Politics and culture are continuously intersecting, creating a sense that these two facets of our world are ubiquitous and unavoidable. But despite the feeling it is impossible to escape them, politics and culture should by no means deprive us of self-definition.
Based on formal logic alone, politics and culture may seem two separate concepts, but we feel that despite the logical fallacy, the two are one and the same.
Is culture also politics? It certainly is. When we say this is our culture, we also say that is who we are and that we are not “others”. Not being defined as “others” is considered retrograde nowadays, especially by the political activists that constitute most of the media, thus this stance is clearly also politics.
And we shouldn’t ask either what will become of the person who always strives to be other – to take on another identity – because there is rational answer to that question.
You say you are gender-fluid and have the right to identify as so. To this we say, that by the same token, we are also allowed to proclaim that we are white, Christian, heterosexual Hungarian males.
And this does not imply anything about us, only that if biology hasn’t provided you with female sexual reproductive organs and a woman’s biology, we will not take you as a wife. We are not saying that we are better than you, just that this is our way of life, and we want to keep it. This stance, wish we previously took for granted in history, is now a political issue.
Is politics also culture? It certainly is. Not resorting to violence in a peaceful society is as much a cultural as it is a political attitude. Representative democracy is also a cultural thing. In this system, the people choose and you accept the result.
In terms of the politics of Hungary, we live in a two-thirds country. As a result, in a political sense, we are Fidesz, and they are Fidesz, so it doesn’t matter who you are, because the two-thirds of we and they are sufficient for freedom. We make freedom, and you make freedom. The only difference is that we make Hungarian freedom and you make global freedom.
We have known since Plato that meaningful dialogue is contingent upon a shared premise. Our shared premise is that we are contemporaries to ourselves, and we have a great advantage: We look at the world the Hungarian way.
The world is interested in us because we are Hungarians, and we should have the courage to be so. Furthermore, our decision to be that is our sovereign choice.
As Hungarians, we say that this is the kind of unity that still allows plenty of diversity in both politics and culture.
Editor’s note: Editorial translated from Origo
