The traditional "state-of-the-nation" address of Mr Viktor Orbán

Dátum: 2004-02-12 19:59:00, eredeti URL: http://archiv.fidesz.hu/index.php?Cikk=20038
KCMDB-be feltöltve: 2024-05-04 19:32:22.241803, Feltöltő: fidesz_hu_scraper_v2

Many remember the old story when the Hungarian is going out of his way to be able to address the local communist party meeting. At last he is given the floor, and he asks: excuse me, is this already communism, or is it still going to be worse? Excuse me, is this already the welfare transition, or is it still going to be worse?

Good evening to our distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

I would like to say thank you for chairman János Martonyi for making today available instead of the traditional first Thursday of February, which held fast for the past five years. Last week, however, I had to be in Brussels, a fact which implies two points: first that the European Union's already very much part of our lives. Secondly, that we do not give up our traditions, as we'd rather live by them. I shall return to both these matters, with your indulgence, later on.

When we launched these meetings of ours, we said: let them be occasions like when our grandfathers made us stand once every year at the side of the door and etched a marker on it to measure our growth during the year and we rejoiced over the increasing number of centimeters. But may I ask you: what shall we do with the unexpected situation if someone stands at the side of the door by not intending to be taller, on the contrary, wanting to be smaller and shrinks defiantly before the grandparents. Indeed, the year of 2003 had been the time of shrinkage for Hungarian families. This peculiar procedure has caught the world's attention alright. Abroad they used to say of us, Hungarians that our chief characteristics was our ability to enter a revolving door at the rear of a throng only to come out ahead of everybody else. Nobody seems to understand now how we came to having entered first and walking out last.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we all well know that in an annual ‘state of the nation' address we normally take stock of what transpired in the year past. And what do we see now? We see that favourable trends are broken in half, that factories are being closed down again, that inflation and our indebtedness are on the rise once more. And if we really want to come face to face with reality itself then we might even recall that we were promised a continuation of the Széchenyi Plan that they were to enhance home-starter programmes, that our farmers would receive still more support, that interest rates on student loans would be lowered. They were making all their utterances slowly on purpose so that everybody would understand them clearly. In reality, precisely the opposite of what they proclaimed had come to pass. It may well be that reciting all this is quite superfluous here and now, since regardless of the votes cast either for this or that side, whether one lives in the cities or in the countryside, whether one happens to be young or old, whether one happens to be an old-age pensioner or a student, a worker or a farmer, a civil servant or a businessman, in other words all of us we have learnt by now that this is not what their electioneering was all about. Everyone who had entrusted them with their support ought to have learned by now that their support had ben abused. Some people may say this out loud while others may want to keep silent. But if this was all that we could discuss amongst ourselves then it might well have been a waste of time for us to gather here and now. But I suspect we've come together in order to look closer at the situation and possibly to contemplate the ways and means of solving our problems. This we can only hope to accomplish by going to the roots of our current difficulties that beset us as of late. For some time now I've been searching for an appropriate way of describing what's this which truly bothers us, including myself. I was hoping of doing so in the simplest possible manner and low behold, help arrived from an unexpected source.

Last night for example, I was reading a bedtime story to our children at home. The tale was about an old king who had ventured into the forest only to have gotten himself hopelessly lost out there. This was a curious turn of events inasmuch that the king used to hunt and knew the wilderness like the back of his hand. Yet there he was completely at his wits' end as good as lost in his favourite outdoors only because the forest around him had been changed out of all recognition as if by magic. Unbeknown stood the king. The poor king was ready to pay anyone any amount of riches if he could be shown the way back to his castle. He cried for help in vain. To cut a long story short, there was of course the usual string of ingredients one is supposed to find in a good old-fashioned children's tale. Naturally there was the customary love interlude, the unavoidable encounter with temptation, there was the indispensable princess and of course the happy ending, all of which would be of little consequence to us here. What is more of a lesson for us here is that the one who saved the king and led him back to his kingdom as a sort of crisis manager was no other but the wizened wizard himself who was responsible for the confusion in the first place, and who collected the royal reward as well. Let's remain with the poor old king for a moment, who was ready to sacrifice anything just to be led home, to be led out of the unknown wilderness, for Dear Friends, anyone who can be scared silly, nay frightened to death, becomes a truly pathetic creature prepared to do almost anything for sake of deliverance. If we don't know our whereabouts then there goes our sense of security. Loss of one's safety is one of our most ingrained sensations, which harks back to man's primeval fear of the unknown. Daresay that there cannot be a worse nightmare in which one suddenly wakes up with a sense of loss of directions. And, Ladies and Gentlemen, in Hungary today nothing is what it looks. What was supposed to mean ‘yes' only yesterday means 'no' as of today; what meant 'growth' a couple of years ago is supposed to imply 'decline' by now; once upon a time there was the Széchenyi Plan, alas it ain't no more; there used to be home assistance programmes which have all but disappeared since then; back when the 'minimum wage' actually gained in worth only to shrink away today. But the converse also holds true, unfortunately. For what used to decline two years ago like 'unemployment', is now on the up again; the same goes for ‘inflation' which was on the way down then it's rising as of now; as for our ‘indebtedness' that used to get less it's now on the 'upswing' again. What the present leaders of this country would promise to carry out is something they would not carry out. By the same token whenever they pledge not to do something, they would set about to do it. In their verbal usage the ‘yes' word often is meant to imply ‘no' and in turn a ‘yes' can mean a ‘no'. More often than not when they say that they'll 'increase something one can bet that they mean to ‘decrease' that whatever. Yet again the converse proves true, too. When they say to 'decrease' whatever they have in mind in fact it's to ‘increase' whatever that may be. When we hear them to announce to 'continue' this or other it's safe to assume that this whatever will be ‘stopped'. Whenever they say to ‘give' by now we know they mean to ‘take away'.

Dear Friends,

We appear to have lost our way in the forest of words appearing to be familiar but implying other realities. Therefore it should not come as a surprise that people are gripped by fear. If they seem to be trussed by inattention and under stress they can't help feeling lost even in their own backyards. Just imagine, if you please, how those countrymen of ours must feel who do not know whether they will have their jobs tomorrow as well. Or what about those of us who do not know whether they will have a home of their own, if ever. Or spare a thought for those who do not know whether they can afford to educate their children, come tomorrow. How about those people who have no idea how to meet their rising overheads any more. Let's think of those of us who can no longer be sure of their daily bread, milk or meat - or other provisions produced by Hungarian farmers. Or let's think of those who are concerned whether anything viable will remain under Hungarian ownership, any place where they can turn without being made to feel a stranger in their own land. Then how about those doctors who worry daily over the imminent bankruptcy of hospitals in which they attend their patients. Or can it be that shopping malls will rise where hospitals once stood. Then let me ask you how our Hungarian brethren living in Transylvania should feel about their quest for local autonomy or dual citizenship when to their dismay no one will lend them an ear in official Budapest. How should anyone of us feel about a tomorrow when we're being fobbed off with empty promises that have the hollow ring of routine statements devoid of meaning not unlike the much vaunted ‘Europe Plan'. We subscribe to the notion that our people are entitled to hearing straight talk from their elected leaders. We cannot be expected to emulate the guest in a restaurant who'd ventured to order paté d'escargot only to find to his distress that what he got was not the genuine stuff. Upon buttonholing the waiter he learned that the expensive dish was added some pork. After further questions, the waiter admitted that the proportion is in fact half-and-half': one pork and one escargot.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

The old proverb holds that it's better to be afraid than to be fearful. True enough but we'd like to go a step further to add that one need not be constantly afraid either. So what are we to do to avoid being afraid? What's the antidote of stress and fearfulness? Friends, in my opinion it's called 'security'. One walks unafraid when one feels secure within oneself. Today in Hungary stress and insecurity prevail. Leading intellectuals, writers and clerics always maintained that the best treatment for stress and fear of the soul is to look at the menace straight in the eyes. I'm reminded of a story of the army sentinel standing on guard with his teeth chattering with fear on the edge of the trench in the battlefield. When his comrades mocked him as a coward from down below he replied: if you were as scared as I am you'd have bugged off long ago. Truly then, if we can identify what's about to scare us out of our wits we're on the way to dealing with the problem effectively. This is of course not to belittle the problem as great as that might be. Once we know what we are up against it's usually half of the battle and a step towards an eventual solution. In any case it's far more preferable to beating up on each other whenever driven by fearsome emotions. Let us search for and talk about what are people most afraid of these days in Hungary.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I believe that there are those who are afraid of the past and then there are those who run scared of the future. In addition, there are the ones who remain afraid of both past and future. For our younger generation, I would say it's understanding the logic of being fearful of the past that causes us the greatest difficulty. But if we are to forge a covenant with our parents or grandparents for that matter, then we ought to comprehend their concerns of times past. Due to our youth, the democratic transition meant but one thing for us: freedom. Also fresh air to breathe. Like breaking surface when coming up from a deep dive - a triumph for truth itself. Caught up as we were in our boundless enthusiasm of youth and innocence we spared little thought for those in the crowds around us who had spent most of their lives in that ubiquitous past. For they have reached the same watershed having laboured, lived and reared families. We have conveniently ignored all those whom the fall of Communism made uncertain, even frightened because they feared their livelihoods. There are more than a few people in Hungary who still feel today that they had had greater material security and perhaps were even better off back in the old days. They were the ones within whom stress and fear arose. In their minds they presumed that they were held responsible in some way for a past which most of us wanted to shake off. In fact, what they were doing was merely an attempt at creating an existence of sorts for themselves and their families. If democracy is to succeed in Hungary then our younger generation does have a duty to ensure older folk that we understand them and share their concerns. We'll have to explain to them that we are no longer the carefree youth we once were, either. Many of us have children of our own. We too have entered that stage of our lives when we do recognize that regardless of who might be in power everybody has got to eat, everyone's got to have a roof over his head, children must be schooled while the aged must be cared for. We do appreciate that each and every one of us does have the right if not to say a duty to attain personal fulfilment in life. And this does not stand opposed to saluting those equally who had lived their lives openly opposing the regime of the past. We understand very well that not everyone needed to have become a hero onto death. The contributions of those who stayed within the bastion were important, too. The forever valid rational of the ultimate sacrifice has always been that others may live to be free. The living owe a gratitude to those who had fallen in the battles.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

Through the past century Hungarians often suffered, had to go without and had been humiliated. Immense bitterness, pain along with a guilt complex accumulated to have made our people often impatient, insensitive, selfish and on occasions even rough towards one another. None of the latter attributes should come as a surprise after such tribulations. It's my firm belief that we should handle all such sensitivities calmly and with an open mind and above all in the context of brotherly love for the sake of our future. Only this way can we hope avoiding such phenomena intruding our lives. This country of ours may only be our true home and commonwealth filled with serenity and security when fear no longer stalks this land; when our people one and all can no longer have to make long and convoluted explanations simply because they happened to have lived for most of their lives in yesterday's country. Let's instil calm onto each other by persuading ourselves that in this land we no longer have to fear the phantoms and foibles which do not exist in reality in today's Hungary. At the same time, there are some very real and palpable concerns that hang over us and with which we must come to grips. These are threats real enough, for example to prompt me to stand on guard for my family's sake as well as our common fate and future. Personally I'm convinced that these dangers could be dispelled by appropriate attitudes and common goodwill, and now we have already arrived to the realm of concerns belonging to the future.

Ladies and Gentlemen and Dear Friends!

Looking back on the diverse landscape of our history, it seems that in the last hundred years we Hungarians had to fight two characteristic psychological distresses rendering our people to failure time and again. If these distresses overwhelm us again, and I can see traces of this, that might certainly cast a shadow on our future. During the 20th century, the nation's history was such that she was incapable of setting her own course. At the end of World War I, we lost historical Hungary almost without even an attempt to protect at least some of the lost territories, instead we disbanded our army and allowed others to determine our destiny the way they wanted. Before World War II, we did not recapture the lost territories but we got them back. We got them back from others, from European powers, and it was also them who took the territories again with the peace treaties after the war. Regaining liberty in 1990 was not a hard-won battle, it rather seemed, at least that is what we felt that we got it back from the great powers ending the Cold War. As if we were unable to get rid of the inclination of waiting for an amelioration of our destiny. We are waiting this very day that the great decide about our future, and we are only subjects to these decisions.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are unable to get rid of this way of thinking robbing us of self-confidence and active strength. This enforced condition of inertia and lassitude, resulting in delivering ourselves from our own responsibility and honest reckoning, often gives rise for self-pity and condemnation of the world's injusctice. We have convinced ourselves that we cannot act, moreover, it is not even worth acting, since everything depends anyway on the French, the Germans, the Russians, then the Americans, perhaps on the European Union. Today it is the world economy which is proclaimed the destiny. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is an escape from the problems to be solved today and tomorrow. But the world economy is not some sort of a charity organization. It does not create jobs here, nor does it owe us a living. The world economy consists of special interest groups, made up of big companies with no special disposition towards anyone but themselves. If we want jobs here we'll have to create them for ourselves. The world economy will never create a secure living for us. We shall not be raised to heights of prosperity by the world economy, it will have to be done through the everyday work of our people. But if Hungarian workers have no security of employment then they won't be able to do much for this country. As the Irish statesman Pat Cox recently told me, there had been quite a bad economic leadership in his country for the first fifteen years of their membership in the European Union. All the funding his country obtained from Brussels through that period could not balance economic mismanagement.

The gentleman, who is now the Speaker of the European Parliament, added that for the next fifteen years afterwards his country received good leadership in economic matters. And funding obtained in the latter period was put to good use kick-starting the Irish economy.

That is the lesson, no amount of subsidies will turn a badly managed economy round within the EU. On the other hand, Europe collectively can help a lot to boost further assiduous domestic initiative. That is how the Irish speak. But let me ask you, Dear Friends, something salient about the Hungarian EU-campaign conducted here for the past year: it seemed to urge Hungarians to try their fortunes in EU-lands, anywhere but at home. Loudly people were being advised to go and open a conditorei in Vienna or take up employment somewhere else. As if the exclusive way of achieving success was leaving the country. Yet any self-respecting country would want its own people to advance and prosper if possible on their own turf. Such a country would want to entice its brightests to study and come back laden with experience and capital to invest, make this land, your country nicer and more prosperous, because this is how yourself, your family, friends and every compatriot can make it forward.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

There are many among us Hungarians, who say: I could move mountains if the hills were removed from the way. Dear Friends, this is the demonstration of the other one of our self-destructive inclinations. It does not look into the past with self-pity, but escapes with thoughts into a foggy distant future. To the future of mirages of grand accomplishments to be realized, the world of the 'Europe Plan' which admittedly sounds so impressive as it almost delivers us from facing today's challenges. If we look at it in detail, we can usually remember only one thing: that lamp switches be lowered in the toilet so that children could reach them. Of course the switches still are where they were, luckily the children have grown a lot in the last year, so we are closer to the solution. Ladies and Gentlemen, the era of Great Expectations has gone by. On the threshold of the Euroipean Union, one may no longer escape the necessity of tackling current issues by citing projects of the future as a pretext. That's because the cost of curing liabilities incurred in the present already exceeded the potential relief that the future may offer. A secure future is rooted in the present. If these roots were allowed to dry out then security of the future would be lost, too. In my view a functioning root system could be most effectively severed by mortgaging the future, amassing new debt.

Are you aware, Dear Friends, that in 2003 alone our indebtedness grew by more than HUF 1000 billion (approx. USD 5 billion). Putting it another way, every Hungarian family has been weighed down with an extra load of 600 000 HUF (approx. 3000 USD). Appraising the amount of debt is one thing and where did all the money go is the next relevant question yet to be asked. Ladies and Gentlemen, a secure future can only be installed atop a secure present. But what kind of a future could that be which was built on quick sand?

Is it possible to have trust in the future if we cannot in the present? Everyone needs certain anchors to hold one's vessel steady. But let me ask you, what kind of a stability a farmer may contemplate when he doesn't know if he can last until the 1 May accession date. What kind of a fixed platform awaits young people wanting to further their studies or to set up a home and raise a family of their own? Financial assistance available to either of the latter examples is being curtailed more almost weekly. What kind of a fixture do workers have in mind when they do not know how long their jobs might last? What assurances, if any, can old age pensioners rely on in order to meet their basic needs for sustenance and medication month by month? What secure points are offered by the present for those businessmen, who are aware that it will be even harder to hold ground in the competition in the EU, but they do not receive any help in this, perhaps in the scientific-fantastic future. What's there for those who do an honest work and yet cannot afford to treat their families at the weekend to a meal at a taverna?

Dear Friends, one's wage is the acknowledgement of the value placed on one's labour. There are many economic theories afoot. But a worker can afford to be philosophical only about one single consideration: and that is his wages or salary. The future's not ours to see, as it can bring either good or bad upon us. Someone who has fallen sick needs attention here and now and not some time in the future, after the reform of the finances. He who wants to study needs to do so immediately rather than fifteen years hence. The young couple wants a roof over their heads now if possible and not way off when. A breadwinner of any family cannot be appeased by suggesting to him that a few more notches in belt-tightening now will bring him the reward of a job later. For such pressing reasons alone, it is high time now to settle our mutual affairs once and for all, so that the image of the future could be bright. Believe you me, it is quite useless to gaze at the shore from a sinking ship as she is unlikely to make it into a safe haven unless the hole in her hull's first patched up.

We have to change our mental attitude towards the economy. The prevailing thinking shaped by bankers will have to change for the sake of all of us. It is only a crazy doctor who dreams about sickness without a patient. It's equally absurd to contemplate an economy without work, under some stupid assumption that money and restrictions alone will make it roll. It would appear that they have overlooked two important factors of a money-based economy: man and his work. Any such economy so arranged is bound to be inhuman, wasteful and barren in the end. We have to return to a people-friendly economy built on achievement, capable of creating new wealth. An economy that will promote a sense of security instead of prolonging poverty. We have to think in terms of an economy that can lend honour to someone with a job well done once more.

To make all this work anew we need an economy based on private ownership. Before I am charged with some sort of vulgar marxism, let me say that, of course, private ownership goes in hand with the notions of market and money. But for this country bereft of natural resources, there is but one way to go - in the direction of labour-intensive development.

We have to change the awkward situation where it costs an employer twice as much as what he pays out in net wages because of taxation and other contributions. Then one more thing, please. We can no longer go on asking for still more sacrifices from those who had already paid more than their fair share in levies, asking for more from those who are expected to contribute to uplifting the country with their entrepreneurial skills, mental and physical efforts.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

The restrictions do not join the forces of people but pressurise them. We should not be joining forces with those who are permanently demanding the restriction of state enterprises. We should not be joining forces with those who do not want to give back, or if yes, with an extra price only, the motorway which should not have been privatised in the early 1990's in the first place. Nor should we be joining forces with those who are demanding the devaluation of our national currency every single day. For to do so, we would leave out in the cold those of us whose daily life is getting to be more expensive because of the cheaper forint, including individuals about to build their own homes along with owners and employees of small and medium-sized companies by their hundreds of thousands, and virtually all of rural Hungary. What kind of national union is when we join forces only with those who are saying the same as I do? This is a small and narrow union, Dear Friends, not that of a nation but of politicians among themselves. That is not what people need today. What Hungary needs today is a covenant of the people, families, the local governments, the elderly and the young, farmers and workers, businessmen and public employees, Hungarians living at home and abroad, in support of a Hungary that once again could be relied upon to provide a safe and secure environment for all its people. The kind of Hungary This is what we want in place of insecurity, unreliability, confusion, stress and fear in which we share aplenty.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Chairman,

When we demand restoration of housing loans, a suspension of further privatization, a lowering of utility charges, a moderation of medicine costs - what we are really asking for is that we sort out our mutual affairs once and for all. Because the most effective way of triumphing over fear and uncertainty, the establishment of a secure European life, is if we get together with all those travelling on the same highway towards common goals. But in order for us to join in a covenant we have to trust each other. Most appropriate I think would be to quote a former Prime Minister of Hungary, Count István Bethlen who beseeched us not to "permit a wedge to be driven between Hungarians". He was right, to be sure. After all, trust is like the soul itself. Once it is gone, it is never to be retrieved. In order for us to enter this covenant of ours we must recognize that there are many more factors which unite us than those that render us apart. It is worth considering that people were quite well off with each other when there had been no traces of any -isms, neither conservative, nor socialist, nor liberal. I am convinced that we are not nails in neatly separated and labelled boxes up on the shelves. One's children, family, livelihood, emotiional links, dereams, memories, past, present and future are important for everyone. Few people would relish having to go without a "home-sweet-home" or without work, nor can I envisage someone who would go out of his way to spoil this country's chances in European Union. On the contrary, we are committed to making everyone if possible regardless of party affiliation, a winner of our accession. Small as our country may be, it is quite large enough to accommodate a new union. We would all like that when we stand by the side of the door next year, and measure ourselves, we could all rejoice over the extra centimetres of enrichment. Perhaps those will also be inclined to stand of straight who wanted to be small yesterday.

Come on Hungary, come on Hungarians!