In his speech delivered at the opening ceremony of the academic year at Budapest's Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban noted that the West had bestrode the globe for 400 years with a sense of exceptionalism and a mission which gave it inspiration and self-confidence. However, at the start of the 21st century something changed and the Western civilisation started to be confronted with serious challenges, he said. A "woke" neo-Marxism was taking control of institutions that shaped thought and mindsets in America, while Europe was later beset by a Muslim demographic, political and economic tide, which created a new state of affairs in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria, he pointed out.

In his speech, Hungary’s prime minister noted that the fact that the 21st century belonged to Asia „was not at all a malevolent idea”, but it does produce „a negative mental effect on a Europe so proud of its intellectual primacy”, as well as on a United States which was so used to occupying a global economic and military leadership role.

He said the West had bestrode the globe for 400 years with a sense of exceptionalism and a mission which gave it inspiration and self-confidence. However, at the start of the 21st century something changed and Western civilisation started to be confronted with serious challenges, he said. A „woke” neo-Marxism was taking control of institutions that shaped thought and mindsets in America, while Europe was later beset by a Muslim demographic, political and economic tide, which created a new state of affairs in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria.

Viktor Orban noted that the West „on either side of the pond” was not up to the task of providing adequate political solutions to such problems. „We Central Europeans, in short, believe that the West has gradually lost faith in its own mission,” he said. It no longer seeks meaning in its own history but instead reinterprets or obliterates certain periods with a sense of shame, while failing to discover alternatives. Those who happen to not be paralysed, but are instead very active indeed, are usually such „deconstructive, disruptive forces” that „perhaps it would be better if they were paralysed,” he added.

In reference to Karl Popper’s work that laid the foundations for the „open society” ideology, PM Orban recalled that Popper had argued that anyone who ascribes any unique value or historical mission to his nation or political community was the enemy of open society and in fact was seeking to build a tyranny. This, he said, was perhaps the most influential and destructive Western way of thinking after World War II. The concept of an open society robbed the West of its belief in its own values and historical mission, the prime minister said. Amid the current “Muslim tide” and the rise of Asia, the West is unable confront its own mission against emerging intellectual and political centres of power, he added.

PM Orban argued that central Europeans believed that, without a mission, they were destined to failure. “He who loses faith in his own excellence and mission also loses inspiration and the motivation to strive for self-betterment, and eventually fades to insignificance,” he said.

He emphasized that Hungarians had previously taken on the mission of ensuring the coexistence and prosperity of the peoples living in the Carpathian Basin. “For many hundreds of years, the protection of the independent Carpathian Basin has been our mission and vocation,” to “not allow ourselves to be engulfed by the political, cultural and administrative framework of the Germanic or Ottoman world,” he said.

The prime minister recalled that the experience of the Tartar Mongolian invasions, the advance of the Muslim world in the Middle Ages, the Nazi occupation, the Soviet occupation and the anti-Christian nature of the decades of communism all amalgamated the protection of the Carpathian Basin and Christianity into a great mission of not only national and Central European, but also of even European significance.

He noted that similar processes have taken place in the Polish world and in the Balkans, which is populated by peoples possessing an answer to the question of what their national mission and vocation is.

Mr Orban explained that Christianity is comprised of two things, faith and ways of life inspired by and born of faith. Governments are not competent in matters of faith, so when they talk about Christianity and Christian democracy, they mean the models of life that have grown out of societies imbued with the Christian faith, he said.

He emphasized that all this combined resulted in an outlook on life and national self-esteem in Central Europe which differed from the West. When he discusses gender, migration, national sovereignty and “Brussels’s dangerous imperial tendencies,” with Western European leaders they misinterpret the debates and differences of opinion to be a lag in Central Europe’s developmental process, the prime minister said. He explained that they believe that “we are further behind in development, but that we will certainly make up for it and eventually reach their level.” They don’t understand that this is in fact a deep cultural, geopolitical and philosophical difference, he added.

The premier explained that in Central Europe, the work and personal accomplishments of each and every member of the community and of the nation all contribute to “the great joint effort to accomplish our mission”. That is why all Hungarian citizens are self-respectingly proud and keenly aware of the importance of their own lives and work, he added, noting that a purpose-based conceptualisation of life is not foremost a matter of reason, but of the heart.

According to Viktor Orban, Hungarians tend to view their work as their own personal vocation, on which their life depends, and this “mysteriously brings us together into a common destiny”. This gives rise to the nearly boundless pride which compels Hungarians to engage in even the most insignificant intellectual debates. „Besides, almost everyone in Hungary is a politician at heart,” he joked.

The Hungarian prime minister views the task of intellectuals in this region as having to understand this mission and to reflect on it in the public discourse. Furthermore, he added that the ever-changing forms and expanding content of the mission must be grasped, described and offered to those members of the nation who pursued a non-intellectual vocation. Therefore, students, “because of their exceptional God-given intellectual endowments”, bear a qualified responsibility for the future of Hungarians, the prime minister said.