FIR President Mr. Vilmos Hanti’s opening speech at the XVI congress of FIR |  |
Sofia, October 5, 2013
Dear Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen, Antifascist Comrades,
With our 16th congress, the antifascist activities of FIR have arrived to an important stage. Seven decades following the victory over fascism, the fascist forces of the far-right are increasing, and in several countries have entered the national parliaments and even the European Parliament via democratic elections.
The inhuman ideology of the far-right is increasingly contaminating our everyday lives through the media and the effect of this can also be felt in the national education systems. Racism, which is the prelude of fascism, is spreading rapidly in different forms in different countries, whereby the far-right continuously finds its own enemy, the groups of people whom to hate. The targets of hate can be Gypsies, Jews, Gays, Muslims, immigrants, homeless people, or more recently even disabled people, whom are used by Nazi ideology as scapegoats and are accused of being responsible for the deteriorating living standards, which are caused by economic hardships. There are places where the ruling government makes allowances toward the far-right, by curbing the freedom of speeches, the democratic rights, the social achievements, or even disables and discredits parliamentary democracy. This is especially evident in the republics of the former Soviet Union and the former socialist countries where in many cases the ideology of communism, which tried to implement justice and equality is said to be responsible for the cause of the all the bad things and economic hardships. Some even as far as placing an equation mark between the ideology of communism and fascism.
Nowadays the antifascist immunity system of present societies has been weakened and they have difficulties in resisting the spread of the far-right. Those groups which are intimidated by the far-right and thus those who could be considered leading the struggle of the antifascist fighters, often naively believe that cooperating with the far-right could be useful for them. May be it’s true that for the short term they can gain some results by liaising, yet in the long run there won’t be any success for those who cooperate with the far-right.
The occasions which commemorate the Holocaust provide excellent opportunities to show the real face of the inhuman fascist ideology which lead to the killing of millions of innocent people. During the events that commemorate the Second World War, the heroism of antifascist resistance fights can be presented as examples worth following, which ended the horrors, liberated the concentration camps, demolished the ghettos, and brought peace to the world. Instead, we have experienced it several times that these events mostly deal with the histories of sufferings in an airless environment, and those speakers who tell these stories don’t put the terrible past in an appropriate historical context. It happened several times that on such events the communists were blamed for all the brutalities of war, forgetting and neglecting the decisive role they played as members of the antifascist coalition during the great victory, in liberating the concentration camps and ghettos. A very delicate falsification of history is happening right now on the level of politics, in the school books, in the public speeches. The heroism of the antifascist resistance fight, its historical past and its excellent leaders are rarely appearing in the education system, in public speeches, and as a result, the possibilities of the present antifascist resistance fight has also been decreasing in quite a measurable way. The names and monuments of the former heroes of antifascist resistance fight are disappearing from the public places, or even it happens very often that these sites are replaced by fascist, racist, anti-Semitic persons.
In these crucial and critical circumstances our organization the FIR has a very important role and responsibility. We are firmly convinced that one of the key ways by which it is possible to successfully stand up against the far-right is the path we represent, building on our struggle and experiences learnt from the examples of the resistance fighters. We, who mostly belong to the younger generations, cannot afford for the far-right to take away our democratic institutions, and hate becoming a decisive factor in our human relations. We want a peaceful, democratic society and we are struggling for it. We want to share and give to the others our experiences, to broaden the circle of people successfully fighting neo-fascism. For those who want to do good things with enthusiasm, the FIR provides a good scene where you can be active. We need everybody, let them be people of right or left wing in convictions, followers of right or left organizations, we equally except the religious and non-believers also.
We say together with all antifascists: we refuse the ideology which has already brought mankind into a disaster, we don’t need fascism! Not even in our country and neither among the parties in the European Parliament! Fascism is not an opinion, but a felony, a crime against mankind!
It is a very delighting thing that the number of the member organizations of FIR has increased and we could extend the scope of our activity. It is also a great achievement that a record number of representatives of our member organizations could come to this congress.
I would like to thank those people who have done a lot during the last ten years and have contributed with their work to the renewing of FIR. I thank our General Secretary Dr. Ulrich Schneider for his ten year work for the modernization of FIR. I also want to thank our Vice-President Christos Tzintsilonis and our Financial Secretary Heinz Siefritz for their ten year work. I also thank the members of the Executive Committee, the member organizations for their enthusiastic and fruitful work. Without them FIR could not be successful now or in the future. Thanking the cooperation of our member organizations, in this respect I would like to emphasize the importance of our excellent connection with the Belgian Institute of Veterans.
Dear my friends,
I hope that our congress today will be successful. I wish great success to all participants. I thank our hosts for their organizational work. We highly appreciate that we could come to Sofia, to the homeland of the famous antifascist resistance fighter Georgi Dimitrov. Let the words and examples of Dimitrov and other great resistance fighters give us strength to our work during the congress. We should bravely stand up against neo-fascism! The commemoration events of the 70th year anniversary of the great victory over fascism, the launching of the torch of FIR to our member organizations, which will arrive to Berlin one and a half years later on the Day of Victory in 2015, and all these things will give very special opportunities to demonstrate our stance against neo-fascism.
My dear friends, let’s say together: Never again fascism!
2013. október 6.
