YouSaid · the spoken record

Katalin Novak

lines on the record

22

first

2022-09-24

most recent

2023-09-24

sittings or episodes

2

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un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “We recognize that family is the key to security. A strong, united and healthy family is a guarantee of security.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

2. “On the contrary, the strengthening of families has been a positive in economic terms. We protect parental freedom. We believe firmly that the right to raise children does not belong to the State, to non-governmental organizations, the media or the knowledge industry. It belongs to parents. Any of us who have children are ready to fight at any time to ensure that they can live in peace and freedom. Families pass on their values from generation to generation, in the face of every difficulty, every historic trauma and every challenge. The message of the Demographic Summit of Budapest, our capital city, which is 150 years old this year, is clear. Pro-family forces stand up for their values and interests even at a time when anti-family and anti-child ideologies are on an unprecedented offensive — and. in fact, especially then.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

3. “What is the point of looking after the Earth if we do not have children and grandchildren to pass it on to? If childlessness becomes widespread, if we continue to see fewer children born each year than the number who die in our countries, our beloved world, which we believe to be secure, will be shattered. We Hungarians see a solution to the demographic crisis in the strengthening and support of families. Our aim is for everyone to have a full and happy family life and to have all the children that young couples want. Hungary was the first country in the world to bring the issue of strengthening families and tackling the demographic crisis into focus. We have built up a broad family support system. Our country’s spending on family support is the largest in the European Union, and it has not destroyed the Hungarian economy.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

4. “In Europe and in many other countries of the United Nations, the demographic winter has turned into an ice age. Public leaders, thinkers, demographers and the representatives of family organizations and professional workshops from 60 countries and five continents sought answers on how to protect and strengthen families and overcome our demographic difficulties. If we do not address the issue, it will have an immeasurable impact on our economies, societies and security in the near future. Elon Musk may be right when he says that demographic decline is a more serious problem than the climate crisis. Little attention is being paid to the real and irreversible changes taking place in our world. If there are no children, there will be no future.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

5. “So young people feel that we must look out for each other, that we must not let go of the hands of others reaching out towards us”. This spring in Budapest, in our nation’s main square, which is named after Lajos Kossuth, whom I mentioned earlier. Pope Francis prayed in the presence of tens of thousands of people with the following words. “Instil into the hearts of peoples and their leaders the desire to build peace and to give the younger generations a future of hope, not war. a future full of cradles, not tombs”. The fifth Budapest Demographic Summit, the most important international forum on demographic issues, was concluded three days ago. In addition to war. a large part of the world is facing a difficulty that is oppressing it from within.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

6. “We do our share of the joint tasks, even beyond our size and economic weight. As an equestrian nation, we speak honestly, with a straight posture. Here we are at the United Nations in New York — Heads of State and Government, world leaders. We have come together as we do every year in the United Nations, which was created by our ancestors’ desire for peace. Demand a ceasefire and a just peace! Of the people, by the people, for the people. I would also like to take this opportunity to send a message to the world from young Hungarians. I have asked the youth delegate of Hungary to the United Nations. Csenge Offenbacher. who is here with us today, to help us articulate the message of Hungarian youth. This is the sentence they gave me: “Today we need solidarity with each other more than ever.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

7. “We know that peace is only realistically attainable when at least one side sees the time for negotiations as having come. We cannot decide for Ukrainians how much they are prepared to sacrifice, but we have a duty to represent our own nation’s desire for peace. And we must do all we can to avoid an escalation of the war. I am a mother of three children, and we mothers know that in every war. children are the most vulnerable. War hits them hardest, although they are the ones who need security and stability the most. These are lost in war. Hungary has always been respectful towards other nations. We are loyal to our allies and our partners alike, as proud and active members of the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union and the Council of Europe.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

8. “At the invitation of President Zelenskyy. I have been to Kyiv twice since the outbreak of the war. I have seen the suffering of the families. I have seen what they experience when the peace is broken. I have met Ukrainian and Hungarian people who have lost family members. I have met Ukrainian children for whom a kindergarten was set up with the help and support of Hungary — children whom the war is depriving of a happy childhood. The war and the suffering affects families first and foremost: mothers who lose their husbands and sons; fathers who go into battle with their barely grown-up sons; and children who lose their sense of security and faith in the future. There is no alternative to peace. The killing, the terrible destruction, must stop as soon as possible. War is never the solution.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

9. “This is why we emphasize that there are 150.000 Hungarians living in Ukraine, in Transcarpathia, who share every hardship and struggle, sacrifice and success. This war also directly affects us Hungarians. It is not just in our neighbourhood. Hungarian fathers and sons living in Ukraine are also giving their lives in the trenches. Thus, we want peace — in our country, in Ukraine, in Europe, in the world. We want peace and the security that comes with it. Hungary stands for the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine. We understand Ukraine’s desire to be part of the community of European countries, and we therefore expect it to uphold the values that characterize our community, including — expressly — the protection and full guarantee of the rights of national minorities — not in words, in deeds.”

   2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

10. “We know how precious freedom is and how painful it is to be deprived of it. I myself was born during the decades of Soviet oppression, when my country was not free. A childhood spent in a softening communist dictatorship left indelible marks on my generation. The rejection of any kind of oppression has become an instinct in us. That is why we condemn clearly and unequivocally the violation of international law. the attack on another State, the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which has caused immense suffering and destruction and has destroyed the peaceful life of Europe. We are for the victims and against further escalation. This is why we are providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine and to all those fleeing the war. We help beyond our size and strength.”

    2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

11. “Of the people, by the people, for the people. We all know the most famous words of the Gettysburg Address. However, fewer people know that Abraham Lincoln borrowed these words from one of the greatest Hungarians. Lajos Kossuth, the leader of our 1848 war of independence. He was born on this very day. 19 September. All for the people, and all by the people. Nothing about the people without the people. This is the main purpose of the sovereign Hungarian State and the guarantee of our freedom. The Hungarian people want peace and security. We have 1.000 years of turbulent history in the heart of Europe — in the draughty Carpathian Basin — with wars, oppression and occupation, revolutions and wars of independence. We know the feeling of vulnerability. We know what it is like to live divided and what suffering wars cause.”

    2023-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 78 (2023)

12. “Most of us came to the Assembly from London. We attended the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II together and bowed our heads before her coffin. We bid farewell to an exceptional monarch, whose life was steeped in service to peace. We owe it to the people and to her memory to make our decisions in the same spirit. Let me conclude by quoting Winston Churchill, who said in 1953, “Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace, and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.” Let us make a good peace.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

13. “Let me recall once again the words of the late Queen Elizabeth II, “The aims and values which inspired the United Nations Charter endure: to promote international peace, security and justice; to relieve and remove the blight of hunger, poverty and disease; and to protect the rights and liberties of every citizen.” (ibid., p.2) Hungary urges fellow Member States to declare peace as the major priority in the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine. It is by no means self-evident that today, at a time of war, energy and food crises, the organizations set up to avoid war and preserve peace are focusing on ideological indoctrination. That is not what is needed today. Instead, we must regain our ability to distinguish between the essential and the irrelevant; the important and the unimportant; reality and fiction.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

14. “Hungary is a member of several federal systems, including above all the United Nations, NATO, the European Union and the Council of Europe, among others. Those organizations were created by their founding fathers to pursue peace as their fundamental goal. I could say that they were created by the desire for peace, and I am convinced that the service of peace is the foundation of their identity.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

15. “A war has only victims, and those with the greatest losses are families: mothers and fathers who lose their children on the battlefield; wives who lose their husbands in the fighting; and children who lose their brothers and sisters in the hell of war. It is in the strongest possible terms that we call for the investigation of war crimes committed against innocent civilians. Those crimes must be documented, investigated and prosecuted by the relevant international institutions. No crimes committed can go unpunished. What do we want from the United Nations? To win the war? We should not stand for winning any war. We need to stand for the restoration of peace. If there is a will, there is a way.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

16. “Hungary firmly condemns Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which has destroyed peace in Europe and caused dramatic human suffering and destruction, with serious repercussions for the world order. Since the beginning of the conflict, Hungarians have stood with the victims. We have provided economic, social and humanitarian aid to Ukraine and to the Ukrainian people fleeing the war. Hungary is currently implementing the largest humanitarian operation in its recent history. Hungarian people, churches, civil organizations, local authorities and the Government have provided shelter to nearly 1 million refugees since the outbreak of the conflict. We have learned that war is evil and leads nowhere.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

17. “We had 45 years of communist dictatorship, and it did not take long after the peaceful change of regime in 1989 for war to break out in our immediate southern neighbourhood. The killing lasted for a decade. Now, after hardly more than 20 years, war is once again raging on the European continent, in one of Hungary’s neighbouring countries. It fills us with particular concern, especially because ethnic Hungarians living across the borders have also shed their blood. Russia’s war against Ukraine is a constant threat and security risk, not only for the Ukrainian citizens living in the war zone but for all of us. The threat of escalation is a reason for worry and action.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

18. “Globally, conflict and violence are on the rise, according to the United Nations, which has warned that peace is under greater threat around the world now than it has ever been since the Second World War. The number of wars and armed conflicts around the world has been rising steadily since then. The scholarly optimism that the decline in the number of casualties might lead to a process whereby armed conflicts become irrelevant was quickly overshadowed by recent developments in Europe and other parts of the world. I come from Hungary, from the heart of Europe. Everyone would assume that, since the Second World War, peace has been a regional characteristic. Let us not forget that, just 11 years after the end of Second World War, Soviet tanks were rolling along the streets of Budapest.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

19. “We peoples and leaders of the Western world often pretend that we have lived in an age of permanent peace and prosperity since the end of the Second World War. In many ways, that might be true — indeed, we live in a more peaceful and prosperous age than before. Let us not forget, though, the wars and armed conflicts raging in many regions of the globe, which kill innocent people, tear apart families, destroy infrastructure and economies, turn well-kept agriculture fields into wasteland and add to the destruction of the world around us. According to the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker, there are currently 27 ongoing conflicts worldwide. The tracker categorizes conflict into three groups: “worsening,” “unchanging” and “improving.” Right now, not a single one of those conflicts is described as “improving”.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

20. “Today, on the International Day of Peace, I stand before the General Assembly to reaffirm our commitment, under Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations, “[t]o maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace”. Let us remind ourselves of the main reason that the United Nations was brought to life: peace.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

21. “With his presidency, after 40 years Hungary is again serving as President of the General Assembly for one year. It is a great honour for Hungary, especially in the current challenging situation. I wish you. Sir, every success in your work. I stand before the Assembly today as the President of Hungary — the first woman President of my country, a wife and the mother of three children. As a President and as a mother, I feel responsible for preserving the environment for the generations to come, in which they can enjoy security and comfort.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)

22. ““It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all. I know of no single formula for success, but over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.” (A/64/PV.105, p. 3) That is a quote from the address delivered by Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth II to the General Assembly in 2010. Today, on the International Day of Peace, I stand here to urge the world’s leaders to be faithful to the legacy of Queen Elizabeth II so that we can live in peace. I am particularly pleased and honoured to greet my fellow Hungarian, the President of the General Assembly, Mr. Csaba Korosi.”

    2022-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 77 (2022)