Those who want to forge the European Union into a European empire are all supporters of immigration, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Tuesday on the Memorial Day of the 1956 revolution and freedom fight, outside the House of Terror Museum in Budapest. He stressed Europe is a home of nations.
According to the Prime Minister today in Brussels imperial marching songs are being played again, “it is true that this tune is different from the old one”. Today they are not conquering with weapons: Brussels is not Istanbul, not Moscow, not imperial Berlin, not even Vienna. Nothing ever was conquered from Brussels, only colonies were administered from Brussels, he said.
“We, however, have never been either a colony or a coloniser, we have never taken anyone’s country away, and for that reason we will never give ours to anyone else either”, he stressed. Today Brussels is being ruled by those who want to replace an alliance of free nations with a European empire. A European empire which is led not by the elected leaders of nations, but by Brussels bureaucrats, Mr Orbán stated, observing that today in a number of European countries, too, supporters of a European empire are at the steering wheel. This is why we may have a fair idea of what that “brave new world” would be like if it were up to them. Young men of conscription age coming from other continents and different cultures are appearing in ever larger numbers, he highlighted, and “will within our lifetime shape large European cities into their own image”, thereby turning indigenous Europeans into a minority, slowly but surely. Terrorism will become a part of city life. Political manipulation, in reference to the rule of law, will be an everyday occurrence. And the freedom of speech and press will extend as far as it echoes their ideas, the Prime Minister listed.
Those who want to forge the European Union into a European empire are all supporters of immigration
The Prime Minister said those who want to forge the European Union into a European empire are all, without exception, supporters of immigration: they have turned the letting in of migrants into the yardstick of Europeanness, and expect every country and nation to turn multinational within the shortest possible time. We now see, he continued, that they intentionally did not use their enormous police and military might, they intentionally did not protect Europe from the masses of migrants. “If we were able to do so, they would have been, too. It was not the ability that was lacking, but the will”, Mr Orbán said.
In his words, “the Brussels vanguard and the other leaders who are opposed to nation states” see migration as a chance and an opportunity even today. A chance to replace the European Union of nation states with a multicultural empire with a mixed population smoothed into a united front. A Europe without nation states, an elite detached from its national roots, an alliance with multinational power groups, a coalition with financial speculators, he listed, adding that “this would be George Soros’s paradise here”.
European nations will have to choose a future
He also said that while it is still only October, everyone in Europe is already thinking about May. The May European parliamentary elections will decide, he continued, which way Europe should be heading. European nations will have to choose a future, and we Hungarians cannot stay silent either: “if the tune of the trumpets wavers, we will not be able to line up behind even the most important and truest cause”. We must therefore accept the challenge and call forth those who believe in a Europe of nations. We must wave the flag of a free and strong Europe, he said.
The Prime Minister stressed: “Let us choose independence and the cooperation of nations against global governance and control. Let us reject the ideology of globalism, and support the culture of patriotism instead”. He stated that Europe is different from the other continents: Europe is a home of nations, not a melting pot.
Europe is a home of nations
Mr Orbán stressed that Europe was led astray not by proud nations, but by imperial designs. Imperial experiments and experimenters are responsible for the monstrous wars of the twentieth century, a sea of suffering, and the multiple destruction of a thriving Europe.
“We believe that every nation is special, and unique in its own way, and can brighten up the segment of the world that is entrusted to it”, he said, stressing that this is why the Hungarian people rose up already in 1956.
“We love our culture which sustains and protects our freedom. We believe in strong families, we hold that our traditions and history are exceptional, we celebrate our heroes, and above all we love our country. We do not want to, and indeed we will not, surrender it for the sake of any empire or global governance”, the Prime Minister stated, adding that they do not want to wipe national feelings away, but in actual fact they wish to encourage them so that they release the abilities and talent inherent in Hungarian people.
History teaches us, he said, that in sovereign countries freedom lives on, democracy is enduring and peace prevails.
Mr Orbán also highlighted that almost all the revolutions and freedom fights of the Hungarians met with a negative result, but somehow this eventually led to a positive final outcome: survival, country and freedom. In his words, this is a veritable mystery which is called forth by every one of our national holidays.
Hungarians do not bet on the fate of their country
He also said that the Hungarian people are not the gambling type, they do not bet on the fate of their country, they are reluctant to engage in dubious adventures. If needs be, they can also fight without hope, but they prefer both heroism and common sense to be on their side.
According to the Prime Minister, the freedom fighters of fifty-six made a reasonable decision: the Soviets withdrew from Austria, Hungarian communists were busy butchering one another, and the free western world encouraged us and promised help. “On the one side, the hopelessness of certain demise, on the other, one last chance, a chance that would never return. It had to be tried. And they did try it. The way only we Hungarians can. With courage that laughs in the face of death, leaving our bad disputes behind, in full unity and with a pure heart”, he said.
He pointed out that with every year that passes after 1956, there are fewer and fewer of those who took part in or witnessed those days. But every year since then “we have come together nonetheless, come rain or shine, and this will be so on every 23 October as long as Hungarians live in this world”. The Prime Minister said “Faludy was right to say that for us 1956 is not a memory and is not history, it is our heart and our spine”.
He highlighted that after 1956 there was communist dictatorship in Hungary for another 34 years. Cold daily life in dictatorships tends to undercut human dignity, and even after their fall there remain emptiness, a diminished life force and pettiness, he pointed out. He took the view that “this is what we Hungarians escaped from, this is what the freedom fighters of fifty-six rescued us from”.
Mr Orbán said “it was not human weakness, not division that was handed down to us, but the example of courage, heroism and greatness”. This was the only way that we Hungarians could be proud of our country even during communist oppression, he pointed out.
He underlined that “we Hungarians are the best at moaning”, we are second to none when it comes to complaining, and we Hungarians can mourn ourselves more sincerely than anyone else. Yet, “here we are, one thousand one hundred years after the conquest, a thousand years after the establishment of the Christian Hungarian State, as one of Europe’s oldest nations, surviving occupiers and occupations”, he said. He believes that eternal Hungarian heroism must be there somewhere among the reasons for the survival of the Hungarian people.
The Prime Minister also emphasised that the lads of Pest born in the thirties – in their mere teens, or twenties at most – had received nothing from their country, and the nation could only offer them a share in its suffering. However, the lads of Pest who never got anything from their country gave their all for it, and for this “their place is up there in the pantheon of eternal Hungarian heroism”, he observed.
Mr Orbán said that when after almost half a century of Soviet occupation and communist oppression we regained our freedom, “we thought we had finally returned home”. Hungary has been a part of Christian Europe for a thousand years. “We are Europe because we remained Europeans even when they sold us off in Yalta, and also in ’56 when they let us down”, he said.
He took the view that after the departure of the Soviets “we believed that we had finally found peace, that our history, culture and world political situation had finally fallen into harmony, that we could occupy our position in Europe again”. But today European nations, “including us Hungarians, are compelled to face challenges of the distant past”. He added that Europe finds itself in danger not due to external military threats, not due to American or Soviet aspirations, but through its own doing.
He raised the question: who would have thought that “the imperial idea which ruined Europe time and time again could re-emerge in Europe”, that others would want to tell us whom we should live together with in our own country, and that Hungary or Poland would be attacked on the basis of fabrications, or that threats would be levelled at Romania and Slovakia, and even Italy?
The Prime Minister highlighted that Europe’s greatness, strength and glory stemmed from nations that compete and cooperate with one another all at once. Nations once respected one another’s rights, protected the interests of their citizens, were able to cooperate well, and shared the blessings of peace, advancement and security. This is the kind of Europe, a Europe of nations that we Hungarians joined a good fifteen years ago. “We accepted the invitation of Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac, not the conquests of Bonaparte or the Third Reich”, he said.
He pointed out that we Hungarians “suffered enough from empires”. They all wanted to turn us into good subjects. “They did not understand that we have a country, and that a country has sons and daughters, not subjects.” They have perhaps learnt since that “the Hungarians sniff out imperial designs from afar and send their governors packing sooner or later. If they are lucky”, he said. He concluded his speech saying: “Let us think of the freedom fighters of ’56, let us remember the lads of Pest, let us choose the future of patriotism and national pride”.