Alluding to clashes between Fidesz supporters and riot police in 2006 on the anniversary of the 1956 revolution on the spot in Budapest where he delivered his speech, Orbán said that 15 years ago “tear gas grenades” had been on one side and “a cheated and humiliated nation” on the other.

Speaking at a ceremony held at the intersection of Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street and Andrássy Street on a stage festooned with national flags, the prime minister said: “Fifteen years ago, at this very time, here on the corner of Andrássy and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky streets, the past and the present confronted one another.”

“On one side were tear gas grenades, rubber bullets, plain-clothed unidentified police and water cannons,” Orbán said. “On the other side stood a cheated and humiliated nation which … was yet again forced to listen to the fact that they had been lied to morning, noon and night.”

“On one side was a power that had cheated with hundreds of tricks … and on the other were desperate people lined up behind the giant letters of Freedom.”

PM Orbán: Choices Show ‘Who We Really Are’

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his keynote speech commemorating the 1956 revolution that there were moments when “in the life of nations everybody suddenly feels that enough is enough; things can’t go on the way they have done,” Orbán said.

“We have to decide, and that decision will show who we really are. It will transpire for a whole nation what that nation is worth. Whether a nation remains silent or goes out to protest, whether it reconciles itself with the situation or rises up against it, whether it looks to one side or stands up straight, or whether it retreats or takes up the fight,” Orbán said.

Referring to 1956, Orbán said: “We Hungarians took the right decision: we protested; we stood up straight and rose up and fought [against Soviet rule]”. That meant taking a stand for freedom against captivity, independence against occupation, and Hungarian patriots standing against communists, Orbán said.

“On this day are saluting the wonderful day when we showed the world who we really are,” the prime minister said. “Today we remember that moment when the Hungarian nation, in a matter of moments, found itself,” Orbán said. In that moment, “the name Hungarian became worthy of its great old fame,” he said. “The new generation of communists in 2006 wrangled with this Hungary again,” Orbán said.

The prime minister said the Socialist-led government had entered into power by telling lies. They deceived people by promising tax cuts before hiking taxes and introducing a fee for hospital visits and forcing utility prices to skyrocket, he added.

The previous government scrapped the 13th-month pensions and family benefit schemes, and “pushed hundreds of thousands of families into the trap of foreign currency loans in cahoots with the international banks”, Orbán said. “They sold off the entire country — everything, including its international airport and national utility and public service providers — to foreigners,” he said, adding that the next step “after bankrupting the country” was “to put the IMF’s leash around our neck”.

“And when we raised our voice against it all, they responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and an attack by police mounted on horses. They shot people’s eyes out and beat unprotected women and elderly people with rubber batons,” Orbán said. He said that it had taken “years to clear up the havoc the left-wing government left behind, but we have succeeded in putting Hungary back on its feet.”

“Mercifully, in the meantime, national unity has endured and workers, engineers, farmers, small and medium-sized firms, scientists, teachers, nurses and doctors have cleared the ruins,” Orbán said in his speech.

“We have created a million new jobs, got rid of foreign currency loans, cut taxes, and next year the minimum wage will be higher than the average wage during the time of the [former governing] Socialists.” The national wealth, he added, had grown one and a half times during Fidesz’s time in power. “We taxed multinationals, protected families, and now utility bills are the lowest in Europe,” he said.

The prime minister said Hungary was now giving both the elderly and young people their due, with the phased reintroduction of the 13-month pension and a tax break for young workers being introduced next year. Further, families raising children are getting this year’s taxes returned to them, he noted.

Orbán said “Ours is again a Hungarian world and Hungarian life” and “we have a constitution that guarantees that what was done to us in ’56 and again in 2006 can never happen again”. Also, the government, he said, had fused together the nation separated by borders and reunited Hungarians. “It took millions of united wills and hard work,” he said. “But it didn’t hurt to have a government strong on its feet and capable,” he added.

Orbán said Hungary had faced an attack by the European Union when the government cut the price of utility bills and capped the extra profits of multinational companies while sending “the IMF packing”. “And the EU did exactly the same when our government stopped migrants, put up a border fence and protected the country’s borders,” he said.

“Just like in 1849, in 1920 and in 1956, the European dignitaries again want to make decisions about us over our heads … until we become European, sensitive and liberal…” Orbán said. Brussels, he added, “talks to and behaves with Hungarians and Poles as if they were enemies”. Orbán said it was high time for Brussels to understand that in the end “not even the communists got far with us.”

“We’re the sand in the machinery, the spanner in the works …. We’re David who Goliath is best off steering clear of. We’re the ones who in ’56 poked global communism in the eye and the ones who knocked the first brick out of the Berlin Wall,” Orbán added.

The prime minister said Hungarians were still confronting those who insisted that Hungarians had been wrong, only to be proven right in the end. He said Hungarians would be proven right “a third time” following their stance on the issues of public utility bills and migration. “There will be a referendum and we will protect our children,” Orbán declared. “Hungary will be the first country in Europe to stop overbearing LGBTQ propaganda at the school gate.”

Orbán said “the left wing, however they disguise themselves, are still the same old left wing”. He said the left wing “starts off by telling lies, carries on with violence and then leaves everyone bankrupt.” Quoting from the Gospel of Matthew, Orbán said: “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing … by their fruit ye shall know them. The good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the bad tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”

He said the left wing was again organising itself, “they are planting the seeds of unrest, hate and violence”. “Those who fifteen years ago ordered shots to be fired at the public are now preparing again to take the stage,” Orbán said, adding that “Uncle Gyuri [George Soros] is also making preparations, somewhere, on the other side of the big sea”.

The prime minister said “October 23 reminds us that we must not forget about out personal responsibility.” “The past 1,100 years have burnt it in our DNA that we, here, in the Carpathian Basin, must fight for freedom every day, time and again,” Orbán said. “It takes not only a heart and guile to fight for freedom, but power, too, and our power is in our unity.”

“We are together because we believe in the same causes, in the family, the nation.” “And we all believe in a strong and independent Hungary,” he said. 

Orbán insisted that Hungary’s left wing was backed by international forces so massive that “only millions of Hungarians joining together can defeat it”.

“The real challenge, and even a threat, is the international forces — the money, media and the network behind them,” Orbán added.

The prime minister urged the crowd to count on each other. “This is our strength … no amount of dollars or euros in the world can take this away from us,” he said.

Orbán concluded: “We have come, we have seen and we will win again. The Lord looks upon us and Hungary above all! Go Hungary! Go Hungarians!”


MTI Photo: Szilárd Koszticsák