1987. május (53-73. szám) / HU_BFL_XIV_47_2

■ mi

24/D Littl* IWell Street, LONDONI, W-C.i • Ttl 04-4&0 at 26 • G. Rrasai

65/1987 /E/ 15th May, 1987

The Speech of Tamás Molnár in the Name of the Hungárián Democratic Opposition on the 15th of May at the Uhveiling Ceremony of the Statue of

Raoul Wallenberg

Ladies and Gentlemen!

We stand in front of the statue of a mán. This mán is a simple, everyday figure; he looks as if he would have stepped from the Street in the midst of us, where he stands without any heroic pose, wearing no steel helmet, wielding no flaming sword. This is how he, the hero of the XX. century, fought évii.

The Citizen, who, armed only with civic honesty and the power of clear-sighted morality, did oppose, dared to oppose, political systems, which claim superiority over this disdained honesty, being proud of nőt being shackled by the out-dated morality of brotherly lőve. He opposed systems, which press their citizens intő combat groups in the name of somé new order, mendaciously declared to be more exalted. We stand in front of the statue of a humanist, who could nőt accept the massed annihilation of people on the pretext of any new order. Is this mán young? Yes, he is young. He has been young then, in 1944> when he untiringly struggled by his civic means to savé the death-bound. He was 52 years old then, bút he is young even today at the age of 75> when he addresses us in an unbroken, sonorous voice: You cannot remain idlej

He was 52 years old then. He could have lived otherwise. Bút what was it, that forced the diplomát són of a rich family to leave his homeland, which did nőt know the horrors of war since 150 years, and to throw himself intő the struggle against the forces of hell? Only the perception that inactivity is a erime.

Look at this face. The artist didn't portray the carefree youth, bút the sorely tried mán. He was 55 years old in 1947» when - as we are told - he died. This face is nőt 55 years old. Mankind's historical encounter with Nazism and Bolshevism left its heavy mark on it. This face is our face.

We stand in front of the statue of a mán. It is a strange statue. It bears only a name: Raoul Wallenberg. When and where was he bőm? How long did he live? Where does he rest? No inseription telis this, just as it doesn't teli who he was and what he's done. As if everybody was expected to know this. As if they would nőt have kept silence about him fór forty years in this country, where a political obsession killed masses of people, and where he, the stranger had to come to hold down the murderers* hands.

It is a strange statue. It has been erected by a government, which hadonce already erected a monument fór him, and which later demolished this first one, because it could nőt believe that a mán could take deadly risks on the morál ürge of unselfish humanism alone. Or perhaps because it valued the sensitivity of a foreign power more highly, than the obligation of gratitude.