Fifteen years ago, on this very spot, tear gas grenades were on one side and “a cheated and humiliated nation” on the other, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said in Budapest on Saturday, in conclusion of Saturday's Peace March, which marked the anniversary of the 1956 Revolution and Freedom Fight. Organised for the 8th time with hundreds of thousands of participants in the Hungarian capital, the Peace March visited the scenes of the 2006 police brutality. The opposition events held in tandem attracted only a few thousand people.

The venue where participants of the Peace March have gathered is not just any place, Hungary’s prime minister said, addressing an audience of hundreds of thousands. „Fifteen years ago, the past and the present confronted one another here,” he said, speaking at a ceremony held in downtown Budapest, at the intersection of Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street and Andrassy Avenue. „On one side were tear gas grenades, rubber bullets, expandable batons, unidentified plain-clothed officers and water cannons, and on the other side stood a cheated and humiliated nation which … after fifty years, was forced once again to hear that it had been lied to morning, noon and night,” PM Orban recalled, alluding to the remarks Ferenc Gyurcsany (Hungary’s reigning prime minister in 2006), made in his ill-famed Oszod speech.

MTI / Szilard Koszticsak

The streets of Budapest were covered in blood and tears, and „we will never forgive them for this,” Mr Orban said. In 2006, Hungary was exposed to „a new generation of communists” that came to power with the help of lies. They raised taxes, introduced daily hospital fees and general practitioner’s consultation fees, increased utility prices to exorbitant levels, abolished the 13th month’s pension and family benefits, and lured hundreds of thousands of families into the trap of foreign currency loans, the premier recalled. And when we spoke out for ourselves,

„they responded with tear grenades, rubber bullets and mounted police. People were blinded in the eye with rubber bullets, helpless women and elderly people were bashed with truncheons,” he said.

It took „years to clear up the destruction left behind by the left-wing government, but we have succeeded in putting Hungary back on its feet,” he said. The current government has created a million new jobs and cut taxes, he pointed out, adding that the Hungarian state has re-procured the big utility companies and national wealth has grown by fifty per cent. „We have taxed multinational companies, protected families and reduced utility bill prices to the lowest in Europe,” Mr Orban said, noting that next year, pensioners will get back the 13th month’s pension, young people in jobs will enjoy a tax break, and families raising children will have their 2021 personal income taxes reimbursed.

MTI / Zsolt Czegledi

„Hungary will be the first country in Europe to stop the overbearing LGBTQ propaganda at the school gate” and there will be a referendum on the issue, PM Orban stressed. It was high time for Brussels to understand, he said, that even the communists did not have their way with the Hungarians.

„We’re the sand in the machinery, the spanner in the works, the thorn under the nail. We’re David who Goliath is best off steering clear of. We’re the ones who poked global communism in the eye in ’56 and the ones who knocked the first brick out of the Berlin Wall,”

PM Orban emphasized. We are holding to our ground this time, too, he added. He said Hungarians will be proven right “a third time” following their stance on the issues of public utility bills and migration.

There are moments in the life of nations when everyone suddenly feels that „enough is enough; things can’t continue the way they used to,” Hungary’s premier said, referring to the events of 1956. At such points, he continued, we have to make decisions, and these reveal what a nation is worth. „We, Hungarians, took the right decision: we protested; we stood up straight and rose up and fought [against Soviet rule]”. That meant taking a stand for freedom against captivity, independence against occupation, and „Hungarian patriots standing against Communists”, he said. Hungarians showed both themselves and the enemy who they truly were, PM Orban noted.

PM Orban insisted that Hungary’s left wing was backed by international forces so massive that „only millions of Hungarians joining together can defeat it”. No one should be deceived by the disguise, he warned, the real threat is the international forces — the money, media and the network behind the left. Hungary’s premier asked everyone in the crowd to look at the person standing next to them, saying they are the ones to count on. „They will do everything they can to break through even the thickest of walls,” he said. „This is our strength … no amount of dollars or euros in the world can take this away from us,” he stressed.

„We will win again. God above all of us, and Hungary (comes) before everything! Go Hungary! Go Hungarians!” PM Orban said in conclusion of his speech.