery with rifles, machine guns and Molotov cocktails, hugely outnumbered. Let us remember with respect those Hungarians who remained upright in the face of tyranny, fought until their final minute and died! Let us remember those who accepted the fate of martyrs! Let us bow our heads in respect to the heroes who were executed and suffered terrible prison sentences! We swear never to forget them! It was they who carved the first and fatal fissure in the Soviet empire. It was they who awakened the conscience of the Western left. Four decades later, it was they who gave us the strength to drive out the Soviets, to topple the Socialist Workers Party, and to destroy the minefields and barbed wire that separated us from the free world. Today, the whole world knows and acknowledges that the Hungarian's revolution and fight for independence made the world a better place. Long live Hungary! Long Live the Hungarian People!
Companions in Remembrance!
And let us now also remember the bitter path that lead the Hungarians to begin their fight for freedom. With the armed help of the occupying soviet army, the Hungarian Communist Workers Party brutally repressed Hungarian democracy, which had been developing in a way that inspired hope since the end of the war. The national, civil, Christian and left-wing groups were also crushed. The very existence of churches and trade unions was attacked. In a country in which the majority of people wished for self-determination and a civil way of life, the reverse happened; being middle-class or bourgeois was decreed shameful and a crime. In a country that belonged to a Christian culture, the reverse happened; it was decreed shameful and a crime for someone to be Christian or come from a religious family of any kind. Oppression and dependency could be felt in every segment of life. The people endured the blood and sweat of work production contests, starvation wages and overtime, yet they had nothing to show for it. Families fell into poverty and lived in constant fear. Hundreds of thousands of humiliated, disowned and imprisoned people were forced to live lies and enthusiastically cheer the Party. This is what led here, to Kossuth Tér, on 23 October 1956. A huge crowd gathered. And it was here on this square that the miracle took place, the miracle of the revolution. It is here that what until then had seemed unimaginable happened. In a sudden flash everyone, even the majority of party members, realised that it is impossible to live without honour. People's souls opened up and found each other, in friendship and in trust. It was here that the endeavours of party reformers to improve the socialist system turned into demands for freedom and independence. The sense of justice that sprang from people' hearts changed the improving of socialism into demands for free elections and Russian withdrawal. The subjugated people took the Marshall's baton from the hands of the reformers and when they met with physical resistance they themselves took up arms, they themselves brought down tyranny, and they themselves won back the nation's freedom.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Every year, October 23 reminds us that the ambitions of those who put down the revolution and fight for independence have not disappeared from Hungarian public life. It is enough to recall the events of 23 October 2006: mounted police charges, teargas, iron bars and plastic bullets, followed by the decoration and rewarding of those who were at the forefront of the brutality. We would do well to keep this in mind.
Companions in Celebration!
Socialism, which had portrayed itself as the world's most advanced form of democracy, collapsed from one day to the next in Hungary in 1956. It became apparent that is stood not on its own legs and on the will of the people, but hung from the string of an empire. The string snapped, or the fist that held it became weak, and the whole construction collapsed. One morning in the late summer of 2008, an American financial giant in New York collapsed. Western economies were in shock. It became apparent that the economy of the western world, of which we are now also a part, is not standing on its own legs. Not on its own legs, meaning not based on honest work, but instead hanging on the loan string of a financial empire. The string snapped and the whole construction collapsed. Several national economies and tens of millions of lives were destroyed in the process. Today, even schoolchildren know the difference between socialism and monetary economy. And even a child can see clearly that the reason both began to crack is because neither were on the path of truth. A state or an economy cannot be built on lies, dogmas, self-deception and deceit. Modern man is now relearning the ancient law that without truth there is no life, no love or beauty, nothing worth living for, and there is also no respectable economy to provide a living.
Ladies and Gentlemen! Companions in Remembrance!
We are living through a period of great change throughout the planet. We can see it everyday and feel the effects of the fact that something is happening with us, our families, our country, Europe and the world which will change our lives for decades to come. Although we would like to rebuild European life, which has become incapacitated, we know that there is no way back. Half of Europe is up to its eyes in debt, produces expensively and is held in check by its own dogmas. The great change is sifting the world's nations and distancing them from each other. It will decide which nations fall into poverty and which will become rich. It will decide who has work and who does not. It will decide who will work hopelessly like a galley slave on the sea of debt, and who will, having won back their freedom, reach the shore. It will decide where upheaval will become the norm, which countries will fall into chaos and anarchy, and where there will be a certain, secure and dependable future.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Europe has not yet decided where to stand. In Brussels, they do not yet know whether to step on the brake or instead on the accelerator, if they should turn the steering wheel left or right. Europe's western and eastern rivals lack neither confidence nor common sense. In contrast, the EU doubts itself, and instead of common sense, relies on ideologies. Yet Europe today needs a simultaneous combination of courageous resolve, common sense and the uplifting of hearts. Europe should recognise that without nations it has no heart, and without Christianity it has no soul. A special thank you to the Peace March, which made a stand for this vision of a European Hungary.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
In Brussels there are many who instead of reforming the European economy want to breathe new life into the crippled system of monetary and banking capitalism, and who instead of a labour-based economy would prefer to resurrect the system of the speculators, who instead of an equitable distribution of burdens want the people to again bear the burdens of the crisis alone. This we cannot accept! We can accept and do accept those rules that apply to everyone. But we cannot accept that instead of us, others should tell us what we can or cannot do within our own homeland. We accept the regulations of European cooperation that apply to us all, but we are not prepared to allow foreigners to govern us, no matter how sophisticated their methods. We accept the common moral standards of European cultural nations, but we will not accept double standards. We accept and will fulfil the obligations that Hungary has undertaken, but we do not accept that the whole country should continue to be punished in Brussels for the mistakes of past socialist governments. We accept that European institutions must be respected, but we cannot accept any of the EU's institutions behaving disrespectfully towards Hungarians.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
Let us consider the fact that if in 1956, ten years after the Second World War, the signing of the Paris Peace Treaties and the Russian occupation, the Hungarian nation was capable of taking up arms to fight for its freedom then we, the Hungarians of today, should have no reason to doubt our own strength. If after the war our grandparents rebuilt the country with their bare hands within just a few years, then, no matter how hard the task, we too are capable or reforming Hungary. Yes, despite the European crisis in 2010 we were capable of pulling the nation back from the brink of bankruptcy. Yes, twenty years after the regime change we were capable of giving the nation a new constitution. Yes, ninety years after the Treaty of Trianon we were able to give hundreds of thousands of Hungarians back their nationality through cross-border consolidation of the nation. And yes, over the past two years in the midst of the worst storm of the crisis, we were capable of reducing our debt. Yes, over the past two years we were capable of saving hundreds of thousands of families who had taken on foreign currency loans from the debt trap, despite the wishes of the financial world. Yes, despite the difficult monetary situation we were capable of protecting pensions and wages, of raising the minimum wage and reducing the tax burden on families. Yes, while employment is falling throughout Europe we were capable of providing work to two-hundred thousand people instead of welfare payments, and with it a wage that is double the welfare. And if we stand firm we will be capable of providing opportunities for more rewarding work and greater appreciation for those living on wages and salaries. And we will be capable of carving out a Hungary to which young people who are currently looking to make their fortunes abroad will come home to in a few years' time.
Ladies and Gentlemen! Companions in Celebration!
The revolution was mainly undertaken by workers; wage and salary earners. Although they were truly dispossessed and had no future to look forward to, they nevertheless did not accept their plight. Their pockets were empty, but their hearts were filled to the brim; they did not accept that the future holds nothing for them, and through faith, the desire for freedom and the love of their homeland they created the greatest thing that man can achieve: they stood up in revolt and with that gave the nation back its dignity. If we have only half the faith that they had, we will be able to move mountains. My wish for the many Hungarians who have gathered to commemorate the Revolution is that wherever you are, be it a few hundred metres or many thousands of kilometres away, October 23 may always remind you that: we are only as alive as Hungary is alive.
Go Hungary! Go Hungarians!
(Prime Minister’s Office)
