Calvin Synod Herald, 2008 (109. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
2008-03-01 / 3-4. szám
10 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD Hungarian Independence Day The following address was given by Rev. Albert W, Kovács on March 15, 2007, at the Town Hall Circle, Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Rev. Kovács is the pastor of the John Calvin Magyar Reformed Church in Perth Amboy and the Hungarian Reformed Church in Woodbridge, New Jersey. On this hallowed circle in front of America’s oldest town hall, as we are surrounded by symbols of July 4, 1776 and the American Revolution, we are compelled to recall the heroism of those who in that day dared to declare, “all men are created equal.” Our minds also take us to other times and lands where others dared to echo those words, such as Hungary in 1848 and again in 1956, and we fear for the lives of those who voice those words in other lands today where tyranny rules. Yet those bold words, “all men are created equal,” did not come out of the clear blue sky, but were shaped by the faith and thought of long centuries as the idea gradually developed. Even here in the new republic, few really thought that all men were equal. The founders felt that the ones qualified to participate in government should be the aristocrat landholders. Not everyone would qualify, such as those without land or businesses, and certainly none of the slaves, the savage natives, or the half of the human race called women. It would take many decades, a civil war, suffrage marches, and a civil rights movement to bring those words to full meaning in the nation that declared them to the world. Those words were carried across the seas, and inflamed the European nations in their own revolutions in one country after another. The French rebelled and the Bastille fell. New demands forced changes in the English government. The tide swept eastward and revolution struck Italy’s northern provinces which rebelled against Austria, and in 1848 open revolt in Vienna shook the imperial house of Habsburg, but the crown regained control in both places. With a quick reaction to the rebellions in its own territory, the Habsburgs decided to put the clamps on the various national groups, pitting one against another, and tried to silence the rising voices of discontent in Hungary, by splitting it into small and controllable districts, with Transylvania totally separate. The Hungarians refused to become a second rate power subservient to Austria, no longer a sovereign kingdom, and began an open rebellion against the emperor’s forces. It was no accident that the words of America’s Declaration of Independence were so closely echoed in the Hungarian’s own Declaration, announced by Louis Kossuth in Debrecen in April of 1849. Listen first to the opening words of the American rebels some seventy years earlier: [U.S. Declaration of Independence - 1776] “When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. ... Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ... “ Then listen to the authors of Hungarian independence as they dared to face the power of the centuries old Habsburg imperial family: [H ungarian Declaration of Independence - 1849] “... the dynasty has forfeited its right to the Hungarian throne. We feel ourselves bound in duty to make known the motives and reasons that have impelled us to this decision, in order that the civilized world may learn that we have not taken this step out of overweening confidence in our wisdom, nor out of revolutionary excitement, but that it is an act of utter necessity, adopted to preserve from utter destruction a nation persecuted to the limit of a most enduring patience.” Both spoke to their persecution by tyrannical rulers who refused to listen to the voice of reason despite many appeals for fairness, justice and respect. Both reflected the necessity to offer and explanation for their rebellion to those of other civilized nations. And. importantly, both state that necessity impelled them to act decisively for their countrymen’s sake against a government that would further limit their rights and freedoms. The powers in Vienna fully intended to destroy Hungary as a nation. It is necessary to note that in Hungary, just as earlier in America, the people like Louis Kossuth had positions or landholdings that gave them the right to participate in the decisions of government, reserved to the aristocrats and nobility. It was not intended to grant anything to the peasant class. However, the spirit of the times also dictated that for their support the peasants would also récééivé great gains of liberty, and the oppressive power of the nobility would decline. An old saying goes, “Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” So too, in America and in Hungary - France, England, Germany, and countless other nations - the words echoed forth in countless languages, “all men are created equal.” Countless rebellions have shattered the status quo in many lands, some of them mercilessly squelched, like Hungary in 1849 or again in 1956. But the inner spirit of mankind yearns to be free - yet not alone, for the spirit of freedom once possessed impels a desire that others deserve to be free as well. We cannot open our lunch boxes and eat, while a coworker doesn’t even have peanut butter and crackers. We are moved in our hearts to share our sandwiches, it’s the human thing to do. And so too the freedom we have come to enjoy, rooted in the proposition that “all men are equal” - to many people it is a new idea, and it will take time to develop and become their own. Years of subjugation to the ignorance that breeds prejudice and division, by which tyrants control, make change difficult, like trying to open a door that’s been closed for years. The door itself
