The following is an opinion piece written by Tünde Fűrész, president of the Kopp Mária Institute for Demography and Families.
Just one year ago, last Advent, the volume entitled …Ami a miénk—Ötven írás a családról (…What is Ours—Fifty Writings about Family) was published by the Kopp Mária Institute for Demography and Families (KINCS), in which the President of the Republic— Minister for Family Affairs at the time—invited fifty special people from among the key players in art, literature, science, sports, the church, the economy, the media, public life and family movements to share their thoughts about the family.
One year is a long time, with a lot of events having impacted our lives in the meantime, bringing great changes both on a national and global level: there is a war raging in neighbouring Ukraine; we have a new president of the republic in the person of Katalin Novák; in the parliamentary elections in April, the Fidesz-KDNP party alliance won a two-thirds victory again; and most recently,
families have had to cope with the difficulties of the energy price explosion and excessive inflation
caused by the Brussels sanctions.
A year has passed, but the book’s message has been relevant ever since: it is still necessary today, as Simone Weil teaches, to ‘learn to long for what is ours’. At the same time, in these times of crises, we would do well to keep in mind the ‘Seven Rules’ of Hungary’s national policy and recall: ‘Only that which we can defend is truly ours’. Family is ours and will only remain ours if we can defend it.
And that is why it is important, symbolic and sends the right message that the ‘leader’ of Hungary, the highest dignitary who represents the nation as a whole, is a person who continues to feel responsibility for the cause of Hungarian families, and a commitment to families is at the very heart of her service. Thus, family-friendly policy in Hungary has been raised to the highest level.
In the past year, the world has almost turned upside down, yet we need those beacons in our lives that keep us and guide us in everyday life, even in spite of crises. Family is such a beacon for us, the representation of which was one of the main pledges of Katalin Novák as president, and that she continues to work for to make sure that every desired child can be born in Hungary. Wherever she goes, time after time she is the carrier of this message in the whole world.
The message of family being the cradle of sovereignty and the centre of our identity,
and for which to grow the total fertility rate, i.e. the number of children per woman, should increase above two.
Most recently, at one of the events of the memorial year organized on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the birth and the 10th anniversary of the death of Professor Mária Kopp, the founding director of the Institute of Behavioural Sciences at Semmelweis University, the Hungarian head of state spoke about how our future depends on whether we maintain family as a core value. And in order to do that, day after day—and even more so as Christmas approaches—we have to learn to long for what is ours. And family is ours.
The ‘Seven Rules’ of Hungary’s national policy are the following: 1. A homeland only exists as long as there is someone who loves it. 2. Every Hungarian child is a new lookout post. 3. Truth means little without strength. 4. Only that which we can defend is truly ours. 5. Matches are only over when we have won. 6. Only countries have borders, nations do not.
No Hungarian is alone.
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