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“I’m standing here with a heavy heart. Like the sailor who suddenly realises that the star that guided his ship’s journey for decades has vanished,” the Prime Minister said at the beginning of his speech, and then stressed that many millions of honest Hungarians had no idea about the struggles and millstones of powerful forces amidst which they lived their lives; only a few know and understand what is happening to us and to our country, and why.
“Gyula Tellér belonged to that group, to that circle, to us, to the club of fighters. That’s why he was a comrade-in-arms. […] The battle that we’re fighting is a good battle, and while we don’t know when it will end, every day we can rejoice at the battles won,” the Prime Minister said. He highlighted that a full life meant to live and to love life, to aspire to have a beautiful and good life for ourselves and our loved ones, to be happy without anxiety and worry, to be happy without a care, and to be surprised when others are not happy.
This is what a full and accomplished life can be like. This is what it can be like if you are not Hungarian. If you are Hungarian, however, the situation is different. If you are Hungarian, a beautiful, happy, joyful, celebrated life is not the same as a full life. Something is missing from it, something that gives it weight, seriousness, a real stake, Mr Orbán said in continuation.
Those who are born Hungarian belong to a unique and special nation, communicating “in a language and with a mindset, arranging their lives around truths and laws that are only characteristic of us.” If you were born Hungarian, you belong to an endangered species which so many others wanted to annihilate in so many ways and for so long that “our very existence is a political statement,” Mr Orbán said, mentioning that “there are some of us who don’t just understand this, but adjust our lives accordingly, and keep fighting.”
Gyula Tellér was not one of those who are weighed down by understanding the world the Hungarian way, Mr Orbán said.
“This was the greatest lesson that he taught me, the greatest knowledge that I had the opportunity to learn from him, the greatest secret that he shared with me. To understand the weight of life, to fight for the truth of the Hungarians, and in the meantime to see and to enjoy that life is beautiful,” said the Prime Minister, adding that “we don’t deny ourselves a joyful life, and don’t give our opponents the satisfaction that we live a bleak and ill-tempered life.”
Expressing his gratitude for all that Gyula Tellér did for them, for their political community and for the country, he recalled that after 1994 Gyula Tellér was the one who helped a big national coalition “to rise from the mangled ruins” of their political side, and it is thanks to him that in 1998 they were able to thwart “the communist restoration.” He added that Gyula Tellér helped to prevent them “from falling apart as an untied sheaf after four years in government and a defeat in 2002 as the first Christian, national camp did in 1994.”
“Thank you for having helped us understand that rather than being driven by mere lust for revenge – even if such revenge may be sweet – for eight years we should instead prepare intellectually and prepare with a programme for the trials to await us after the victory. Thank you for having given us a draft about how to dismantle the regime that operated until 2010, the way you put it: the regime for a change of regime,” the Prime Minister said, adding that Gyula Tellér always candidly warned them of national interests and their representation “because moral degradation is otherwise unstoppable, and we also owe responsibility for the moral refurbishment of Hungarian society.”
“May your memory and example help us to not fall into a state of self-pity,” Mr Orbán said, adding: “Because should that happen, how could we continue the fight? And should we fail to continue the fight, how could we remain worthy of your friendship and your memory?”
