‘This year, we can close the inglorious era of Western civilization, built on the hegemony of progressive liberalism, to establish a sovereigntist world order in its place,’ emphasized Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Thursday in Budapest, at the opening day of the CPAC Hungary conference.
At the conference organized by the Center for Fundamental Rights, the Prime Minister stated that the world order built on progressive–liberal hegemony has failed because it brought wars, chaos, unrest, collapsing economies, and turmoil to the world. Its followers have proclaimed that their task is not to represent the people but to implement their own ideologies, and have they divided the world into democracies and autocracies, claiming that their role was to wage a crusade against autocracies, the PM nailed down.
‘This world order,’ he continued, ‘produced leaders who are unfit for the task, accumulating errors upon errors, and eventually rushing to their own demise.’ He characterized liberal leaders as advocating for ideological control, where everyone must conform, claiming that peace in the world will come when everyone falls in line. ‘When I listen to them, I think that these clumsy leaders know less about world peace than contestants in a beauty pageant,’ he remarked. He declared: now is
the unrepeatable opportunity to replace the declining ‘progressive–liberal world spirit’ with another world spirit: a sovereigntist world order.
In this world order, there is no global ideology to which everyone must adhere because national interest determines the actions of states, and every independent nation acts according to its own national interests, he elaborated. In the sovereigntist world order, the true sovereign is the people; no longer do all kinds of NGOs, corporations, media centres, ‘suspicious experts and windbag academics’ dictate what is right, but representatives and politicians elected by the people. The sovereigntist world spirit replaces the Soros-style open society with a protected society, where the state protects its citizens, where migration is not organized but borders are defended, where founding families is valued, and families as important institutions of the nation are protected.
Reminding his audience of the upcoming elections, he stressed that the proponents of the old world are still sitting in Brussels and Washington, stating:
‘We undertake this year to drive them away from there. Let the era of sovereigntists finally come, let us return to the peaceful and secure path that made the West great! Make America Great Again, Make Europe Great Again, go ahead, Donald Trump, go ahead, European sovereigntists!’
Viktor Orbán also spoke about Hungary’s prominence in international politics today, which is unusual considering it is a country of ten million people with a modest army and a medium-sized GDP. He explained: perhaps what arouses the most interest is that while ‘a progressive-liberal ocean has engulfed Europe,’ here, ‘a miracle has marvellously preserved a conservative island, an island of difference, which defies the liberal deluge, the Brussels echo, and the Washington hurricane.’ ‘Moreover, it not only defies but survives, thrives, succeeds, triumphs, and wins again and again,’ he added.
He highlighted that the CPAC Budapest event is a conservative conference in Europe that they do not seek to ban, whose organizers are not threatened, and which does not warrant police intervention, as was the case in Brussels last week.
‘Things are done differently in Hungary, despite all the rumours; there is rule of law here, everyone organizes conferences as they wish, rents the venue they want, says what they want,’ Orbán declared, also noting that unlike the Belgian Prime Minister, he, even if he wanted to, could not dictate to a Hungarian court what the right decision should be. ‘Moreover, if I tried, they would decide exactly the opposite… Hungarians don’t like others meddling in their affairs,’ he said.
Viktor Orbán suggested that the year 2024 is not ‘a year of theory but of practice’, as there will be elections worldwide, and these must be won. These elections coincide with significant global political and geopolitical turning points, as the world order is changing, and ‘amidst these changes, we must lead our cause to victory,’ he emphasized. In the Hungarian PM’s opinion, progressive liberals sense the danger, since the change of era means their displacement, the end of the ‘progressive world spirit’. Therefore, they are determined to do anything, do not shrink from anything, and now they are in power, and are dangerous opponents who have no moral qualms. ‘They are in power and do not hesitate to use their means; if necessary, they deploy state institutions,’ he said, adding:
just as the Communists did in the past, now progressives take five steps to turn state institutions into tools of oppression.
The first step is to redefine what is normal, so that it means the opposite: war is peace, migration is resources, he said; then, they begin spreading the ‘inverted normality’ with state tools; then they identify those who hold ‘dangerous views’ as a security risks, inciting the liberal press and activists against them; and finally, state institutions also spring into action. Viktor Orbán declared: this is what they are doing with Hungary in Brussels, with conservatives in liberal European capitals, and in the United States, where they want to ‘wipe Donald Trump off the ballot’ through court rulings.
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