Viktor Orbán delivers his regular Friday radio interview.Continue reading
On Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gave a speech at the Sovereignty Conference of the Századvég Center for Public Knowledge Foundation. The conference celebrated the 30th anniversary of the foundation.
The Prime Minister recalled the period after the end of the communist regime in 1989 and the founding of Századvég. “Századvég as an institute may have been born thirty years ago, but its conception dates back to the mid-1980s. That is when the big things started,” he recalled. “We wanted the Soviets to go away and the communists to fall, and that is how Századvég was born: free life begins with free speech, free speech begins with free writing.”
“Nowadays it is fashionable for politicians to move between business and politics. It is a trend in the West too, and the Hungarian socialists do nothing else,” he said. However, who were on the editorial board of the Századvég journal at the time, are different, the Prime Minister pointed out. Referring to the name of the journal, he added that “around 1985, many of us thought that the Russians would withdraw, the communists would disappear, the century would slowly end, and so we came up with the name Századvég (end of century).”
He added:
We were not prophets, but we saw that the economic reserves of the socialist world were running out, the peripheral states of the Soviet Union were waking up.
We now know that we were right in our assessment of the situation, that it pays to be radical, even if you cannot achieve these goals, because at least you have something to fall back on.”
The Prime Minister also touched on the role of George Soros. “At one time, he was grinding in the same mill, because he did not want the communists to rule Hungary either. That he wanted to rule Central Europe instead of the Soviets was not clear at the time,” he added.
“The whole story of Századvég was a story of heart and patriotism, and it should stay that way,” the Prime Minister said. He added: “As István Stumpf wrote at the time, the goal is to do what we want and what we can. The launch of Századvég was the launch of radical change” The Prime Minister underlined that “if it had not been for that then, there would be no Fidesz today, and there would be no sovereign Hungary today.”
He referred to the loss of the 2002 elections, after which Fidesz concluded that
Hungary will not be sovereign as long as liberal hegemony dominates public thinking.”
He added, however, that this does not mean that what the opponents have should be abolished. Instead, it is necessary to create an environment in which there is room for everyone. He added: “In the West, this has not yet been understood because they are not able to step outside the liberal framework.” Viktor Orbán noted that “from this point of view, the Hungarian political system is much more democratic than the Western one.”
“If the majority of the Hungarian people can identify more with one position, we call it a victory, and those who take the majority position win. Those who cannot accept this and want liberal hegemony are communists,” he said, adding: “Liberals, the opponents, do not care about people, their starting point for thinking is an idea.”
Like communists, they are activists of an idea. What matters is what Marx or Engels thinks about an issue.”
the Prime Minister pointed out.
He stressed that the position is clear: people in the West are left alone with this opinion, and the voice of the people is not heard. “Hungary is important in European politics because we are the country and the government that speaks the way the Hungarian people think. And the way the European people think. We have an influence in international politics that truly outweighs our weight,” he said.
Viktor Orbán reminded that we cannot live in a lie, it is time for people to speak out, it is time for change in Europe and for the European institutions to be taken back. We have gained sovereignty, it is up to them and the young people to keep it, he concluded his speech.
Via Magyar Nemzet, Featured image: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Fischer Zoltán