The organisation of former Hungarian prisoners and forced labourers in the Soviet Union (Szorakész) keeps national remembrance alive and sets an example of faith, patriotism and human decency, Speaker of Parliament László Kövér told a meeting marking the 30th anniversary of the organisation’s establishment in Siófok, in western Hungary, on Friday.
In his address, the Fidesz politician said Gusztáv Menczer, the founder of Szorakész, had shown that the “secret” to surviving the Gulag was faith. “This — faith in God and faith that he gave us a homeland and family so we could preserve it — is also the secret to shaping a humanly liveable future in the 21st century,” he said.
The speaker said it was important to base all forms of individual and community “self-protection” on this faith in the future, too. “Self-protection is needed again today because although we had hoped for 30 years that the era of communism — one of the most violent eras of history — would be over for good, authoritarian aspirations manifesting in intellectual and physical violence have emerged once again,” Kövér said.
“Our ancestors learned that the essence of communist rule is impassioned anti-Christianity, a fierce hatred for the nation paired with eager internationalism, artificial mass indoctrination that comes with a conscious destruction of communities as well as the economic robbery of people concealed by deceitful philanthropic buzzwords,” Kövér said.
“Today’s Hungarian generation is not the first that has had to confront authoritarian aspirations but it might be the first to defeat them and save the next generation from the return of the godless and inhumane rule, that we got to know as communism in the 20th century,” he added.
Kövér said the sole difference between the threats of authoritarian rule in the 20th and 21st centuries was that “the promise of Heaven on Earth” today was called “open society” rather than communism. This open society, he said, threatened to tear apart the concept of the family, national and religious communities, nation-states and Christian churches.
Featured photo by Tamás Vasvári/MTI
