[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 149 (Wednesday, October 23, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1566-E1567]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  ON THE 57TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HUNGARIAN UPRISING OF 1956--HUNGARY 
                      REMAINS A NATION OF PATRIOTS

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 23, 2013

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the 
memory of the Hungarian freedom fighters who rose up against the 
communist tyranny that was imposed on their country after World War II. 
Many men and women died in that uprising--a courageous fight against 
incredible odds, as the Soviets sent in tanks to restore the puppet 
regime they installed in 1948.
  Mr. Speaker, as Chairman or Co-Chairman of the Helsinki Commission I 
have been on human rights missions to Hungary many times over the 
years. One of the things that most impresses me about this country is 
the deeply admirable patriotism of so many Hungarians. By patriotism I 
mean something very different from nationalism--whereas nationalists 
resent and are aggressive toward other countries, patriots love and 
defend their own country and its best traditions, and allow--invite--
other people to love their own countries and traditions.
  This summer I visited Hungary on a congressional delegation ably led 
by my colleague on the Helsinki Commission, Senator Roger Wicker. We 
met with Prime Minister Orban and others, and it is in connection with 
this anniversary and our meeting with Prime Minister that I'd like to 
place into the record a recent interview Prime Minister Orban gave to 
the Telegraph.
  I commend this to my colleagues as the words of a Prime Minister who 
thinks seriously and speaks frankly about issues facing his country and 
Europe as a whole.

   Viktor Orban Interview: ``Patriotism Is a Good Thing''--The Prime 
Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, Tells the Telegraph Why His Country 
 Agrees With Britain in Its Campaign Against the ``Creeping'' Power of 
                                Brussels

                           (By Charles Moore)


                              15 Oct 2013

       Viktor Orban has just had a good meeting with David 
     Cameron. It was easier than his first with Margaret Thatcher 
     (in 2001). ``I am not satisfied with you,'' were, he recalls, 
     her first words. She was angry that Hungary was not doing 
     more to help protect Nato's soldiers from Serb aggression.
       Despite this rebuff, Mr Orban is a Thatcher admirer. His 
     political career began in 1988 when he was one of 37 young 
     students and intellectuals founding a party to attack 
     Communist rule in his country.
       ``Her role was very important: she was always in favour of 
     freedom, always anti-Communist. She said, `There is no such 
     thing as society.' I like that remark very much because in 
     European politics people were always talking in artificial 
     sociological language. Social engineering was very popular.''
       When he attended Lady Thatcher's funeral in April, he was 
     pleased that the Bishop of London explained what she really 
     meant by those famous words. ``The funeral was very moving 
     and very British--not tragical, as it would be on the 
     Continent--more of a tribute.''
       Young Viktor, a clever boy from a country background, won a 
     George Soros scholarship to Oxford to study civic society as 
     seen by liberal political philosophers such as John Locke. He 
     loved the ``electrifying dance'' of ideas there; but this was 
     the autumn of 1989 and the Berlin Wall was coming down. Here 
     was the chance actually to build a liberal civic society at 
     home. ``I said to myself, `Viktor, what are you doing here?' 
     and I took the occasion of our first free elections in March 
     1990 to go back.''
       He became prime minister for the first time in 1998, until 
     2002, and then, after wilderness years, returned to power 
     with a landslide in 2010. His time in office has been 
     controversial. He has been accused, often by European Union 
     officials, of too much nationalism, of suppressing media 
     freedom, politicising the judiciary and the central bank, and 
     even of stirring up ethnic tensions. Has the great liberal 
     freedom-fighter narrowed? Is there a risk that he could 
     become an authoritarian strongman, the Vladimir Putin of his 
     country?
       ``The risk is there,'' Mr Orban rather surprisingly admits, 
     though it is much smaller if Hungary is economically 
     successful. He thinks that circumstances have changed. 
     [Update: The office of the Prime Minister of Hungary has 
     asked the Telegraph to clarify the reference to Vladimir 
     Putin in this interview. Mr Orbin intended to assent to there 
     being a risk that he could come to seem like a Putin of 
     Hungary, not actually to become one.]
       For 200 years, the ``No. 1 motivation'' for Hungarians was 
     to catch up with more competitive Westerners. Until the 
     credit crisis, Mr Orban believed that this could only be 
     achieved by the ``ever-closer union'' of Europe. Now he has 
     his doubts.
       The crisis shows that it is not obvious that the EU can do 
     better than independent nations. Unlike the British, he 
     cannot rule out joining the eurozone, because of its 
     centripetal pull for a small country like his, ``but I don't 
     urge it. To stand alone on your own feet is more important 
     than ever.'' Hungary certainly should not join until it 
     reaches 90 per cent of the GDP of those already in, he 
     believes; right now it is in the low sixties.
       ``As I get older [he is still only 50], I tend to be more 
     sceptical. Values are more important than money. National 
     sovereignty is more and more important in my mind. The 
     question `Who is governing us?' is the key question.''
       So he supports David Cameron's efforts to change the 
     European rules: ``We shall need a new basic treaty 
     eventually.'' He wants to join Britain in resisting ``the 
     creeping movement of Brussels to eat up national 
     sovereignty''.
       The old answer that everything Westerners did was better is 
     now ``stupid''. In the 1980s, the question Hungarians faced 
     was ``how to get rid of things''--Communism, state 
     oppression, overregulation. Now that should stop. There are 
     things which should be upheld in the interests of 
     civilisation, not jettisoned: ``It would be a sad story to 
     get rid of religious belief, national identity, family and 
     even sexual identity. That's not freedom.''
       In some schools on the continent, the idea has got about 
     that ``children should not be brought up as girls or guys'', 
     but to choose their sexual identity later. ``Sometimes there 
     is a separate changing room for those who don't know who they 
     are,'' he exclaims.
       What does he say to accusations that he is stirring up old 
     ethnic, territorial passions in the region? Some blame him 
     for the rise of the fascistic Jobbik party in Hungary. His 
     answer is based on his belief that ``Xenophobia is dangerous; 
     but patriotism is a good thing''. Ethnic disputes, often 
     about land, are ``a part of life in Eastern Europe'', he 
     says.

[[Page E1567]]

       ``How do we live with this?'' he asks, ``The solution is 
     not to lie.'' Radicals of both left and right get about 15 
     per cent of the vote between them. That is too high for 
     comfort, but ``far away from being a majority''.
       At the heart of the problem in Europe, Mr Orban believes, 
     is the fact that the Communists were never fully defeated. 
     Communism as an ideology ``has no message for our future'', 
     but, unlike Nazism, it prevailed for so long (40 years in 
     Hungary's case) that its leaders, who ``were not stupid 
     guys'' created a culture which maintained their power. They 
     upheld envy ``as a perception of life'', making people 
     ``disagree with the world as it is and try to destroy it''.
       They also inculcated a belief in ``entitlements without any 
     personal effort''. In Hungary, Communism brought about what 
     he calls ``a learned helplessness'', a deliberate destruction 
     of personal responsibility, which crushed the middle class.
       We discuss the row here about Ed Miliband and his Marxist 
     father. Without commenting on the Labour situation, Mr Orban 
     says that there is a family tree passing from Communism 
     through ``the `68 generation'' (such as the former 
     revolutionary, now MEP, Daniel Cohn Bendit) to Brussels 
     bureaucrats and the media today.
       ``The Communist heritage has a marriage with the radical 
     liberals today. That genealogy exists in Europe.'' He detects 
     it in the doctrine of European human rights and the attempts 
     by the European Commission to impose cultural and 
     constitutional uniformity on member states.
       For conservatives, he goes on, this is difficult, because 
     ``we find we must argue, and conservatives generally prefer 
     just to live. We are shy to invest the energy, but we must do 
     so at a European level.''
       Personally, Vilctor Orban is not shy. He is up for the 
     fight. ``Boxing is a noble sport,'' he declares pugnaciously. 
     In the West, politics is often ``just a career''. For him, he 
     says, it is much more. He remembers the hard times in the 
     late 1980s when Fidesz, his then tiny party, was opposed by 
     the Soviets, by trade unions, militias and the state 
     apparatus. ``We were surrounded, and we won. Compare the risk 
     now--it's nothing. It's just a peanut.''

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