In linguistics we know that some verbs have a function called the performative function. By uttering the verb we actually perform an act: we christen a ship, we pronounce a couple man and wife.
In other former communist countries, democratic changes were sometimes accompanied by violence. Changes in Hungary were brought about solely by the power of words. Words proved revolutionary. Language delivered a fundamental breakthrough in the life of nations.
Speeches delivered 10 years ago at the reburial of the former prime minister Imre Nagy, executed in 1958 by communist collaborators of the Soviet occupying army, contributed to that process. Words demanding that Russian troops leave Hungarian territory culminated in the collapse of the communist regime. How effective words can be, particularly if 200,000 people gather in a square to hear them.
Under communism, the language used in politics and public life, even literature, was like a secret code. Although everyone was more or less aware of the implications of terms used by politicians and journalists, there was an immense gap between that language and the one used by people in their hushed personal conversations.
In 1989 the first manifestation of a nascent democracy was the gush of free speech triggered by decades of coerced silence. Freedom of speech and linguistic liberation were the stepping stones to democracy. People were glued to television, savouring the new politicians who openly spoke a language hitherto suppressed. The speech that I gave on June 16th, 1989, at Imre Nagy's reburial exposed everyone's silent desire for free elections and an independent and democratic Hungary.
Principle permits no ambiguity and no gradations. After the speech I was reproached for my demand that Soviet troops leave our country. Yet the members of my party, Fidesz, were convinced that our claim for a free Hungary was legitimate, and we were proved right by history.
"A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience," Oliver Wendel Holmes once said, and we recognised that the timing was right. Mikhail Gorbachev had opened his own Pandora's box. Once opened, there was no way for the truth to be shoved back.
WHAT one generation sees as luxury, another sees as necessity. Independence was indispensable for the other objectives we set out to achieve. To an entire generation, democracy, human rights, a market economy were conceived as luxuries. Now we cannot imagine our lives without them. They are the fundamental basis of Hungarian life.
Ten years ago, as it became clear to the peoples in countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain that communism no longer existed, we knew that we had to establish democracy. But what does it mean to establish democracy? Well, what it meant was to build a state, a democratic state.
Over the past 10 years we have built new states, replacing the cloned communist monoliths that operated for over 40 years. We established democratic institutions, replaced five-year plans with markets, privatised most state assets. Over 80 per cent of Hungary's GDP is now produced by the private sector; 75 per cent of Hungary's trade is conducted with EU members. In Hungary, as well as in a few other countries of central Europe, post-communism is practically over.
But communism's fall made us recognise that it had debased not only individual freedom but the sense of community as well. So our task was not only to reconstruct the state, but society too - its family values, its national traditions and cultural heritage. Our newly freed societies must now learn the languages of our constituent parts, just as we learned a new economic and political language.
Through learning each other's languages, through cooperation based on shared values, common interests as well as historical ties, central Europe has demonstrated what spectacular results can be achieved. The Visegrad Group, CEFTA, the Central European Initiative have produced a thriving free trade system and an increasing flow of investment between countries in the region.
IN a broader context, Hungary's reintegration into western institutional structures is proceeding steadily, if not at the desired pace. With NATO membership for Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary the Yalta world order came to an end. This not only surpassed what 10 years ago on Heroes Square sounded like chutzpah, it also delivered historical justice to the Hungarian freedom-fighters of 1956 who had fought for Hungary's independence, but were crushed by Soviet tanks. The tragic conflict in Kosovo that erupted only days after Hungary joined NATO confirmed our conviction that our security could be guaranteed only within NATO's structure.
Hungary will celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of its statehood next year, so we hardly need practice in the dialect of European civilisation. However, we do have to learn the details of EU jargon. This, let us face it, sometimes seems a tongue-twister.
Accession talks began last November, and the EU's Berlin summit cleared the way for enlargement. But a clear date for accession must be indicated, and not lost in some fog of words.
At the third democratic general elections in 1998, Hungarians voted for a radical break with the past. They voted into power a generation whose members are untarnished by the bargains of the past. Hungary is the first country in central Europe where such a generational change has taken place. This new government brought along a new style which avoids the obscure bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo used by those previously in power. Our goal has been to put across understandable messages in comprehensible terms. We share Wittgenstein's point that everything that can be said, can be said clearly.
Some may think it is dangerous to form a government headed by someone still in his 30s. But the past 10 years in Hungary were not like an average decade in an established democracy. During these years parliament framed the country's democratic operation, making up for what had been eliminated during 40 years of dictatorship.
We legislated in what sometimes seemed a forced march. No one had a precise idea about how to proceed from a communist structure to democracy. While others talked about transition, we implemented the measures it required.
Progress is impossible without change. We live at a moment in history where change is so speeded up that we see the present only when it is already disappearing. Bearing this in mind, we must take care in planning our future. Success is not a doorway, it's a staircase. In Hungary we have learned that in order to accomplish our goals, we must complete the performative function of the verb. Let me invoke the words of Emily Dickinson: "A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day."
Viktor Orban is Prime Minister of Hungary. This column is distributed by the Project Syndicate.