“The whole refugee crisis, this whole migration and the whole problem of economic immigration, if viewed from the right perspective, is nothing more than an identity crisis on the part of liberalism”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán explained in his speech at the annual Civil Picnic in Kötcse on 5 September, the full text of which was published by Hungarian weekly Demokrata on Wednesday.
The Prime Minister declared that the spiritual-ideological era that we may describe as “liberal blahblah” has come to an end and stressed: this provides a new opportunity for the national-Christian system of ideals and way of thinking to regain its dominance not only in Hungary, but throughout Europe.
“This is the first good crisis of identity I have ever experienced”, Mr. Orbán said with relation to the liberal identity crisis.
He expressed his firm belief that in Europe it is no longer possible to live in prosperity while “seeing ourselves as good in a liberal way”. The most dangerous combination that man has ever known throughout history, he explained, is when people are rich, but weak. “Liberal philosophy leads to a weak Europe, which meanwhile wants to preserve its economy, but cannot do so if it is weak”, he said in summary.
In addition, Mr. Orbán explained that we must differentiate between personal, individual responsibility and the obligations of a modern state: while giving money from personal assets does not endanger the economy, providing benefits and prosperity from state assets results in falling economic performance.
According to the Prime Minister, in contrast to Hungary, today’s Europe is ruled by the liberals and most of the tools and channels that convey and interpret the ideas of conservatives are also in their hands. This is why, he explained, if a conservative Chancellor or a conservative Prime Minister comes into office they have no choice but to conform to some extent – and that extent is not small – to the system of tools that is under the control of people who have a different ideology than they do. This is what the European right is suffering from.
In his speech, Prime Minister Orbán called liberalism “an area of though organised into a system of hypocrisy” and referred to liberal foreign policy as “organised hypocrisy”, in which actions that are described as good usually hide goals such as money, oil and natural resources. “They were not doing good when they were so kind as to bomb Iraq or Syria to shreds, but were in fact doing their worst possible”, while they would like the world to recognise them for standing on the side of good, he cited as an example.
It is time to also include in arguments the term responsibility, not just Christian charity, he pointed out.
Christian identity sets out an order of importance: first and foremost we are responsible for our children, then for our parents, then our place or residence “followed by our homeland, and only then comes everything else”, he stressed. “As we know, a liberal is responsible for the whole world, because they are a good person and everything that happens around the world is painful for them”, Mr. Orbán said describing the opposite pole.
The moral of the current situation is that we must protect both our borders and Hungary’s ethnic and cultural composition, and the latter cannot be forcibly changed by anybody, he said in summary. In addition, it is also important for the country to remain successful economically, because without that “being in a position that is closest to perfection morally is useless”, you will be trampled on, the Prime Minister continued, highlighting the promotion of “everyday patriotism” as his fourth point. This not something of an intellectual nature, he said of the latter, but a basic survival instinct, a daily routine, like the fact that we buy Hungarian products in the shops or employ Hungarian people if we need labour.
“If we cannot bridge communications, cultural and other barriers, and if we cannot make everyday nationalism attractive to young people, and not in a disorganised, disagreeable and radical tempo that gives people the shivers, but if we are incapable of achieving this in a different, fresh and youthful language, then we will not be the victors in this battle”, the Prime Minister explained, admitting that “it is in this respect that we have been least successful”.
Turning to the audience of this year’s Kötcse Picnic, Mr. Orbán declared: Everyday survival instincts, lifestyle advice and considerations formed on a patriotic and national basis, and the opinions put forward as a result, are not present in the Vatican, but we must enter this battlefield too and we must win.