"Rocking for the Free World: How Rock Music Helped to Bring Down the Iron Curtain" diplomacy, is not made by diplomats, it's made by people. Successful diplomacy is about people.
(Transcript of Hungarian Ambassador Andras Simonyi's speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on November 8, 2003)
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Hey, hey, that's not good enough. Good evening! That's great. I used to play in a rock band when I was younger and we used to do this stuff so I can tell when it's quality. The second one was OK. Let me ask the first question. How many of you have not played air guitar, ever? Once more, please. That's better. I like people being honest. This whole thing we're talking about is about honesty.
Preparing for this lecture, the funniest question I got – this was yesterday – they've asked me five times, "What tie are you going to be wearing? Are you going to be wearing a rock and roll tie?" And I said no, I'm not going to be wearing a rock and roll tie because I'm not here to pretend that I'm a rock artist. I'm here to tell you that I'm an ambassador of a country that is closely tied together with the United States today. We work hard to maintain our relationship. And there is a pillar that has been so important to me all my life when I was a kid, when I grew older, and now, which I think is one of the real ties between us.
I want to make sure you understand that I'm not doing it because I want to pretend that I'm Skunk. I am not Skunk. I wish I was Skunk. And I think his next target is to be ambassador in Budapest. (Laughter.)
The other question I got yesterday is, "Do you really think that rock and roll brought down the Iron Curtain?" And I said no, I don't because the Iron Curtain was pulled down by efforts on both sides, government and people on your side and people trying to influence things on our side. But I do believe that rock and roll played a key role.
This is what I am going to be explaining to you, why I think so. And I'm sorry if I will be too personal but I do think that the things we're doing, you know, diplomacy, is not made by diplomats, it's made by people. Successful diplomacy is about people. So therefore I'll try to get close to your hearts and your minds and probably the best way to do it is to tell you my personal story and how I got here.
But before I start, I'd like to thank this wonderful museum and Terry, who is now a good friend, his colleagues at the museum, who have embraced this idea. I want to thank the Mayor through John; thank you very much for that nice message, I want to thank the Congressman, the Senator, and the Governor for the nice messages.
I was four when Russians tanks rolled down the streets of Budapest. It's a strong memory I have. I was just a kid and I didn't really understand what was happening. But it did leave a strong mark in my mind. I must say that I had a great family – a great father, mother, a brother and a sister, who helped preserve a life for me. That was pretty much like yours; they were very protective. This family took me to Denmark in 1960 where my father was trade representative, I had the luck to go to an American school – that's probably why I picked up some English and Danish, and I had the honor to just live the ordinary life of an ordinary guy on the streets of Copenhagen. Here is how it all started. Let me just write this on the blackboard. (Writes "All My Loving" on the blackboard.)
You know this too? This was the first Beatles song that I ever heard, at a party at school. It caught me and I said, this is my music. And it hasn't let go since. While I was in Denmark, particularly in '66 and '67, like the Danes embraced the rock music at its best, like the Danes got to know Cream, Jimmy Hendrix, Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and you name it, I got to know them as well. I was listening to this kind of music day and night. I didn't know what the underlying message was and I didn't care. I just thought this was something that I had to embrace.
In 1965, I bought with the help of my father my first guitar. Can we show this slide? How about that? I want to thank my wife for smuggling [this photo] from Budapest. I didn't know she had it and she said "Are you sure you want to show this?" And I said "Maybe it is good." It was a great guitar, it's a copy of a Fender Jaguar. I had a great time until in '67 we moved back to Budapest. Budapest at that time was not a very funny place. It was a pretty tough, dark, and gloomy place. It was just ten years after the 1956 revolution which was broken by the Soviets. Still, society was quietly and slowly coming alive. But it was a very tough place to be, especially for me who'd got used to freedom – freedom in the way I dressed, freedom in the way I communicated, freedom in the way I talked to people, and freedom in the way I picked up my music.
The music that I thought so much of was simply not available in Hungary. I stayed a year with an aunt and uncle of mine who turned out to be a very conservative communist. And honestly, they didn't get it when I started to explain about Good Vibrations and the Four Tops and the Spencer Davis group. She didn't understand. And my brother and I, we had a big old Bakelite radio that I got from my father so we could listen to Western radio stations and we used to listen to that at night. Listening to that music at night was very important to us to keep track of what was going on in the West. One night as we were listening to some real nice stuff, the old man came in, very angry, and took away the radio. Next day we asked for an audience and we said "Sorry for having listened to this music so loud," and he said "The problem was not that it was loud. The problem was that you were listening to a Western radio station." That was something that really hurt us – I was 14 and my brother was 16 – being told you're not allowed to listen to music on a Western radio station that we always used to listen to. That was real tough. And we got to understand very quickly that this Hungary is not very similar to the Denmark where we used to live.
Still, you had to keep going and it was so important for me, my continuing to keep in touch with the music scene in the West. It kept us sane and kind of made us part of the free world. We would listen to Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, and above all, to Radio Luxemburg. We used to listen to this stuff at night and as we listened to this radio, as we listened to Radio Luxemburg, we were suddenly out of our bodies and our soul was part of the free world. We would join our peers in the West. We would be part of the scene that was so natural for all of you here in the United States or in England or Denmark or Holland or elsewhere in the free world.
continued at: windsofchange.net |
