In the current difficult period, those countries that have a strong national identity and are able to preserve their cultural, religious and historical heritage can be successful, said Péter Szijjártó Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Wednesday.
According to the ministry's announcement, at the opening event of the Cultural Diplomatic Meeting in Budapest, the head of the ministry emphasized that the national interest must be the guiding principle for success , and this must be the most important aspect during decision-making.
“We don't take the dare-to-be-small approach,” he said. He underlined: those countries can be successful that stand up for themselves in all circumstances , but this requires a stable foundation, which is provided for our country by the thousand-year-old statehood, the Christian heritage and the cultural, religious and historical traditions.
"Today, everything in the world is going against this, the international liberal mainstream treats everything and everyone who thinks about national values, traditions, and historical-cultural heritage as enemies," he opined. Péter Szijjártó called it an essential task to show the world the extraordinary values and resources of Hungarian culture, defined at the same time by its unique western, eastern and northern characteristics. "We belong to the West, our culture is part of Western culture, but at the same time, in the East, we are considered brothers, the Hungarian cultural heritage has serious Eastern aspects, and due to the theory of Finno-Ugric belonging, we are not treated as foreigners in the North either," he stated . He then emphasized that the Hungarian foreign policy strategy is based on mutual respect, which can mostly be nourished by respect for our culture. According to him, this is why it is important that Hungary operates 26 cultural institutes in 24 countries of the world, just as it is expected that all embassies carry out active cultural diplomacy activities. In the spirit of this, diplomats specifically dealing with cultural matters work at 89 stations.
The minister also spoke about the fact that "we are currently in a critical period even on a historical scale" , extraordinary events are taking place in the world and there is no indication that these difficulties will be resolved in the short term. "We, Hungarians, have to experience the effects of the dramatic changes in world history firsthand. We are in a unique situation, we are the only country that is under pressure from the south and the east at the same time," he declared. "Until now, our task has been to accept more than 830,000 war refugees from the east, and to keep out more than 110,000 migrants from the south, and these numbers are increasing by the thousands and tens of thousands every day," he added .
Source: MTI
(Cover image: infostart.hu)
