At the 21st Meeting of the Komárom-Esztergom County Nationality Folklore Ensembles on 28 May, Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice Pál Völner said that we often hear voices from Brussels and the United States calling upon us to give up our culture – or nowadays even to admit masses of people who do not accept our values.
At the traditional event in Piliscsév, the Minister of State pointed out that different nationalities in the Carpathian Basin live together while simultaneously fostering and protecting their shared values.
“Our county can be proud of itself, if for no other reason than this gathering. As also seen at this event, we know what values we have inherited, and we are able to preserve them; and thus we can show them to our children, so that they can also pass them on”, Mr. Völner said.
In his opening speech the Minister of State said that people here in the Carpathian Basin are lucky because they are different, while at the same time having common roots and values.
Mr. Völner said that “In his warnings, King St. Stephen said that a country with one tradition and one language is a poor country. But there was always something that kept the peoples living here together. We could talk about churches, we could talk about schools, and so we could talk about a common European culture, which nowadays not everybody understands and not everybody protects”. He added that we hear voices from Brussels and the United States saying that acceptance is about surrendering ourselves in line with globalisation – about not knowing where we come from, and not knowing where we are going. “Or, as a matter of fact, to let in masses of people who always demand exclusivity, and who do not accept our values, the values according to which we were raised”, he explained.
In the closing thought of his speech he called the attention of those present to the fact that the protection of our common European values is also manifested in the simple events and acts of everyday life, and he expressed his thanks for work done by those who preserve traditions.