Leaving Hungary

I watched this evening as the pastel sunset casually swept across the sky. The day ending colors were also country ending colors as I watched the sun sink through the window on a train bound for Vienna.

As the rhythmic motion of the train promised relaxation for the next few hours, I couldn't help but to think about my time in Hungary and all that I had learned about this dynamic, tragic, captivating and adaptable people and their lesser known history.

Walking throughout Budapest was enlightening. Several months ago I had been looking for some simple fact about this part of the world and ended up spedning several months researching this intriguing country.

Suddenly it was all there in front of me; the symbolic statues, government gathering places, momuments to freedom. I saw the memorials that marked the first Hungarian revolution in the 1800's. I stood in front of the Parliament building that provided the stage for a group of students in 1956. A place where they read a list of public demands for change they finally felt brave enough to voice following the recent death of Stalin.

I stood in the square where the government responded with less than diplomatic actions that led to a public massacre that in turn instigated the Hungarian revolution of 1956. The very revolt that led to one of the greatest Soviet military movements that was executed in an effort to regain conntrol of the centrally located piece of their newly formed union.

The Soviets may have succeeded with the help of their 2,000 some tanks that were brought to reside within the city limits, but the Hungarians succeeded in one phenomenal task...creating substianted fear inside the hearts of the Soviet leaders.

The progressive struggles of this country became clearer and clearer as Csilla and I walked all around the city as dusk was beginning to settle. With sincere emotion, she related to me how difficult things still are for the people of Hungary.

'Communism fell on the outside' she said, 'but it still lives inside of so many people'.

As we made our way along the Danube, the corruption of their government was explained to me without reservation or any attempts to present to me the rose colored version of reality. Csilla was heartbreakingly honest.

Hungary joined the European Union in 2004, something I knew before, but there are still some hang ups. The Hungarian leaders had to make promises to the EU; actions needed to be made by the governing bodies to fully comply with the morally high standards of the EU. The Hungarian leaders said they would; they didn't.

One major consequence of these unfulfilled promises is their currency. Although an EU member, Hungary is not on the Eruo, a currency change that tends to benefit the local econmy. In a nut shell, Hungary had substantial debt when they joined the union, so in turn the union gave the leaders of Hungary sufficient funds to get out of debt, but somehow, those designated funds ended up in the personal bank accounts of a few unnamed individuals and Hungary remained in seirous debt. The EU then determined no Euro.

There was a brief time period in which the democratic party was in office. 'They got us out of debt' she said, 'we finally had money... Hungary seemed to have hope. But that didn't last long'.

When I inquired about how it was possible, with a democratic voting system, that these post communistic leaders kept ending up in office, a painful expression took over her face. After a few minutes of silence, she began the long explanation of the devistating, long lasting effects communism has on the minds of the citizens who were raised under communism.

'They think and function just as they were programed to. They see those ideals and values of communism and something inside of them turns on, and they follow'.

'There are so many lies' she said. Lies...a word I heard more in those few hours of conversation than I typically do over the course of a few weeks, months perhaps.

'I didn't even have a clue what the truth was, so I had to make it a priority in my life to try to find out what the truth actually was'.

This truth quest lead her to the 'House of Terror' a name not meant for a artificial fear producing ride inside an amusement park, but the name of a museum in Budapest containing so much information about the truth of communism.

'It was tortorious' she said, shaking her head. Her sporadic pauses indicated more emotion than a complete book of Hungarian history ever could.

There is still tension between the government and the people, still fear the government feels towards the public. 'They hate it when the citizens gather together and so they try to do all they can to prevent and discourage it'.

Taking all of this in, there was still one part of the day that was additionally emotional for me. On that fateful day in October some fifty years ago, the public read their demands, it thus started such a powerful reaction from the people. As a result, statues were torn down and buildings were set on fire. Yet something even more powerful was started that night.

After Hugary became under the oppression of the Soviet Union, a Soviet coat of arms was affixed in the center of the traditional Hungarian flag; an ever powerful symbol of the permanent presence of communism. In an act of untimate rebellion, on that significant night, the Hungarian people began ripping out the Soviet coat of arms, leaving countless of Hungarian flags with gaping holes in the center; an equally symbolic sign of their repulsion to the Soviet rule.

These maimed flags few all over the city, with their giant, obvious holes. The people wanted out, they had had enough. Oppression can only be tolerated for so long before it violently comes to an end or else it violently increases. This was clearly demonstrated by these events that took place in 1956 at the very place I was standing on Monday.

In an effort to comemorate these events and those preciously courageous individuals, a monument is standing in the very square in front of their Parliament building in which these horrific events occured.

The momument is simple. It's a grave. Above the grave is a flag, with a hole, and next to the grave is a sign with this inscription that so brilliantly captures the past events and present difficulties of this beautiful and sorrowful nation.

'The Hungarian flag has a hole in it because on October 23, 1956 the revolutionist, those Hungarians who revolted against the Soviet Untion, tore out of it the foreign coat of arms that symbolized the power of the Soviet Unsion and communism. Since then this flag has symbolized the freedom of the Hungarian nation.

This memorial is a symbolic grave. Here, on this square, several hundreds of people fell dead onto the ground due to the killer blow of a firing squad on October 25, 1956. Honour and remembrance to the victims!

The system of communism has fallen in every sense. However, it will be very hard to get rid of communism, for there is nobody as dangerous as the usurper of a faliled system who abandons the system but guards his loot and power position.'

As the day went on, I continued to ruminate about the facts I had researched, the places I visited, the flag that I saw. Perhaps as time goes on I will be able to present to you a more advanced synopsis or analysis of these events and these sights, but for now I feel that this is all I can leave you with.

How strange to have your freedom defined not by the attainment of something, but by the absence of something?

I am well aware at how culturally egocentric this may sound, but my upbringing was one that displayed our political freedom as something that we obtained. Freedom could be had so we took it, fought for it, and set an example that many other people groups within our very nation continued to model.

Anti-slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights...all these people saw that freedom could be had and pursued that. How backwards it seemed to me to look at freedom as the loss of something negative as opposed to the attainment of something positive.

Perhaps these historical events managed to influenced my ideas and ended up spilling over into my theology as well. How often do I seem to think of my salvation as the attainment of Christ's substitution and eternal life and less often as the removal of my sin. I wonder if the Hungarian people think their salvation is more so the removal of sin and not so much as their personal attainment of life.

Both sides are only half the picture, and dangerous without the other half.

Freedom has to be one of the strangest entities, ideologies, concepts that all humans struggle with. I have had a basic understanding of freedom for what seems like the whole of my life, but perhaps, I understand such a limited portion of what freedom truly is.