Szittyakürt, 1979 (18. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)

1979-07-01 / 7-8. szám

(Front page Journal News 5/24/7 9) Page 4 FIOHTtX AUGUST 1979 Sunday is “Kossuth Day ... This Sunday is officially "Kossuth Day", with a day-long series of events to be held at the Kossuth-Zion United Methodist Church there beginning at 9:15 a.m. The day will commemorate the life and deeds of Louis Kossuth, a liberal. anti-Catholic editor, author, statesman, and accomplished orator of Hungarian descent who lectured throughout Eur­ope and in the United States to rally support for his cause of Protestant religious freedom. A Lutheran. Kossuth's marriage to a Catholic girl made him a principal in a test case of the Catholic church's supremecy over Protestant churches in Hungary — and was perhaps one of the springboards from which he was pro­pelled into his lifelong role as a leader for Protestantism. Grave markers in the Kossuth Cemetery bear mute testimony to the long history ol this small community nestled on the banks ol the Mlami-Erie Cenal Two churches in the United States — a Presbyterian church in Mediapolis. Iowa, and a Baptist church near Mani­­towac. Wise., were named after him. The peak of Kossuth's career came during the 1850's, and the heart of his doctrine was that "Christian morality is the true foundation of international justice." An exhaustive research into Kos­suth's life has been compiled by a group of historians from the West Side Lutheran Church of Gevcland. who will be irt Kossuth for Kossuth Day. Events of the day will center in the morning around regular Sunday School and worship services at the Kossuth- Zion. Church, followed by a basket dinner at the church at 12:30 p.m. At 2:30 there will be a commemor­ative service, during which highlights of Kossuth's life will be reviewed by the group from Gcveland. Kossuth, which lies on the banks of the historic Miami-Eric Canal south of Spcncervillc at the intersection of State Routes 197 and 66A. was given its name during Louis Kossuth's lifetime. Orig­inally. Kossuth was a German settlement. It! lion is b7. predominently current popula-Representatives of the Hungarian Freedomfighter Movement and some of the proud citizens of the town of Kossuth, Ohio. gone, and to tell you that all of Eu­rope’s freedoms now depended wholly on what was now happening in the United States. The major stops of Kossuth s Ohio tour were Cleveland, Hudson, Columbus, Salem and Cincinnati. It was in Columbus that he stated best the role he saw for the United States in future history. This was expressed in a speech he delivered to the Ohio General Assembly on February 6, 1852! You must also remember that the popular demand that Kossuth be invited to America as the “nations guest” originated in the state of Ohio and that on April 12, 1852 the Ohio Senate passed a bill resolving: “That the Governor of Ohio be authorized, and is hereby instructed to deliver to Louis Kossuth, the Constitutional Governor of Hun­gary ... all the public arms and munitions of war belonging to the state, which remain undistrubed, to be returned in good order upon the achievement of Hungarian liberty. ” The speech to the Ohio General Assembly stated the following: “The spirit of our age is Democracy. All for the people and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people! That is democracy and that is the ruling tendency of the spirit of our age. “To this spirit is opposed the principle of despotism, claiming sovereignity over mankind, and degrading nations from the position U.N. DENIES FREEDOM OF SPEECH TO HUNGARIANS (Continued from page one) THE PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF HUNGARY TURNS ITS BACK ON THE TRANSYLVANIAN HUNGARIANS AND ALL HUNGARIANS IN THE ANNEXED TERRITORIES Europe is quiet, quiet again Revolution has whizzed over her Shame on her! She quieted down Without gaining her liberty! These lines were written by the great Hungarian poet Alexander Petőfi in 1849, just before his heroic death in the cause of liberty — at the Battle of Segesvár. The poem conveys an immense feeling of sad­ness at the fact that Europe is falling back into her old authoritarian ways, at the same time it also fore­shadows the poets vision of his own death and the death of the freedoms for which the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49, led by Louis Kossuth, had fought for. We must remember that for two years during the revolutions of 1848-49, Europeans from one end to the continent to the other, had been fighting to gain those same freedoms, to gain those concepts of individual rights and individual worth which were brought for the first time into world history by the success of the American Revolution of 1776. For European intellectuals and especially for the revolutionaries of 1848, the ideals that America had stood for ever since 1776 — the con­cepts which our Declaration of In­dependence and Contstitution so beautifully convey, were goals to be striven for, they were, if you wish, magnificent beacons which gave them a sense of direction. Let me just for a moment dwell on these lines of the Declaration of In­dependence and Constitution which so inspired Kossuth. For instance, these lines of the Declaration of In­dependence: — We hold these truths to be self­­evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalien­able rights .... — that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it . . . OR THESE very important sections of our Constitution: — Congress shall make no laws re­specting an establishment of (state) religion or the prohibiting of the free excercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or of press, or the right of the people to assemble and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. — The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable search­es and seizures shall not be violated. Nor shall a person be deprived of life, liberty and property without due process of law — nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation! In those dark years of 1849 it was toward the American Republic that European revolutionaries looked to continue the fight that had been lost on the European continent! And it is for this reason that Louis Kossuth came to this country, and eventually to Ohio to tell you that with Hun­gary’s revolution crushed, the last hope of European democracy was The most unexpected attack against our organization came from the delegate of the Peoples Republic of Hungary, when he appeared on the floor and passed out an eight page document to the delegates of all 12 nations, with a slanderous pro­paganda that resembled the Stalinist era of the fifties. The Hungarian delegate waisted no time to stay around or seek opportunity for any oral propaganda. But the written document of infamy, remained for posperity. This document did not call upon us as “Dear fellow country­man,” which is the usual approach toward exiled Hungarians in their freely distributed journal in the Western hemisphere called Magyar Hírek (Hungarian News). This time we were attacked for our patriotic stand, we were subjected to name calling and distorted propaganda. The Hungarian Government ac­cused our organization, that we are against peaceful coexistence with the neighboring countries, but never mentioned the persecution of Hun­garians by these same countries. They have condemned the HFM for standing up for the human rights of the Transylvanian Hungarians at a Kent State University Symposium, where exported scholars of the Socialist Republic of Romania have displayed a false history of Tran­sylvania to justify their policies of ethnocide against the Hungarians in their ancient land. This act by the Government of the Peoples Republic of Hungary was s slap in the face for the 3 million Transylvanian Hun­garians who are begging this very same Government to speak up for their human rights and use their in­fluence with the Soviet Union to re­unite Transylvania with the mother­land. FIVE DAYS OF BATTLE During the five days session of the NGO Council Committee, the dele­gates of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Sweden and Chile continually demanded the right of HFM to be heard, after all how could the United Nations deny the freedom of speech, that is guaranteed by its own Charter? Yet it happened! In spite that HFM’s re­presentatives pleaded with the delegates of all twelve countries, in­cluding the Soviet Union, our freedom of speech was denied. of self-conscious, self-consistent aims to the conditions of tools, subser­vient to the authority of ambition! “. . . (But) a bright lustre is spreading over the dark of humanity, the glorious galaxy of the United States rises with imposing brightness over the horizon of op­pressed nations, and the bloody star of tyranny will soon vanish from the sky like a meteor. . . . The time draws near when Europe’s liberated nations will unite thanking God that his paternal cares have raised the United States to the glorious posi­tion of a first born son of freedom on earth. “It is as if you, America were saying: ‘We in our legitimate authority, not derived from sac­­religious violence like yours, but from the only legitimate source of all authority — the sovereign people’s will, we defy your ambitions arrogance to dictate what shall be law and right for humanity!’” When the founders of your town­ship chose the name of Kossuth in 1858, they chose that name because they recognized the sameness of beliefs of the founders of our Republic and Kossuth. The same love of freedom, democracy and individual rights were sounded by both! They also realized that at the time of the founding of this township, Kossuth represented the greatest leader of this world movement to­ward freedom. Finally, and no doubt this is most important, it was only through the free institutions which Kossuth so vehemently defended that the town­ship of Kossuth came about ... to construct and to build a community based both on hard work (in this case the construction of Miami-Erie Canal), freedom of belief (the source of your strength — Kossuth Zion) and the dignity of the individual. We Hungarians and Hungarian Freedom Fighters also very proud of Kossuth Lajos are here to thank you and your ancestors for this recogni­tion and especially for the Great Honor that you have bestowed upon his name! R. B. Clementis-Zahony It is a historical fact, that the mere presence of the Hungarian Freedom­­fighter Movement at the United Nations was a nightmare for the in­ternally unstable Soviet Empire. 23 years after the Hungarian uprising we are back again reminding the world that Hungary is not a free country, it is still under Soviet occu­pation and we are the only ones who care to protect our people from abuse, persecution, ethnocide and other ills that violate their human rights every day. We did not dis­appear, we are here stronger and more determined than ever. The events of these five days were only the first round of our fight for the rights of our people. The United Nations will be hunted by violating its own Charter, and we will expose these practices. The fact that the Council Committee denied Con­sultative Status to HFM without a hearing is not a deterrent but rather an incentive to intensify our struggle until we are granted the same rights as others. We have put on notice the Government of the Peoples Republic of Hungary if they interfer with our freedom for speech here in the West, we will take every measure that is re­quired to stop their activities on this hemisphere. They are a Government of force and perhaps that is the only language they understand.

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