The following speech about the European “migration” crisis by Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary was originally published on Andreas Unterberger’s website. JLH has kindly translated the text from the German.
Note: Mr. Orban’s speech was given in Hungarian, and the text was then translated into German. This translation from the German may differ somewhat from other direct English translations, if any such are extant:
Andreas-Unterberger.at — The not quite non-political diary and the many not quite boring partner pages
Europe is Threatened by a Transformation to the Point of Being of Unrecognizable
August 4, 2015
author: Viktor OrbanA speech by the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, at the 26th student encampment of the Free Summer University in Bálványos is worthy of appearing here as a guest commentary, since — apart from the British prime minister — there is no other politician in all of Europe who tells it like it is. It is really heartening (even though clearly formulated from the Hungarian perspective). It is miles removed from anything Austrian politicians utter.
Here is the majority of what Orban said, translated:
A year ago I said that we live in times when anything can happen, and I still say so today. Who would have thought that Europe would not be capable of protecting its own borders against unarmed refugees? Who would have thought, for instance, that things could go so far in France that the leader of the Islamic community there would publicly propose to the French state that it leave its depopulated Christian churches to his community, since they would be happy to turn them into Islamic houses of worship? Who would have thought that the United States of America would be wiretapping leading German politicians?
All of this has happened, and yet the sky is not falling. And who would have thought that we Europeans would act as if nothing had happened, and continue friendly free-trade negotiations with a partner who probably knew our negotiating positions before we did?
The uncertainty of the future can mislead us into pondering the nature of the political future, or to put it more precisely, the natural history of being able to recognize the future. We tend to imagine the future and/or the study of the future as does a ship’s captain sailing into the unknown. We stand at the prow of the ship, telescope in hand, and use it to reconnoiter the unfamiliar coast. In this endeavor, the captain has an advantage, i.e., the one who finds the future first will be the one with the sharper eyes or the better telescope. As if the future is somewhere out there like a yet undiscovered continent, just waiting for us to find it.
But, dear friends, the future is of an entirely different nature. That is, the most important characteristic of the future is that it is not yet complete, does not yet exist and will only occur after this moment. So it makes no sense whatsoever to strain our eyes looking forward to discover it. It would be far more rewarding to think of the future as does the rower in a regatta, that is, with his back to the direction of travel. That way, you see what lies behind you, and what gradually comes into your field of vision. Thus, the bow of the boat is being steered in the direction of the future as the coast appears in our view.
We should therefore deduce the future from the entirety of what we already know. This means that pondering the future is not a contest that is about seeing as far as possible into the future, but rather about understanding the past better. The winner in that enterprise is the one who gains a deeper understanding of the past and can more swiftly and courageously comprehend its lessons. At the same time, this represents the starting point for political leadership and planning. That is good news, since to understand things we need, first of all, our minds — that is our reason — and human reason is equally distributed in the world. In this respect, every person is certain of having more of it than others. When we think about the future of the European Union, and our own future within it, we must first consider the past of the European Union.