HUNGARY IS INDICATING A ROAD

JERZY ROBERT NOWAK

In October it is another anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising (23 October – 10 November 1956), the biggest freedom spurt against the supremacy of the Soviets in Middle-Eastern Europe. This uprising had a very strong relation with Polish matter in the beginning. It started with the manifestation of solidarity with Poland, where there were radical political changes during the VII Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Polish Association of the Labour Party and the election of imprisoned then Władysław Gomułka for the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish Association of the Labour Party. For the Hungarians, the nation strongly oppressed during the Stalinism, it became a big impulse to the uprising spurt. 300 hundred Hungarians came out into streets of Budapest, going towards the monument of gen. Józef Bem, the Polish General and a Hungarian national hero, chanting: ‘Lengyelorszag utat mutat, kovessuk a lengyel utat!’ (Poland is indicating a road, let’s follow Poles!).

Hungary is indicating a road

Today this Hungarian uprising motto should be paraphrased, saying: ‘Hungary is indicating a road, let’s follow Hungary!’. During the reigns of Viktor Orban Hungary became an excellent example of the defence of the national sovereignty and national interests, persistent manifestation of fervent patriotism and the national pride, not undergoing the pressure of big EU countries. They taxed consortiums and foreign banks, foreign supermarkets, forbid building of new supermarkets of the area bigger than 300 m2, announced: ‘no meter of the Hungarian land in the hands of other countries!’. Hungary also persistently defends interests of Hungarian companies, farmers and merchandise, it also pursues a pro-family policy, supporting the nation of a few million Hungarians outside the country. The new constitution passed during the reigns of Fidesz is the most patriotic and Christian constitution in whole Europe. The small Hungarian nation is persistently defending its rights despite the pressures of powerful countries in Europe. So, it should be mentions that just in ‘Niedziela’, in the beginning of last year, there was a letter of 200 representatives of Polish intellectual groups in the defence of the actions of Orban government. There were two other famous initiatives of the Clubs of the ‘Polish Newspaper’ which organized journeys of a few thousand Poles to the solemn ceremonies of the Hungarian national feast on 15 March in 2012 and in 2013.It could take a long time to enumerate texts of Polish publicists sympathizing with the Hungarians, starting with excellent articles of Grzegorz Górny till an excellent book of Igor Janke about Viktor Orban entitled ‘An attacker’.

Hungarian patriotism

I still feel a kind of dissatisfaction if it concerns our reporting Hungarian matters, what we should take example of, considering experiences of our ‘brothers’. I think that in Poland little is shown how great role in Orban’s victory was played by his continuous, persistent referring to the Hungarian patriotism and its strengthening, renewal of dignity and the national pride. These were and are the accents included in nearly every speech of Orban. How often he stigmatized ‘heads brought up on nationalism’, various scared people ‘wagging their tails like a dog and looking anxiously under the table what would fall there’. How often he repeated: ‘Budapest is more important for us, not Brussels, Washington or Moscow’. How often he stigmatized attempts of pressure of powerful EU countries on Hungary, their neocolonial actions. How significant picture of this great consequence of Orban in repairing the national backbone which had been humiliated and had complexes for such a long time, were the words of the Hungarian prime minister in the Report about the state of the country from 22 February 2013. Orban used even this occasion to pronounce strong words about the need of strengthening the sovereignty of the Hungarians and their national dignity. He stated, among the others: ‘….our Homeland has hardly been a master of its fate for the last hundred years (…). We were doing not what we wanted, which would serve to our interests, but what others wanted from us. (…) We learned to be little. we lived crouching under the carpet, with our heads down, feeling embarrassed, till we reached the turning point anew, after long years. In 2010 we decided that if a chance did not knock on our door, well, then we would smash the door ourselves. (…) Who is scared, he will be bitten by a dog, will fall off a horse and even a scooter. A scared nation has not got its own homeland, but it is also deprived of friends and allies, because the scared nation is not trustworthy. And this is because a coward does not trust himself, so how can others trust him? In 2010 the Hungarians realized the fact that continuous aligning to the line, humble adjusting oneself, continuous desire of meeting expectations, saying in other words: weakness cannot be any solution. On the contrary, it is a problem (…). We are building our country where people work not for the benefit of foreigners. The country where it is not bankers or foreign bureaucrats who tell us how to live, what constitution we should have, when we can raise pays and pensions. We are building the country in which nobody can order the Hungarians to serve to others’. (see ‘Hungary. What is going on there’, Warsaw 2013, p. 274-277).

Stop the EU dictatorship

I imagine how furiously our native cosmopolitans-internationalists would react to the words of Orban, how they would scold him with the words of nationalist, chauvinist and xenophobic! When will we have the prime minister and president in Poland who will defend their nation as much as the prime minister Victor Orban?! How much I would like to have a prime minister in Poland who – like Orban – uses every occasion to strengthen the sense of the national pride, reminding about the contribution of the nation in the world culture and education. Even by this occasion, like the mentioned Report about the state of the country of 22 February 2013, Orban fervently reminded about what Hungary had given to the world, saying: ‘We, the Hungarians, added a lot to the world, but we spoke very rarely about our great achievements, about the works of the Hungarians. (…) Our nation has always been rich in works and successes of individuals. (…) In this way it added a lot not only to itself but also the whole world. It was so with the invention of a machine for chess game, a pen, dynamo, electric tram, hologram, telephone system, Rubik’s Cube and many other novelties, inventions and records. All this are Hungarian achievements’.

A new and significant example of a persistent opposition of Viktor Orban to the neocolonial policy of powerful EU countries is found in the speech of the Hungarian prime minister during the XXV Congress of Fidesz on 28 September 2013. Orban said among the others: ‘I ask you not to forget that the former communists gave Hungary and the Hungarians into the hands of speculators, banks and corporations. They changed their anoraks into suits (…). However, the essence remains unchangeable: these are those who are ready to give Hungary to economic colonization again (…). We speak with an open text: Hungary will not give in! We are not and we will not be servants of banks and corporations. We, the Hungarians, are our own masters and we do not want others to tell us how we should organize our own country (…) We do not accept the right for colonization’ (quoted from ‘wSieci’ , 7 October 2013).

An example of Viktor Orban

How important it is to remind the words of Orban in Poland, where so many leading politicians, starting with Skubiszewski and Balcerowicz, through Kwaśniewski, to Tusk, were obediently realizing the policy ‘on knees’ towards the dictatorship of foreigners. And we have had more and more terrible consequences of it in the recent years. For example, imposing the climate package on us by the EU, which may destroy the Polish mining. Or dangerous destruction of any hopes for extraction of shale gas, which were such a big chance for the poor Polish economy. Indeed, in recent time, we found out that in the European Parliament the restrictive conditions for extraction of shale gas, dangerous for Poland were outvoted with a very few votes. How necessary it would be to oppose now – following the example of Orban – to the dictatorship of the European Union. Hungary is indicating only a right road to defend economic sovereignty against foreign attempts.

(AA)

"Niedziela" 43/2013

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl