Elhárul a törvényi akadály

… a szovjet emlékmű elköltöztetése elől

Dr. Szerdahelyi Szabolcs és Patrubány Miklós közös sajtótájékoztatót tartott június 21-én, Budapesten a Szabadság téri szovjet emlékmű előtt.

Felhívták a figyelmet arra, hogy az Országgyűlés hétfőn ejti meg a zárószavazást arról a deregulációs törvényről, amelynek része az 1945. évi IX. törvény is.

Jóllehet a zárószavazás még hátra van, az eredmény nagy valószínűséggel borítékolható: a módosító indítványokról megtörtént a szavazás, ezek nem érintették a Szabadság téri szovjet emlékmű ideológiai alapját képező 1945. évi IX. törvényt, ezért hétfőn – a zárószavazással – hatályát veszti az a törvény, amelynek hatályon kívül helyezéséért a DEPORT’56 és a Magyarok Világszövetsége az év elején népszavazási aláírásgyűjtést szervezett. Ezzel elhárul a törvényi akadály a szovjet emlékmű elköltöztetése elől.

Az idő igazolta hogy helyes döntés volt nem leadni az összegyűlt több mint 210.000 aláírást, és ezáltal nem beindítani a népszavazást. Így a Gyurcsány kormány saját csapdájába kényszerült. Amikor az említett törvény hatályon kívül kerül, az a DEPORT’56 és a Magyarok Világszövetsége győzelmét jelenti a hatalmas túlerőben levő ellenféllel szemben. Ezúttal az ész erejével. – mondta a Patrubány Miklós, az MVSZ elnöke.

Nem kétséges, hogy a népszavazási aláírásgyűjtés kényszerítette ki a törvény deregulálását. Ez tekinthető egy új módszernek is. Bebizonyosodott, hogy a népszavazási aláírásgyűjtés nyomásával meghátrálásra lehet késztetni a politikumot. Így az MVSZ következő népszavazási indítványa – a magyar állampolgárság helyreállítását célzó – is sikerre vihető – mondta Dr. Szerdahelyi Szabolcs, a DEPORT’56 elnöke.

Az 1945. évi IX. törvény hatályon kívül helyezése az első lépés a szovjet emlékmű elköltöztetésében. Az MVSZ folytatja a harcot. Első lépésben helyreállíttatja a törvénytelenül lebontott Ereklyés Országzászlót, amelynek helyét a tavaszi népszavazási aláírásgyűjtés félidején, egy Ereklyés Nemzetzászlóval jelölte meg.

Könyves Kálmán grafikusművész, aki pár hónappal korábban egy nagysikerű videóval képzeletben már száműzte a Szabadság térről az idegen hatalmi jelképet, újabb, szuggesztív alkotással erősítette fel az 1945. évi IX. törvény „kimúlását”.

Budapest, 2007. június 21. MVSZ Sajtószolgálat

A DEMOCRACY - HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?

A DEMOCRACY - HOW LONG DO WE HAVE? About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits to the public from the treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse, to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;

2. From spiritual faith to great courage;

3. From courage to liberty;

4. From liberty to abundance;

5. From abundance to complacency;

6. From complacency to apathy;

7. From apathy to dependence;

8. From dependence back into bondage

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million

Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000

States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country.

Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

P.S. Please ask the American Indians what does uncontrolled immigration mean.

Submitted by: Szabolcs Kálmán

A DEPORT-’56 szívós küzdelméről

A Magyarok Világszövetsége gratulál a DEPORT-'56 szívós küzdelméhez, amellyel megmentette Magyarország maradék magyar jellegét, megakadályozva, hogy a deregulációs törvénnyel kiradírozzák Magyarország hatályos törvénytárból a Szent István király, Kossuth Lajos, gróf Széchenyi István és Deák Ferenc emlékét megörökítő törvényeket, miként a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia megalapításáról szóló törvényt is. A Magyarok Világszövetsége meggyőződéssel állítja, hogy DEPORT-'56 ezen szakszerű csatározását egykor tanítani fogják a magyarországi demokrácia-történet fontos mozzanataként.

Megelégedéssel vesszük tudomásul, hogy a deregulációval törölték a Budapest főváros „felszabadításánál" elesett szovjet katonák emlékét megörökítő emlékmű létesítéséről szóló 1945. évi IX. törvényt is, amire bizonyosan nem került volna sor, ha nem zajlik ekkor népszavazási aláírásgyűjtés e törvény hatályon kívül helyezésére. Megállapítjuk, hogy a Deport-'56 helyesen döntött, amikor 2007. április 6-án – a Magyarok Világszövetségének ajánlását is figyelembe véve – nem adta le a több mint 210.000 támogató aláírást, elkerülve a kormány által titkon előkészített csapdahelyzetet.

A Magyarok Világszövetsége ezúton ismételten köszönetet mond minden aláírásgyűjtőnek és Magyarország minden polgárának, aki aláírásával támogatta az 1945. évi IX. törvény hatályon kívül helyezését.

Ugyanakkor felszólítjuk mindazokat, akik e döntésért kárhoztatták, szidalmazták akár a Deport-'56-ot, akár a Magyarok Világszövetségét, hogy hintsenek hamut fejükre és kérjenek bocsánatot rosszindulatú vagy meggondolatlan cselekedetükért, külön említve e helyen a Jobbik nevű pártot, valamint annak írott és elektronikus szócsöveit /Magyar Mérce, Kuruc.info/.

Ennél bővebbet azon a sajtótájékoztatón, amelyet Dr. Szerdahelyi Szabolccsal, a Deport-'56 elnökével közösen tartunk, holnapután, június 21-én csütörtökön délelőtt 11 órakor a Szabadság téren, az Ereklyés Nemzetzászlónál.

Magyarország megmenthetőségébe és feltámadásába vetett hittel,

Budapest, 2007. június 19-én

Patrubány Miklós,

a Magyarok Világszövetségének elnöke

Közlemény

Az 56-os Deportálások Tényfeltáró Bizottsága (DEPORT-'56) megelégedéssel veszi tudomásul, hogy az Országgyűlés hatályban tartotta azt a hét emléktörvényt, amelyet a DEPORT-'56 javasolt hatályban tartani, és hatályon kívül helyezte a „Budapest főváros felszabadításánál elesett szovjet katonák emlékének megörökítéséről szóló, 1945. évi IX. törvényt", amelynek hatályon kívül helyezéséért a DEPORT-'56 népszavazást kezdeményezett.

Bár a Magyarok Világszövetségének sikerült összegyűjtenie a népszavazás kiírásához szükséges kétszázezer aláírást, illetve annál valamivel többet, ám azokat a DEPORT-'56 nem adta le hitelesítésre az Országos Választási Bizottsághoz, éppen azért, mert tudomására jutott, hogy az általa támadott törvény hatályon kívül helyezésére törvényjavaslat született. Ezzel gyakorlatilag elállt a népszavazástól, ami meglehetősen nagy indulatokat keltett.

A kormány először úgy kívánta hatályon kívül helyezni az 1945. évi IX. törvényt, hogy kidobta volna a törvénytárból az 1989. előtt született összes emléktörvényt. A DEPORT-'56 számára ez elfogadhatatlan volt, és hét emléktörvényt javasolt hatályban tartani.

Az Országgyűlés döntése következtében hatályban marad az István király, Kossuth Lajos, gróf Széchenyi István, és Deák Ferenc emlékét megörökítő törvény, továbbá a honalapítás évezredes emlékének törvénybe iktatásáról szóló 1896. évi törvény, az 1848/49. évi forradalom és szabadságharc emlékét megörökítő, valamint a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia megalapításáról szóló törvény is.

Mindent összevetve, a DEPORT-'56 sikeresnek tartja a népszavazási kezdeményezést, amely elvezetett a Magyarország megszállását dicsőítő törvény hatályon kívül helyezéséhez, miközben sikerült legfontosabb emléktörvényeinket is megmenteni.

Budapest, 2007. június 19.

dr. Szerdahelyi Szabolcs

a DEPORT-'56 elnöke

#end

Dialogue: MT and LE via E-Mail June 2007

Upon visiting my WEB-Page:

Http:// Arpad1.Com

MT sent me the following brief memo:

* * *

MT: It's right-wing maggots that think like you do who nearly got us into a nuclear war with the Russians over a piss-ass country like Hungary.

* * *
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LE: Dear Mr/Ms/Mrs “MT”,

Since you forgot to sign your memo, I have no idea how else to address you.

Now what do you know?

Based on your “Highly articulated” comment, it appears, not much.

Your comment betrays several misconceptions, and errors that you are harboring.

I wonder: were you born already 50 years ago?

While I have no problem with allowing you to have an opinion, I feel it is sad that people betray their ignorance in this way.

Maybe you should open your mind, and read, study history.

By the way, as far as I am concerned, I was there and did put my life on the line for what I believe in.

I wonder what kind of conclusions I should draw about you, from your comments.

What have you done? (I mean other than being abusive in your language…) Anything to be proud of?

With best wishes,

Leslie Eloed

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MT: "While I have no problem with allowing you to have an opinion, I feel it is sad that people betray their ignorance in this way."

Gee, thanks for allowing me an opinion.

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LE: Sorry, I did not mean to be sarcastic.

Maybe you should open your mind, and read, study history.

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MT: I have studied history and I have to conclude that President Eisenhower made exactly the right decision by not risking a nuclear war over tiny Hungary.

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LE: To reach that conclusion did not take much studying of history. That is a given…

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MT: Sorry, Hungary is just not that important in the major scheme of things. You need to look at a map.

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LE: By the way: How do you define: “the major scheme of things”

By the way, as far as I am concerned, I was there and did put my life on the line for what I believe in.
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MT: Your putting you life on the line was very noble.

However, your request that millions of Americans put their lives on the line by risking nuclear war is not.
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LE: Wrong and exaggerated assumption.

Dear MT, (I still don’t know how to address you…)

1; Those of us who lived under communism, obviously had enough, and a popular - spontaneous revolt broke out in Budapest, on October 23, 1956.

2; To quote you: “However, your request that millions of Americans put their lives on the line by risking nuclear war is not.” I wonder, how and from where do you jump to this exaggerated assumption? Certainly not from studying history.

3; Any straight thinking person would not have wanted the US to get involved, it would have devastated all of Hungary, destruction etc. like in Vietnam.

4; If you read all the materials, historic, military etc, including those that have been declassified since, you would find, that Eisenhower had no intention ever to risk any kind -- nuclear or otherwise – war with the Russians over Hungary. And I am glad for that. The Suez-Canal issue with the help of England was quite an effective way to draw all attention away from events in Hungary. That was not an accident either.

5; Hungary is tiny, and I don’t need to look at a map to realize that. Of course its location and many of its accomplishments over the centuries count for something too. Take the US Atomic Energy Commission and the nuclear scientists, you will find Hungarians have been present way out of proportion to their national size. And there are many similar facts. Now if you have studied history, you must also recognize, that during the Yugoslavian – Serbian “conflict” of a few years ago, it was very safe, comfortable and advantageous for the US to use Hungary as the staging ground for the operations in that part of the world, the US exposing Hungary to a possible world-war, after the bombing of the Chinese headquarters in Beograd, and all other war-activities. (In those days [1994] I traveled throughout the war-zone, Bosnia-Herzegovina etc. for firsthand view of what was going on.

6; There is a certain arrogance in some of the political leaders of the US, wanting to force our ways, including the so-called “democracy” onto any other nation, regardless whether it agrees with their ancient lifestyle, habits, cultural – religious background. I personally am not in favor of military intervention as a solution to the societal problems of the world. Diplomacy yes. If I want to fault Eisenhower, a President who was dear to all Hungarians, it was his lack of diplomacy applied to the Russians, giving them free rain over whatever they wanted to do in the Russian satellite (East – Central European) region. He all but gave them a free hand. If you read the records, you will find the basis for this statement. You see, it is one thing to not interfere and so not risk a war, but almost guaranteeing that no matter what the Russians choose to do in Hungary, there will be no consequences that is something else.

7; The practical and symbolic values of 1956 in world history are a different issue…

Regards, Leslie

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MT: To quote you: MT:“However, your request that millions of Americans put their lives on the line by risking nuclear war is not.” LE: "I wonder, how and from where do you jump to this exaggerated assumption? Certainly not from studying history."
I come to this conclusion by reading your webpage which says "The brave Hungarian people believed we would help -- that all they needed do was show their willingness to fight and we would spring to their aid. But we failed them in their hour of greatest need."
Your webpage also says: "It is of great importance to the Hungarian people who know the dangers, that the American people be warned of the insidiousness of Socialism."
As for myself, I am more concerned about the insidiousness of fundamentalist Christianity (and Islam). Many Christians seem to be ignorant of their own history. They seem to forget that there was a time -- between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance -- when almost everyone in Europe believed in the Christian God. In what historians now refer to as The Dark Ages (for good reason), this period was also one of the most miserable in human history with wars, crucifixions, and pestilence. If the Dark Ages are any indication of what the fundamentalist Christians have in store for us, I want no part of it.

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LE: Hello MT, good to hear from you again… (I still don’t know how to address you…)

Yes, many Hungarians at the time behind the iron-curtain, believed in help coming from the US. Did they wish for it? Maybe a few did.

The expectation was fueled by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, (Voice of America maintained and financed by the US, Radio Free Europe I am not sure to what extent, but it did get its support from the West.)

In your last response, you voice valid fears and valid criticism about fundamentalists.

But, the answer I don’t believe -- after personal experience -- is not in Socialism or Communism, or at that rate any .ism whatsoever, or anti-Christianity.

Sadly, to war is part of basic human nature.

I don’t think that the Dark Ages would return just because of God fearing -- including fundamentalist -- Christians. If that would be the case, should we not also fear of civilization crawling back into the caves? The Dark Ages and caves have been in our past, no question about that. I have hope, that those days will not repeat themselves.

But look at what happened in Soviet Russia and / or China (and all other Communism-rules countries) in the name of Socialism and Communism.

What about terrorism and Iraq?

What about illegal aliens invading this Country, (10 to 22 million?) and in their illegal status being supported by the Liberal Left?

Quite a big bag of worms.

I would be really curious what do you think would be the answer. So far I have heard a lot of put-downs from you. What about the half full glass?

Regards, Leslie

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MT: "But look at what happened in Soviet Russia and or China (and all other Communism-ruled countries) in the name of Socialism and Communism."
The Russian revolution would never have happened except for the stupidity of the Russian monarchy in allowing itself to be drawn into World War 1. This disaster is what destroyed the monarchy and allowed the Bolsheviks to come to power. Likewise Communism would have never been imposed on Eastern Europe had the anti-Communist Hitler not attacked the Soviet Union and then proceeded to lose the war.

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LE: Well now, here you sound like what you call: “right-wing maggots that think like …” You almost sound like you would have preferred Hitler to win the war? Then there would have been no Communism in Eastern Europe? You can’t mean that.

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MT: Likewise, the Chinese Communists probably would not have come to power except for the disruptions caused by the Japanese imperialists during World War 2. The Communists have only had success, because right-wingers in the form of the Russian monarchy, Adolf Hitler, and Japanese militarists have done stupid things.

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LE: By the way, Japan invaded China in the 1930 already, long before the official start of the Second World War.

Dear MT,

I still don’t know how to address you…, and would love to hear were you are coming from. I feel it is unfair, that you know quite a lot about me, and still are not divulging any info about yourself.

If at the end of the Second World War the USA would not have allowed Russia to take over East Europe with their agreement to stop at the German river Elbe, they, the US would have freed Eastern and Central Europe from Hitler. The Western allied forces -- or their leaders -- felt that after the Russians have lost so many lives in defeating the Germans on Russian soil, they should have the glory to march through Eastern-Central Europe, and keep it. Now I would call that stupidity, and at that the stupidity of US leadership, possibly including General Eisenhower’s as well.

Just imagine a different course of action at that time could have precluded the entire Cold-War era with its arms race, including all of its aftermath including the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Now that was preventable stupidity on the part of the “experts.”

The Russian Communist rule in that region was more the fault of the US, then Hitler’s. At the same time, there was not much difference between Hitler’s National Socialism and Stalin’s Communist International Socialism.

Revolutions break out if conditions in a country reach a boiling point, so in Russia as well. At that time any spark, Lenin, Marx, Engels (the majority of them not even Russian) could ignite society.

It seems to me to be an oversimplification to blame the “stupidity” of the Russian Monarchy allowing itself to be drawn into the First World War. Without the war, conditions already have been ripe for the revolution. Don’t forget, the Monarchy was probably good only for the small privileged minority, not for the masses. Same way as in China… You can read about it in contemporary writer’s works and accounts of history (if you can find unbiased history-telling, after all, everybody has an ax to grind...)

Regards, Leslie

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MT: "The Western allied forces -- or their leaders -- felt that after the Russians have lost so many lives in defeating the Germans on Russian soil, they should have the glory to march through Eastern-Central Europe, and keep it."
This is nonsense. The West did not give the Russians Eastern Europe. The Russians forces were already there - on the ground. Seventy-five to eighty percent of the 5 million Germans killed died at the hands of Russians on the Eastern front. The fact is that the US and its Western allies were late on the scene. By the time of the D-Day Invasion in the summer of 1944, the Russians had already recaptured most of the territory taken from them by the Germans and were on their way into Eastern Europe. The US and its Western allies would not have even been able to establish a beachhead at Normandy, except for the fact that the Germans had already expended most of their men and equipment fighting the Russians. Why do you think it took two-and-a half years after Hitler declared war on the US for the US and its Western allies to attempt an invasion of France? Obviously, because the US and its allies knew that they would be wiped out on the beaches at this early stage of the war.

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LE: Keep on dreaming MT,

but I guess you are just a Ghost, not willing to identify yourself. You hide behind anonymity without the courage of convictions, afraid to stand behind your words.

So far you have uttered only a lot of unidentifiable noise.

Without knowing anything about you, I have no idea how much weight I should give to your statements, and so I have no way to pay you respect, which you may well deserve.

Likely, our point of view is different, our knowledge, assumptions and conclusions and life-experiences are not identical. But I will not put labels on you, or your differing opinions.

Sure, I may have some of the dates and sequence of events somewhat out of order, but the fact remains, that without US agreement, as well as the agreement of the four super-powers, Eastern Europe would not have been given to the Russians at Yalta.

True, Hungary ended the war on the German side, but why? Germany forced Hungary into the war. There have been several unsuccessful attempts by the Hungarians to jump the German ship.

The Yalta peace-accord was unjust to Hungary. Just as much so, as the Trianon peace-treaty in 1920, which took away two thirds of Hungarian territory and annexed it to the neighboring countries, thereby creating the largest minorities in the region, with all the resulting conflicts. Approx. 6,000,000 Hungarians are still today living oppressed and in minority status as a result of that peace treaty in Rumania, Serbia, Slovakia. (Hungary proper has a population of Ten million) And you know what? Those who decided the fate of Hungary in 1920 included the US and lots of uninterested world leaders, who had no idea about the layout of Hungary, the internal conditions. Nobody asked or listened to the Hungarians. For instance at one section of the border they saw a small river on the map, one that dried up in summer, and called that the border, with no regard to the damages and future conflicts. And they went on to celebrate them-selves. Tensions in Europe have never since ceased.

In one of your earlier comments you mentioned Islam. I must assume, you are aware of the fact, that in fifteenth century days, Hungary was occupied by the Turks for 150 years, and it was the Hungarians who stopped the Turks from occupying and devastating Austria. By the way, do you remember how the First World War started?

When a nation of 10 million is willing to rise up and bare-handed oppose his 200 million strong oppressors, there must be rather terrible conditions. Just like in the Dark Ages. And taking the initiative to show the world how deceitful those oppressors are has some value.

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MT: Just answer one question and then we can be done with this discussion. Why was it that the Western powers delayed an invasion of Europe for two-and-a-half years after Germany had declared war on the United States? From June of 1941 to June of 1944, the Russians engaged the main thrust of the German offensive, while Britain and the United States played around with a few German divisions in North Africa. History shows that it was the Russians who broke the back of the Nazi regime just as they defeated Napoleon a century and a half earlier. Too bad Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe were caught in the crossfire.

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LE: Good and valid questions MT,

In 1941 I lived in Hungary, I was 8 years old. So my first personal memories are of March 19, 1944 when the Germans marched into Hungary and occupied it. What the allied did or did not do, I have no first hand info on it, only what I read later. But this question was not a prime concern to us there and at the time.

I think, part of the delay may have been the disbelief of the cruelty that a civilized western country like Germany could inflict on the world. Nobody wanted to heed the warnings, just like the warnings about the possibilities of Pear Harbor.

Further, the expectation was that Germany would march on the more feared Communism. Little did the world realize, that Hitler’s goals of ruling the world with his “super-race” (while I am of German descent on my mother’s side, I am also a victim on my Hungarian father’s side) would be far more devastating then Communism at the time. (When comparing the numbers of millions killed by Hitler and by Stalin & Co. we don’t find much of a numerical difference.) With 20/20 hindsight it is easy to state now, that the ideal solution would have been to bring to its knees the Russians immediately after the German question was resolved.

If I recall correctly, it was Germany attacking Russia, and almost destroying it, before the Russians with unbelievable patriotic courage and sacrifice finally turned the trend. And thank God for the unbelievable harsh Russian winter both there and with Napoleon. I don’t think Stalin would have attacked Germany.

Hesitation by the Western allies was perhaps a costly error. And this brings to my mind the current situation in Iraq. If the terrorist treat by Iraq is read correctly, hesitation here would also be a fatal mistake.

I do hope, we will continue this discussion. Makes me think too …

Regards, Leslie

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MT: After doing some research, here is a web page that I wrote and posted on the Internet. I tried to be as objective as I could but, as always, there are some things that are open to interpretation.

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For the full text of these articles and further comments by me, please go to the Comments page.

# end

Trianon and its aftermath...

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„The Cancer of Central Europe: Trianon”

By Béla Lipták

Please copy and distribute.

"Every nation's homeland is sacred. If you destroy one, you mutilate the entire human race." - Father R. P. Gratry

“Ancient poets and theologians could not imagine such suffering, which Trianon bought to the innocent. In their eyes, that was for the damned in Hell.” – Sir Winston Churchill.

Field Marshall Ian Smith: “A plebiscite refused is a plebiscite taken.”

Tacitus: "We Hate Whom We Hurt"

“The proposal to dismember Hungary is absurd” – President Wilson

On the 4th of June, 2007 is the 87th anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, the peace treaty which in 1920 mutilated and dismembered an ancient European nation: the kingdom of Hungary. At Trianon Hungary was Deprived 72% of her territory and 64% of her inhabitants, 13 million out of her 21 million inhabitants.

This essay has three parts: First it will discuss the history of Hungary until the end of World War One, culminating in the Treaty of Trianon.

Next it will describe the Treaty, its architects, goals and consequences.

After that, it will discuss “Hungary's guilt” and the events of the last 87 years, to show, that just as Nazism was not born in Germany but in Versailles, so the tragedy of Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, the fragmentation of Central Europe and the still contemplated Russian expansion into Europe can all be traced back to Trianon.

I will conclude the article by suggesting a plan to construct a healthy entity from the disintegrated remains of Trianon, to reconstitute the unity of Central Europe and the stability of the European Union.

Pre-Trianon Hungary.

For a thousand years, Hungary occupied an oval shaped central plane surrounded by the protective bulwark of the Carpathian Mountains in the heart of Europe. Like the crust on a loaf of bread, the mountains encased the lowlands in a majestic arch from which all waterways converged toward the center. This perfect geographic unity was matched by complete self-sufficiency, until this harmonious symbiosis of the great central plain and its surrounding mountains was destroyed at Trianon.

For a millennium, Hungary was the eastern bastion of European civilization, a balancing and stabilizing power between Slavic and Germanic nations. Hungary's first king, Saint Stephen, wrote to his son, Saint Emeric, in 1036: “Make the strangers welcome in this land, let them keep their languages and customs, for weak and fragile is the realm which is based on a single language or on a single set of customs” (unius linguae uniusque moris regnum imbecille et fragile est.)

Stephen's advice was respected and obeyed during the coming centuries:

Hungary gave asylum to the Ruthenians in the north, the Wallachians (Romanians) and Saxons in the east, the Swabians and Serbs in the south. Eventually the kingdom of 21 million, possessed 14 national minorities, of which the Magyars were only one. In order not to hurt the feelings of any of the minorities, Latin remained the sole official language of the kingdom until 1844.

Hungary became a constitutional monarchy in 1222 and her constitution, the Golden Bull is junior to the Magna Carta by only 7 years. This constitutional monarchy was almost completely annihilated by the Mongol invasion of 1240-41, but through her enormous struggle, it succeeded in protecting Europe and her civilization. In 1456, the Hungarian armies defeated the Turkish forces and in gratitude, the Pope ordered the ringing of the bells at noon time in all Catholic churches.

Toward the end of the XVth century, during the reign of the renaissance king Matthias Corvinus, Hungary's population reached that of England, the court in Buda became one of the finest cultural centers of Europe, and the Corvinus Library in Buda was Europe's finest.

In 1526, Hungary was once again annihilated by a Turkish invasion, which cut her population in half and the kingdom in three. During the 150 years of Ottoman occupation, the western part of the kingdom was occupied by Austria, the center by the Ottoman invaders and Hungarian culture survived only in the east, in Transylvania.

Even today, Transylvania is the land where the purest Hungarian is spoken, where Hungarian popular art has found its most exalted, most perfect expression, and where Béla Bartók collected his Hungarian folk tunes. Transylvania is also the place where the Hungarian Diet at Torda, in 1557, - for the first time in the world -, declared the freedom of all religions. Transylvania was also the birthplace of the Unitarian and Sabbatarian religions.

After the Turkish occupation, Austria attempted to take over all of Hungary. This resulted in a series of uprisings. The War of Independence of 1703-1711 was led by Francis II Rákóczy whose insurgent fighters were mostly Slovak and Ruthenian peasants, who proudly declared themselves to be Hungarians (as distinct from the racial term Magyar).

The next fight for national independence came in 1848. It was led by Louis Kossuth. Once again, the Ruthenian and Slovak nationalities contributed masses of recruits for the Hungarian revolutionary army, which, while defeated by the combined forces of Austria and Czarist Russia, forced the Hapsburgs to accept the formation of an Austro-Hungarian duality in 1867.

The leader of the 1848 war of independence, Kossuth was the second foreigner (second only to Lafayette) to be ever invited to address the United States Congress in January, 1852. It was also Kossuth who in 1862 proposed to convert the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s 24 million Slavs, 12 million Germans and 12 million Hungarians - a population which at that TIME WAS larger than that of France - into a Danubean Confederation.

He wrote at the time: “Unity and fraternity among Hungarians, Slavs and Romanians! This is my dream and my most honest advice! Let the future smile on this land and all of her people! Unite!”

From Sarajevo to Trianon.

At the beginning of this century, Russia sponsored intensive Pan-slavic agitation in Central Europe. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, - heir apparent of Emperor Francis Joseph-, was the main opponent of that expansion and also of the creation of a Greater Serbia. Because of that, Russia engineered his murder on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist.

The only member of the Council of Ministers of the Dual Monarchy who opposed the war of retaliation against Serbia was the Hungarian Premier, Count Stephen Tisza. When he was voted down, Hungary occupied Serbia and by 1915 would have considered the war over, if Russia did not have scores to settle with the Ottoman Empire, if France did not have similar scores to settle with Germany, Italy with Austria, and so forth. Therefore the First World War broke out and went on.

The main reason for WW1 was the fear of France, England and Russia, that Germany will become the leading power in Europe. Simultaneously, Germany and Austria-Hungary were afraid of the military and economic domination of Europe by the Triple Entente. Initially, the plans of the Entente did not include the dismemberment of Hungary, although in secret, they did offer Eastern Hungary to Romania in 1916, if she joined the Triple Alliance.

During the war, the Czech allies of Serbia, Eduard Benes and professor Thomas Masaryk, transformed themselves from consultants into architects of allied policy for Central Europe. They had a difficult task, because the English and the Americans were against the “balkanization” of Central Europe into small nation states. The Czechs emigrants organized a deceitful propaganda campaign for the dismemberment of Hungary and in their efforts succeeded in obtaining the support of two criminally ignorant French politicians, Georges Clémenceau and Raymond Poincaré. In spite of all that, in 1917, - when Emperor Charles I came to power -, the Entente offered a separate peace treaty to Austria-Hungary, which would have guaranteed all her borders.

Later, the propaganda of the Czech emigrants exploited the fact that Lenin came to power in Russia in 1917. They also exploited the nationalistic desires of the Czech and Slav soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army and bombarded them with some 150,000 leaflets, which showed the map of the proposed of their new nation states. Still later, when Hungary temporarily fell under Communism in 1919, the Czech emigrants argued that the dismemberment of Hungary will help saving Europe from Communism.

President Wilson refused to cooperate in this conspiracy. He wanted Europe's new borders to correspond to her ethnographic boundaries and he wanted the principle of self-determination to prevail. When in October, 1918 the Austro-Hungarian army capitulated, it did that under the assumption that President Wilson’s Principles will prevail, but his views were later disregarded by the French. Hungary’s borders were not defined by the armistice she signed on the 3rd of November, 1918 in Padua, but by the Czech and French armies entering from the North and South. The Hungarian government of Michael Károly did not resist the occupation.

Similarly to the Czechs and the French, five days after signing her armistice, Romania too “reentered” the war, and occupied Transylvania without resistance.

So, most of Hungary was already occupied on January 18, 1919, at the beginning of the Paris Peace Conference. On January 24, 1919, President Wilson protested the illegal Serb and Romanian occupation of parts of Hungary and on March 31, 1919, he called the proposed dismemberment of Hungary absurd.

After Count Michael Károlyi’s government resigned in 1919, Béla Kun established a Communist dictatorship, raised a Red Army and overran Slovakia. In response to the Red dictatorship, a counterrevolution broke out and its leader, Nicholas Horthy invited the Romanian army into Hungary to overthrow it. President Wilson objected to the Serb and Romanian occupation of Hungary, but he was overruled by the French, who argued that this occupation will prevent the spread of Communism.

The Treaty of Trianon.

On the 4th of June, 1920, one of the cruelest treaties of human history was signed. Never before had a peace, imposed by violence, been more brutal in its bias, madder in its destructiveness, more forgetful of the lessons of history and better calculated to create future upheavals. The treaty cut mercilessly into the flesh of compact Hungarian populations. Hundreds of towns were separated from their suburbs; villages were split in two; communities were deprived of their parish churches or cemeteries; townships were cut off from their railroad stations and their water supplies. A 1000-year-old European country was made into an invalid as its territory was reduced by 72%. In the process, some 35% of all Hungarians were turned into foreigners without moving from the towns, which their fathers built, as the borders were redrawn around them. In this way, the Hungarians became and still are one of Europe's largest minorities.

In comparison, the leader of the central powers: Germany lost only 9.5% of her territory. The outrage of this mockery of justice is illustrated by the fact that even Austria lined up at the carcass and received some parts of the dismembered Hungarian Kingdom.

From the fragments of Hungary, the contrived Successor States of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and greater Romania were created. These artificial entities forced Croats to live with Serbs and Czechs to live with Slovaks, demonstrating both the arrogance and the ignorance of Trianon's architects . These Successor States were not only geographic monstrosities but also economic absurdities and therefore their self-destruction was just a matter of time. As we know, two of the three successor states have already disintegrated.

The French goal was to establish dominance over the whole of Europe by the creation of insecure client states out of the carcass of Austria-Hungary, in the back of Germany. France was successful in turning the nations of Central Europe, -which in the past lived in peace-, against each other and, because of the nationalist governments of these client states felt endangered by their large minorities, the whole of Europe was destabilized.

The plunder obtained by the Successor States was too large to digest. It was for this reason, why democracy could not evolve in these multinational states. They were afraid that they could not survive, if they provided the basic democratic rights to their minorities. Being afraid to give autonomy to their minorities, deformed the evolution of these states and also distorted the mentality of their populations.

All the United States Congress could do at the time, was to refuse to approve the Treaty of Trianon. So, this product of Neronian insanity, this plan, unjust in substance and tragic in consequence, was implemented anyway.

Self-Determination Through Plebiscites

The very foundation of the 14 Wilsonian Principles was that people have an unalienable right to determine their own destiny. Yet in drawing the new borders at Trianon, self-determination and the use of plebiscites was totally disregarded. Although Field Marshall Ian Smith recommended to the Peace Conference to hold plebiscites in Transylvania, Slovakia, Ruthenia, Croatia and Slavonia, his advice was rejected. Therefore, he was correct in declaring: “A plebiscite refused is a plebiscite taken.”

By not allowing plebiscites, the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the redistribution of her 48 million citizens resulted in the creation of 16 million oppressed ethnic minorities. These minorities were not emigrants who voluntarily left their country, but people who never moved from the towns their fathers built and became foreigners, just because Clémenceau and Benes decided to redraw the borders around them.

When the Wends and Slovenes of the Muraköz protested their separation from Hungary, when the Ruthenians expressed their desire to remain in the kingdom, - which they shared for a thousand years -, when the Swabians of the Banat protested their annexation into Romania and Yugoslavia (Vojvodina), the answer was always the same: no! There was only one exception, only a single case where President Wilson's principle of self-determination prevailed: It was in the case of the city of Sopron, which held a plebiscite and voted by a majority of 65% to remain part of Hungary and not to join Austria.

The “Guilt” Of Hungary

The real reason for dismembering Hungary was the desire of the Western European powers to eliminate the state which could compete with their influence and thereby bring a power balance to the continent. The excuse used by the French was that Hungary’s dismemberment would prevent the spread of Communism. But the real reason why Hungary was dismembered was the French desire for domination and because Hungary could not defend herself and because her greedy neighbors decided to help themselves to the unprotected carcass.

Naturally, the architects of Trianon could not admit this and therefore invented the theory of Hungary's Guilt, claiming that she started the First World War, was a historical German ally and a destabilizing force in Europe. None of these reasons were true.

As to the claim of starting WW1, it was the Serb para-governmental organization, Narodna Obrana, which, with the encouragement of Russia and with the goal of the creation of a Greater Serbia, assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 and it was the Premier of Hungary, who alone in the Austro-Hungarian Council of Ministers, voted against a war of retaliation against Serbia.

As to the claim of being a natural German ally, history proves just the opposite. Whenever Hungary was independent, she acted as a keystone of balance between the Germanic and Slavic peoples and prevented the attempts of both Pan-Germanic and Pan- Slavic expansions. In the first 500 years of her existence, starting with the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, Hungary fought to block the spread of German influence towards the East and created stability by filling the power vacuum in the region. When under Germanic (Austrian) occupation between 1688 and 1867, she twice rose against the Hapsburgs and eventually gained independence from them.

Tacitus: "We Hate Whom We Hurt"

In any society, the acid test of civilization is the respect for minority rights. The Great Powers’ attempted to guarantee these rights by making the Successor States sign minority treaties, which outlined the language, religious, cultural and property rights of the minorities. For example, the minority treaty signed with Romania on the 9th of December, 1919 in Paris, - guaranteed by the United States, Britain, France, Italy and Japan -, stated the following:

Article 8: No restriction shall be imposed on the free use of any language.

Article 9: Equal rights to establish, manage and control religious institutions, schools and other educational establishments.

In Article 11: Roumania agrees to accord to the communities of the Szecklers (Hungarian Székelys) and Saxons in Transylvania local autonomy in regard to scholastic and religious matters.

Article 12: Roumania agrees that the stipulations in the foregoing Articles, constitute obligations of international concern.

Similar treaties were signed with the other Successor States, but none were ever enforced. In fact, the Great Powers turned the other way while the Successor States attempted to “solve” their minority problems, first hrough denationalization, then by ethnic cleansing through deportations, expulsions, transfers, dispersions and other forms of uprooting. Hungarians had to choose between their nationality and their property. Because of the savage oppression, intimidation and coercion, 350,000 Hungarians decided to leave all their possessions behind and flee to rump Hungary.

The institutions and possessions of Hungarian communities were also targeted. In Transylvania alone, the Hungarian community lost 1,665 of her schools, including the world famous János Bolyai University, named after Einstein's predecessor, the inventor of the new (non-Euclidean) geometry.

The Paris Peace Treaty

On February 10, 1947, the Great Powers had another opportunity to enforce the until- then-disregarded minority treaties. This was expected because on August 14, 1941, the Atlantic Charter was signed, and it too (like the earlier Wilsonian principles) emphasized the right to self-determination and to plebiscites. Yet, not a single plebiscite was allowed. In fact, rump Hungary was further violated by the transfer of additional land to Slovakia. This transfer, later, made it possible to build the monstrous Gabcikovo dam project, which unilaterally and illegally transferred the Danube, Hungary's border river, onto Slovak territory (in 1992), thereby destroying Europe's oldest wetland region.

At the end of the Second World War, the worst crime of legalistic hypocrisy occurred. Eduard Benes, with the scandalous connivance of the Western Allies, invented the concept of “collective responsibility” and used it to confiscate the properties of the Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and later, and to deport them in cattle cars. To understand the hypocrisy of this Benes Decree of “Collective Guilt”, one must realize that wartime Slovakia under Tiso was a protectorate of Nazi Germany. It was the representative of the Hungarian minority in the Slovak parliament, János Esterházy, who cast the only dissenting vote against the Jewish laws, which were passed by that body. Yet, after the war, Esterházy died in a Czechoslovakian jail and the Hungarian minorities he represented were collectively sentenced as war criminals. Thereby, when the Jewish Hungarians, deported by the Nazis returned from the German death camps, they found their properties confiscated and were deported again, because of their collective guilt as Hungarians.

The Last Decades

By the late 1940s, the only protection of the Hungarian minorities, were their churches. In 1948, 600 Hungarian Catholic priests and all six of their bishops were arrested in Transylvania. As the Romanians belong to the Eastern Orthodox faith, Rome later agreed to gerrymander the Catholic sees and to appoint Romanian bishops to lead the all-Hungarian church. As of this day, over 2000 Hungarian church properties in Romania have not been returned. This reprehensible outrage caused the United States Congress in 2005 to pass its House Resolution HR191, demanding the return of the church properties.

In the other Successor States, the fate of the Hungarian Catholics was similar. In 1949, in Ruthenia, the bishop of the 500,000 Catholics was murdered and the parishioners were forced to merge into the Orthodox Chrurch. In Slovakia, in April, 1950, the bishop of 320,000 Catholics was arrested and his parishioners were also forced into the Orthodox Church.

In 1956, 2,700 Hungarians died in fighting 2000 Soviet tanks (a number larger than what Hitler used to occupy France) and later 289 were hanged and some 300,000 escaped, yet the rulers of the Successor States used the uprising as a pretext to speed the forced assimilation of their Hungarian minorities. It was after the Hungarian Revolution that the remaining autonomous Hungarian regions: Transylvania in Romania and Vojvodina in Yugoslavia were abolished. Today, the 2-3 million Hungarians have no autonomy at all, although that autonomy been guaranteed by the Great Powers in 1920, again in 1946 and once more by the European Parliament in 1993, in Article 11 of Recommendation 1201.

It would be the responsibility of the international community to insist upon the upholding of its own principles and earlier decisions, which were expressed and signed by the member states on the 1st of August in the final declaration of the 1975 Helsinki Declaration. These same community of values on human and minority rights were repeated in 1990 (Copenhagen), in the Charta of Paris and by several European Union Conventions.

After 1989, there was a short period of hope, when for example the Hungarian bishop, László Tôkés, was temporarily heralded as an all-Romanian national hero, for leading the successful revolution against Ceaucescu, or when Miklós Duray, the Hungarian leader of Charter 77, was released from jail in Slovakia. Unfortunately, this did not last. By 1991, the formerly Communist, but basically nationalist leaders of the Successor States Milosevic in Yugoslavia, Iliescu in Romania, Mechiar in Slovakia) once again started to use nationalistic and anti-Hungarian propaganda to distract public attention from the pressing economic problems of their nations.

Today, these three demagogues are gone from the political scene. Yet conditions have not changed much and the restoration of cultural autonomy has still not occurred. In the former Yugoslavia, Montenegro and Kosovo are progressing towards self-determination, yet in Vojvodina, Serb refugees from Krajina and Kosovo are “ethnically cleansing” the native Hungarian population and anti-Hungarian violence is common. Since 1989, some half million Hungarian minorities have left the towns and villages of their ancestors and the Hungarian church and higher education properties have still not been returned.

One wonders if there is a limit to the patience of the second largest minority of Europe (second only to the Russians), and what will happen when that limit is reached?

The Lesson

It takes time for historic events to reveal their consequences. It took three generations for the unnatural creations of Trianon: Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, to self-destruct. It seems that even 86 years has not been enough for some to realize that it is the legacy of Trianon, which is destabilizing and “balkanizing” Central Europe. We know that Trianon did not eliminate the causes of the 1914 murder in Sarajevo (Russian and French expansion) and that no unjust “solution” can stand the erosion of time.

On the pulpit of the Notre-Dame Cathedral, Father R. P. Gratry has put it this way: "Every nation's homeland is sacred. If you destroy one, you mutilate the entire human race."

Therefore, the main mistake of 1920 was that it attempted to satisfy the expansionist desires of the French, instead of attempting to apply just principles to solve the nationality problems of Central Europe. Unfortunately, this approach has not changed much during the last 86 years, but there is hope. As the influence of the European Union and the United States is growing in the region, there is hope that the ideals of self-determination, autonomy and collective human rights will also take roots. In addition to self-determination through plebiscites, greater unity among the Danubean nations is also needed. A Danubian or Central European Federation, - similar to that of the Baltic states, within the European Union -, is needed to better protect their collective interests.

The international community through the UN, EU and other forums should declare that all national minorities anywhere in the world, have the right to hold UN supervised plebiscites and to receive cultural and linguistic autonomy, if they so desire. It should make no difference how these minorities evolved, how long they lived in the particular area, or what their language or religion is. Regardless of all that, they all have the right to maintain their heritage and the right to determine their own cultural destiny. Once cultural autonomy is guaranteed, the main cause of tensions between Central European neighbors will also diminish.

This recipe for reconciliation is applicable not only in Central Europe, but also in the Caucasus region. Decentralization, self-government, autonomy and decision making at the lowest possible local level, are the keys to peace and democracy. It is essential for peace and stability to recognize that all regions will be destabilized by the existence of oppressed minorities and that the solution is to guarantee their basic rights.

When the Hungarians enjoy the same autonomy in Romania as the Romanian minorities do in Hungary, when the Serb, Russian, Roma, Turkish, Albanian, German, or other minorities of the region, are also treated equally, the tensions will disappear and the rebuilding can start.

The Danubian or Visegrad Confederation

It is not enough for the Danubean nations to individually rush into the European Union. In addition to that, they should work for the establishment of an economically self-sufficient, politically stable and geographically large enough federation, which is able to fill the present power vacuum in the region. Within this 100 million or so federation, the importance of the borders of nation states should be minimized. The freedom of movement that exists in the Schengen area should be adopted and all minorities should have full cultural autonomy and representation in the Parliaments.

History teaches us, that the Balkans became unstable whenever a power vacuum evolved in the Carpathian Basin. The wise learn from history, instead of repeating it's errors: The tragedy of Trianon will not be corrected and justice and stability will not be returned, by maintaining the status quo. The interests of Romania, Hungary and the other states in the region are the same. The states of Central Europe are all traveling in the same boat on the sea of history. Russia is still an imperialist state.

She is now using the energy weapon to increase her influence. The Black Sea is very close to the Carpathians. We know that during the Kosovo crisis, there was talk about Serbia becoming part of Russia. What we also know is that the United States is a powerful potential ally of Central Europe, not only in keeping Russia at bay, but also in spreading democracy, self-determination and minority rights throughout the region and the World.

What is needed - once the minority problems are solved in Central Europe - is to build a federation like that of the Baltic states within the European Union. A strong Danubean Federation, one that can be crystallized around the nucleus of Hungary, Slovakia, Ruthenia, Slovenia and Croatia. A federation that would be larger than France and could include Romania, Serbia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and more. This entity, with its economic and political power, could rebalance and stabilize Europe by asserting and defending her self-interest against the excessive power of Western Europe.

History does not solve problems accidentally. Those who want a better future must first have a plan, a concept of that future. For the stability and prosperity of Central Europe, that plan should start with the autonomy of all the minorities and should end with a voluntary federation. It would be fitting, if on the 86st anniversary of the dismemberment of the Hungarian Kingdom, - after the unnecessary and undeserved suffering of three generations of innocent ethnic minorities-, the process of rebuilding, not of an ancient nation state, but of the Federation of Central Europe would be started.