Deeply honoured Madame Secretary of State, Excellencies, Ambassadors, Dear Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to greet the members of the Lantos family with special respect and warmth. We are happy that you are here with us today and we are reminded of the phrase with the special emphasis, which said: “Anne and me”. These words remain words of fidelity to us, of fidelity that we preserve in our memory with the greatest appreciation. Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, we are gathered here today to strengthen further the alliance of the United States of America and Hungary, to pay our respects to the champion forerunners of this alliance and to celebrate yet another strong bastion of the alliance between Hungary and the United States of America. Further testament to the significance of this is that beside our numerous excellent American friends, we are joined here today by the highly esteemed US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

The alliance of the American and the Hungarian people stands on firm foundations. Foundations can be built of stone or steel, but the strength of our alliance is strangely rooted in one word – for which we use different words in our languages – that is the same in its depth. This word is freedom. Our passionate attraction to freedom forms our community. There is no community in the world that is stronger, more confident or committed than the community of freedom loving people. A community like this, such a strong alliance will generate its own forerunners, its champions. The message of Hungarian freedom was taken by forerunners worldwide when occupation and tyranny still reigned here. Many such forerunners arrived to America; many of them became champions, valiant champions of Hungarian freedom. Hungarians, the Hungarian people will always be grateful to these forerunners and champions. We know that we owe our freedom today, the fact that we can share this word, to the active American Hungarian emigration. Tom Lantos was one of these important forerunners and champions. I met him several times in his new home country. We talked a lot. It happened that we polemized, because there were numerous issues, in fact everything related to Hungarian domestic politics, in which we were on different opinions. He acknowledged this with the forgiving grace of grandparents. Our common commitment to serve freedom and the Hungarian cause however bridged every political difference. 

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

It was the passionate love of freedom that made the United States of America and Hungary become what they are today. However, while America has always been considered to be the land of freedom, we Hungarians had to constantly and incessantly struggle for it. What a difference! When in the 19th century, more and more Hungarian scholars and politicians visited America; they were awed by its richness. One of these great Hungarian discoverers of America, a certain Farkas Bölöni also wrote a book about his experiences. In it he provides proof again and again that America owes its amazing economic dynamism, cultural development, prosperity and the people becoming a nation, the prevalence of social peace to its freedom, while Hungary’s lack of development is the result of the absence of freedom. It was then, in the mid-19th century that we truly understood that no European nation can be lifted if it is not free. We have come a long way, fought for centuries, given thousands of martyrs, before we finally arrived to where we can say today with confidence that our word freedom is the same as in America; we mean the same things by it. The word freedom perhaps has so much strength and energy, because we know that freedom is not naturally granted, that it is not given to the idle, nor to cowards or to the weak hearted. 

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

The struggle for freedom has entered a new era. The protection of liberties has been adopted and is practised by all major political forces in the western world. However there are many dangers lurking over freedom today. It is not tanks or violence, but much more subtle things imprisoning the soul and the spirit, which restrict the freedom of many nowadays. Let us recall a truly contemporary problem, the complicated relationship between freedom and the economy. Debt – whether that of individuals, households or whole countries – evidently restricts freedom, while not prejudicing in any legal way any of the traditions freedoms. It is my conviction that in the post-2008 world the most dangerous threats to freedom will come from here, this will be the field where every freedom-loving people have and will have the most to do. We Hungarians know from an American president that “there are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”

The freedom of the individual is not complete - distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen - if the individual is obstructed from exercising rights as a community. The situation in terms of minority rights has improved in Central-Europe, but we are still far away from being able to lean back. We need further bastions in the struggle for freedom in order to build an unconquerable fortress that can withstand every attack. This is precisely what the Tom Lantos Institute has undertaken to do. It has pledged to promote the cause of freedom and minority rights with the commitment and passion of the man it is named after and of numerous other, successful members of the American Hungarian emigration.

I wish the Institute success in faithfully preserving the memory of Tom Lantos and in promoting the sacrificial work and achievements of the American Hungarian emigration. I also wish that is should strengthen further our alliance, between the United States of America and Hungary. On behalf of the Hungarian people, I pledge the full support of the Hungarian government for this work.

Thank you for listening to me.


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