Recently, Budapest once more played host to a transcontinental gathering of the European and American Right.
Approaching the Hungarian capital’s Whale (Bálna) Centre, attendees would step over a screed informing them of their failings (“you are not Christians, you are fascists”) written in chalk on the sidewalk by protesters whose moral commitment we need not doubt, unlike their understanding of theology and political theory.
This year’s CPAC began with addresses by a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Protestant pastor, representing the religious allegiance of most attendees.
Per the often repeated motto of ‘God, nation, and family,’ religious guides were then followed by the anthems of the United States and Hungary, after which it was time for ‘family,’ which, in the context of CPAC, can be understood as the diversity of key-note speakers drawn together by common values.
The first of these was Miklós Szánthó, Director General of Hungary’s Centre for Fundamental Rights.
During his remarks, he related the former communist drive to break from and erase history to the liberal desire for an “end of history,” as well as the progressive belief in man’s ability to step outside his context and re-design himself abstractly.
In contrast to such projects, Szánthó described Hungary as Europe’s heartland, not only in terms of geography but also in values. He underlined the rights of children to healthy psychological development and to receive proper moral instruction. While conservatism isn’t a universal ideology with set prescriptions to be applied everywhere equally, it does, out of necessity, hold to certain universal values, he said, namely a belief in God, the nation or community, and the family as a fundamental social constituent.
Szánthó was followed by Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, who thanked the participants before offering an American perspective.
The United States is unique, he observed, in that when it takes a wrong turn, it tends to spread its mistakes abroad. The role of American agents and media in promoting progressive ideology in Europe is the clearest example of this. Hungary, for its part, has been successful in resisting such influence and, Schlapp argued, there is much American conservatives can learn from Miklos Szánthó in terms of how to vet journalists and so affect public discourse. He emphasised that Europeans should know there are plenty of people who oppose the ‘woke’ elite in the U.S., before praising Orbán’s policies and concluding that the political struggle against radical ideologues should be underpinned by religious beliefs.
The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili, was next to deliver his address. He began by proclaiming his belief in certain universal values, and his consonance with Viktor Orbán, who he described as a Christian man and a fighter.
In specifying what these universal values are, he cited the Georgian Orthodox Patriarch: faith in God, a defence of the homeland, and the integrity of the human person.
In terms of the homeland, for Georgia, opposition to Russian foreign policy is key, given the country’s 2008 war with its northern neighbour that resulted in a 20% loss of territory. The prime minister cited the gospel’s “blessed are the peacemakers,” perhaps in reference to Hungary’s potential mediation concerning the Ukraine invasion.
As for ‘the human person,’ Garibashvili made the point that defending the rights of minorities has been a consistent part of his country’s history, highlighted by the presence of Jewish and Muslim communities and the good relations between, for example, Sunni and Shia citizens.
Repulsion towards any violence of the majority against minorities, however, does not justify inverse violence of minorities against the majority. He warned that it is precisely such violence by ideologically motivated minorities that contemporary ‘woke’ progressivism seeks to weaponize in order to break down those traditional institutions that structure the lives of the majority of people.
Of course, the truth is not explicitly attacked in the name of falsehood, just as genuine freedom is not opposed by an explicit championing of slavery. Rather, he said, falsehood is presented as truth, that is, a false parody thereof; freedom is eroded in the name of a false freedom.
Today, the peak of this absurd ‘false freedom’ is the idea that children should choose their gender and have savage, life-long alterations visited upon their bodies by way of chemicals and scalpels.
Resisting the forward march of ‘false truths’ and ‘false freedom,’ opposing them with what has been preserved for us by previous generations, is the crux of the present struggle. As the Prime Minister said, “Georgia is not a superpower, but it does have a superpower, our values.”
Finally, it was time for the event’s host, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, to take the stage.
He began by expressing his appreciation for the previous speakers and all attendees, emphasising the contributions of Czech President Václav Klaus, who was in the audience, during the latter’s tenure in office, describing Mr. Klaus as possibly the wisest European leader in recent history.
He referred to the Hungarian CPAC as a good habit that might become a tradition, serving as a means for spreading his country’s model of success, which he considers perfectly exportable, “as they say of New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
The Prime Minister shared some thoughts on the road travelled so far, remembering Hungary’s dire straits in 2010. Since then, Orbán said, sound policies have resulted in a 40% fall in abortion as well as full employment.
It was initially a relatively unknown success story. Foreign press paid scant attention until, in 2015, Soros-funded NGOs began attempting to undo its gains, especially with respect to the country’s management of the refugee crisis. In a sense, this was a positive development, as it raised international awareness of Hungarian policies.
But Hungary has no interest in imposing its path on anyone, Orbán emphasised. Each nation has a right to live according to its own will. Indeed, the nation, he argued, has constituted the West’s distinctive civilizational advantage, albeit, in some sense, also representing its weakness, to the degree that nations descend into navel-gazing conflict. It is best when nations share certain fundamental values, then.
The Prime Minister described national diversity in terms of God’s plan for humanity, referring to the historical process by which different peoples received national patron saints. It was on account of an “ancient blood oath,” for example, that Hungarians configured themselves into a nation and survived the onslaughts to which they have been subjected over the course of their history.
Today, however, other civilizations are stronger, surpassing Europe and the West economically, as well as being more demographically sustainable. If Western countries are only superior militarily, falling behind in every other respect, the prospect of war begins to loom, he warned, adding that we only have ourselves to blame.
Orbán referred to the ideological cause of Western decline, comparing progressivism to a virus whose purpose is to break down the nation: a virus developed in specialised laboratories throughout the world, whose proliferation was no “lab leak,” but a deliberate act of cultural warfare.
He compared himself to the manager of an incubator where a cure capable of arresting this nefarious viral spread has been developed, one able to reverse the deadly disease without unexpected secondary effects. As VOX’s Hermann Tertsch reminded the audience during a later panel, Orbán used the Spanish word ‘Reconquista’ to describe the state of Europe’s fight against that virus.
The Hungarian leader recommended that allies communicate this struggle to their people by way of three pillars, namely opposition to migration, gender politics, and war.
We may describe these respectively as the dissolution of national identity from without, the dissolution of healthy social structures from within, and geopolitical destabilisation. Thus, he emphasised that the Reconquista requires not only assaulting the walls of a fortified enemy, but taking his shrines: Brussels and Washington among them.
With this outline of a strategy, the keynote speeches drew to a close and crowds scattered before the beginning of other speeches and panel discussions.
As in the past, the European CPAC is characterised by its diversity of attendees and the sense of a coalescing political wilderness hungry to dethrone the post-modern Left’s hegemony over their respective countries’ institutions.
There is a fair amount of difference of opinion, from supporters of more liberal to more interventionist economic models, for example, as well as concerning geopolitics.
Speaking to attendees, however, a consistent through-line may be identified in the visceral rejection of an elite project seeking to concentrate power through radical social atomization and the promotion of weak-souled hedonism—a desire to resist, in order to renew.
2023 CPAC Hungary: Keynotes, Master Strokes
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Photo: ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP
Recently, Budapest once more played host to a transcontinental gathering of the European and American Right.
Approaching the Hungarian capital’s Whale (Bálna) Centre, attendees would step over a screed informing them of their failings (“you are not Christians, you are fascists”) written in chalk on the sidewalk by protesters whose moral commitment we need not doubt, unlike their understanding of theology and political theory.
This year’s CPAC began with addresses by a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Protestant pastor, representing the religious allegiance of most attendees.
Per the often repeated motto of ‘God, nation, and family,’ religious guides were then followed by the anthems of the United States and Hungary, after which it was time for ‘family,’ which, in the context of CPAC, can be understood as the diversity of key-note speakers drawn together by common values.
The first of these was Miklós Szánthó, Director General of Hungary’s Centre for Fundamental Rights.
During his remarks, he related the former communist drive to break from and erase history to the liberal desire for an “end of history,” as well as the progressive belief in man’s ability to step outside his context and re-design himself abstractly.
In contrast to such projects, Szánthó described Hungary as Europe’s heartland, not only in terms of geography but also in values. He underlined the rights of children to healthy psychological development and to receive proper moral instruction. While conservatism isn’t a universal ideology with set prescriptions to be applied everywhere equally, it does, out of necessity, hold to certain universal values, he said, namely a belief in God, the nation or community, and the family as a fundamental social constituent.
Szánthó was followed by Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, who thanked the participants before offering an American perspective.
The United States is unique, he observed, in that when it takes a wrong turn, it tends to spread its mistakes abroad. The role of American agents and media in promoting progressive ideology in Europe is the clearest example of this. Hungary, for its part, has been successful in resisting such influence and, Schlapp argued, there is much American conservatives can learn from Miklos Szánthó in terms of how to vet journalists and so affect public discourse. He emphasised that Europeans should know there are plenty of people who oppose the ‘woke’ elite in the U.S., before praising Orbán’s policies and concluding that the political struggle against radical ideologues should be underpinned by religious beliefs.
The Prime Minister of Georgia, Irakli Garibashvili, was next to deliver his address. He began by proclaiming his belief in certain universal values, and his consonance with Viktor Orbán, who he described as a Christian man and a fighter.
In specifying what these universal values are, he cited the Georgian Orthodox Patriarch: faith in God, a defence of the homeland, and the integrity of the human person.
In terms of the homeland, for Georgia, opposition to Russian foreign policy is key, given the country’s 2008 war with its northern neighbour that resulted in a 20% loss of territory. The prime minister cited the gospel’s “blessed are the peacemakers,” perhaps in reference to Hungary’s potential mediation concerning the Ukraine invasion.
As for ‘the human person,’ Garibashvili made the point that defending the rights of minorities has been a consistent part of his country’s history, highlighted by the presence of Jewish and Muslim communities and the good relations between, for example, Sunni and Shia citizens.
Repulsion towards any violence of the majority against minorities, however, does not justify inverse violence of minorities against the majority. He warned that it is precisely such violence by ideologically motivated minorities that contemporary ‘woke’ progressivism seeks to weaponize in order to break down those traditional institutions that structure the lives of the majority of people.
Of course, the truth is not explicitly attacked in the name of falsehood, just as genuine freedom is not opposed by an explicit championing of slavery. Rather, he said, falsehood is presented as truth, that is, a false parody thereof; freedom is eroded in the name of a false freedom.
Today, the peak of this absurd ‘false freedom’ is the idea that children should choose their gender and have savage, life-long alterations visited upon their bodies by way of chemicals and scalpels.
Resisting the forward march of ‘false truths’ and ‘false freedom,’ opposing them with what has been preserved for us by previous generations, is the crux of the present struggle. As the Prime Minister said, “Georgia is not a superpower, but it does have a superpower, our values.”
Finally, it was time for the event’s host, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, to take the stage.
He began by expressing his appreciation for the previous speakers and all attendees, emphasising the contributions of Czech President Václav Klaus, who was in the audience, during the latter’s tenure in office, describing Mr. Klaus as possibly the wisest European leader in recent history.
He referred to the Hungarian CPAC as a good habit that might become a tradition, serving as a means for spreading his country’s model of success, which he considers perfectly exportable, “as they say of New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.”
The Prime Minister shared some thoughts on the road travelled so far, remembering Hungary’s dire straits in 2010. Since then, Orbán said, sound policies have resulted in a 40% fall in abortion as well as full employment.
It was initially a relatively unknown success story. Foreign press paid scant attention until, in 2015, Soros-funded NGOs began attempting to undo its gains, especially with respect to the country’s management of the refugee crisis. In a sense, this was a positive development, as it raised international awareness of Hungarian policies.
But Hungary has no interest in imposing its path on anyone, Orbán emphasised. Each nation has a right to live according to its own will. Indeed, the nation, he argued, has constituted the West’s distinctive civilizational advantage, albeit, in some sense, also representing its weakness, to the degree that nations descend into navel-gazing conflict. It is best when nations share certain fundamental values, then.
The Prime Minister described national diversity in terms of God’s plan for humanity, referring to the historical process by which different peoples received national patron saints. It was on account of an “ancient blood oath,” for example, that Hungarians configured themselves into a nation and survived the onslaughts to which they have been subjected over the course of their history.
Today, however, other civilizations are stronger, surpassing Europe and the West economically, as well as being more demographically sustainable. If Western countries are only superior militarily, falling behind in every other respect, the prospect of war begins to loom, he warned, adding that we only have ourselves to blame.
Orbán referred to the ideological cause of Western decline, comparing progressivism to a virus whose purpose is to break down the nation: a virus developed in specialised laboratories throughout the world, whose proliferation was no “lab leak,” but a deliberate act of cultural warfare.
He compared himself to the manager of an incubator where a cure capable of arresting this nefarious viral spread has been developed, one able to reverse the deadly disease without unexpected secondary effects. As VOX’s Hermann Tertsch reminded the audience during a later panel, Orbán used the Spanish word ‘Reconquista’ to describe the state of Europe’s fight against that virus.
The Hungarian leader recommended that allies communicate this struggle to their people by way of three pillars, namely opposition to migration, gender politics, and war.
We may describe these respectively as the dissolution of national identity from without, the dissolution of healthy social structures from within, and geopolitical destabilisation. Thus, he emphasised that the Reconquista requires not only assaulting the walls of a fortified enemy, but taking his shrines: Brussels and Washington among them.
With this outline of a strategy, the keynote speeches drew to a close and crowds scattered before the beginning of other speeches and panel discussions.
As in the past, the European CPAC is characterised by its diversity of attendees and the sense of a coalescing political wilderness hungry to dethrone the post-modern Left’s hegemony over their respective countries’ institutions.
There is a fair amount of difference of opinion, from supporters of more liberal to more interventionist economic models, for example, as well as concerning geopolitics.
Speaking to attendees, however, a consistent through-line may be identified in the visceral rejection of an elite project seeking to concentrate power through radical social atomization and the promotion of weak-souled hedonism—a desire to resist, in order to renew.
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