I would like to cordially greet everyone who came today so that we can inaugurate a new statue here together in Budapest. It is the statue of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the fortieth president of the United States of America. I would like to extend a special welcome to the representatives of the United State, who are all old friends of Central Europe and of Hungary. I would also like to greet all our dear guests from Hungary with equal respect.

One may ask the question, why are we Hungarians erecting a statue to an American president? Armies of experts analyse the functioning of the international system, but it is statesmen, who make it work. An analyst does not assume risk. If his conclusions are found to be incorrect, he will write a new study. A statesman has only one chance to decide. History passes judgement and tells how wisely he managed the changes and preserved peace. History has decided and its judgement is all about appreciation and gratitude. This is why he also needs to have a statue standing in Budapest.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

“Tear down this wall” – said Ronald Reagan to the First Secretary of the Soviet communist party. With the opening of the Hungarian border, we knocked out the first brick; later the wall collapsed also and brought with it the demise of the Soviet empire and the era of the communist regime. Hungary and the other countries held captive behind the walls of the socialist bloc were liberated, a new world was created and the reunification of divided Europe, of the divided western civilization began. Thus today we are erecting a statue to the man and the leader who changed, who renewed the world and in it our Central-European world also. A man, who believed in liberty, in the moral power of free men and that walls standing in the way of freedom can be torn down. He was the one who stood by his conviction that one could not live together with the bad, that there was no peaceful coexistence and no compromise with the evil. However great and mighty it is; one has to fight it and win over it. When he entered office, he placed a sign on his desk in the Oval Office, which said: “It can be done”. And that was what he did. He broke taboos, swept aside dogmas believed to be eternal, all in the name of common sense. He tore down the walls that were erected in the way of freedom by the distorted and sick ideologies of the 20th century. The walls that separated one side of the western civilization from the other. However Ronald Reagan is not only important for us because of the past, but also because of the present and the future. We do what we are doing for ourselves and for our children. We want to draw strength from his example. We would like if his easy going, witty and rock hard determination would transfer on to us. We Hungarians have come to the point now, where we have to say to each other, let us tear down the walls that have so far stood in the way of the future, in the way of true freedom, development and success. Dear friends, we in Hungary still have to tear down walls in order to free ourselves from the captivity of the mistakes of the our past, so that we can become a strong, successful and proud country. 

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

He is proof that complete renewal does exist, that we can indeed change our lives, our destiny and our world if we have the courage and the strength. Yes, it can be done, if we are courageous enough to firmly distinguish between right and wrong, between true and false, between valuable and phoney. If we are ready, like President Reagan was ready to assume the responsibility of articulating the difference between the good and the bad. We do not light a lamp to cover its light; similarly our moral judgement loses validity if we do not act according to it. We Hungarians know what it is like to face the evil in the eye. We who experienced communism in our everyday lives and not only read about it on the pages of history books, we felt on our own skins how the machinery of tyranny can cripple a whole nation. In 1990 it seemed that the victory of the western world was complete. It seemed that a safe, predictable and free world awaits humanity. Instead today, in 2011 we see that a completely new and completely unknown chapter is commencing in the life of humanity. We are afraid of what we have experienced already; we agonize about the unknown and are afraid to lose the values that we hold so dear. The old wisdom comes to our mind. “Traveller, there are no ready roads. Man has to break the ground for himself.” Politics is about permanent ground breaking. In better times there are longer periods of rest, in crisis it is constant work.

We are need of a Ronald Reagan. Is there one preparing somewhere?


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