For I should escape to the open air of freedom. (János Pilinszky)

I have always lived under authority. Against it and exposed to it. I have faced fascism, I have faced communism. The viewpoint was from "under" the authority although morally it was "above" it, for I have never asked, thus never received anything from the authorities. At most I received the reality of poverty and the possibility of the hangman's rope when my soft rebellion was qualified as the "rebellion" of the subject. It was in vain that I knew that I had to be a citizen and a democrat. And I had to be not afraid – as István Bibó puts it. And I knew it was pointless for Voltaire to write that we should mutually forgive each other for our foolishness. It was mainly the subjects in the Eastern half of Europe who read Voltaire. And even foolishness has a degree that no others, not even ourselves can be forgiven for.

And then the time of the adventure of presidency came upon me. The historical opportunity – not only for myself – to be citizens and democrats, to use the small bricks of liberty to build the Great Liberty that we daydreamed about for so long. I was probably not surprised when I came in close contact with power as a writer. The role of the writer in the East has been different from that of the West for centuries. The "professional politician" could not really develop in our social circumstances and, in our rudimentary system of establishment. The writer – being in the possession of the knowledge of mankind and society – was obliged to verbalise the political needs of society and take the role of the politician in spite of himself.

It was relatively easy to peg out the boundary of my concept of presidency. I was brought up upon the peasant radicalism of the late thirties, the pressure of the need for land reform, in the enchantment of the popular culture. It was also the influence of István Bibó that made me organise within myself those elements which have determined my political thinking ever since. His gentle radicalism, awareness of his Hungarian ness, European liberalism, his self-evident courage rooted in his citizenship, the accuracy of his way of asking and the patient analysing logicality he answered questions with, were all exemplary for me. I felt a moral and political urge to be a "plebeian" president, someone who is able to return the smile to the stage of Hungarian politics – for it is impossible to deal with politics nor even to exist without that – someone who considers the arguments of both parties, government and opposition, when making decisions, and for whom it is not only a function but also a duty to keep balance, and to set the moderate good manners of politics. As a writer, I already knew that power was an enormous assortment of experiences. So, the writer Árpád Göncz can try – moreover, he is obliged to try – to observe the world around him with an attentive, sharp eye, believing that even after this there will be things to sort out within himself, just as there always have been through the turns and twists of his life, and maybe he will write about them one day. If his years still allow him to write. "Power" is an unceasing confrontation with our ideas and ideals, human reality and the conditioning of history.

The writer still watches attentively the president of the republic, that is, himself, and searches – sometimes with groping hands – for the boundaries of remaining human. So that the president would not stray over to the empire of monomaniac "power" from the "human" world. I watch the surroundings I work in. I watch the people surrounding me, the people together with whom I have to handle the tasks given to us. These people are just as self-ruling as my own self. They have their goals, ideals and aspirations like me. These people I have to please in order to be able to carry out gladly and good humouredly that which the era and time have appointed to us.

This unceasing testing is the great adventure of my life. It places the things I have picked up along my life into their proper perspective. Ideals, knowledge, experience, knowledge of people and that system of relations in which I can place my human relationships together with my acquired human characteristics.

I already have direct experiences of power.

And I am stunned to see the force of the forms of behaviour.

As if the Leviathan of Hobbes had come back to life, and got stronger around me, while the truth of Locke was fading away. As if the demon of the accumulation and spread of power was working in people forcing them to defend their power till the last ounce of their strength, for they fear losing that little or great – who can set a credible measurement? – power that was invested in them by the trust of the people and society. Instead of that demon, agreement based on the common good and common interest should direct the deeds of those in possession of power – both government and opposition. Just as we imagined it would be when we were all in opposition together. In accordance with the moral law of patience towards differentness and minorities this does not simply mean endurance but also integration. Because false is that democracy in which orders are given and executed, all in the name of the – assumed or real – majority. This can sometimes occur not only against the will of the real minority, but even against the will of the real majority. And sometimes not only against, but even in spite of.

Why does the one who was persecuted before, who was held under the water, fall apart morally now when he is close to power, when he can take a deep breath? Or why is he unable to admit that the tasks given to him are beyond his power, his ability? Why is he unable to admit that it is his resignation from power that would serve the common good? Or, searching for a public compromise, why is he not willing to share it with others?

Or is the distorted model of power so deeply rooted in us that even unwillingly we follow the old patterns?

Strange parallels. In 1945 and afterwards, the Communist party secretary behaved as the district administrator of the ancient regime. In 1989 and afterwards people – of immaculate past and sound personality – began to imitate the behaviour of the Communist party secretary, even in the schems of biography. The only difference is that earlier merit was earned due to the persecution suffered because of one's socialist views, now the unnoticed persecuted and defrauded ones of the "bolshevist dictatorship" are multiplying, those, who rocked the cradle of their Christianity in invisible catacombs.

And this is not even coat-turning. It is more ancient than that. Perhaps it is more inevitable. And more utilitarian. Therefore it is more understandable. For only those can turn their coats who were wearing coats before.

Now cork men are growing in number around us, always bobbing on the top of the wave, and, should they get ashore by mistake, the next wave sucks them up again.

We were not prepared for them.

Or we were not prepared enough.

Unfortunately, the half-periods of ideologies are longer than we expected. We believed that the haughtiness of the gentry, the outcasting of certain groups, the bigoted national consciousness, the false awareness of "racial" superiority, and the missionary zeal fed by the delusion of persecution, all belonged to the past. We believed that we served the common good in a world where the delusions swept under the carpet became extinct. And now that we have lifted the carpet a little bit, these delusions take to the air, like dust in the draft. They do not suffocate us and time will make them subside. This is one of the reasons why we do not want to shut our open window facing Europe. But we have to think over our old and new thoughts in order to purge the ones with expired validity and those which have become useless.

The Europe of realities is not the Europe of our dreams, and the half-periods of ideologies are long not only here, but also in Rostock and Paris. We have to consider that here, in the eastern half of Europe, generally totalitarian regimes were blossoming and the institutions of civic society could not grow their roots too deeply. We have to consider that in the time following the rapture of liberty – the years following 1989 – not only the germs of freedom and democracy began to grow, but also those of a new authoritarianism. And not only in Hungary. We have to consider that we can only change the temporary decline of economy, and the fall of different social groups through domestic and international co-operation, for both within and beyond our boundaries ancient and new forces of rage are standing ready to organise new armies under the control of parties, ready to make war against the very concept of citizenship itself.

Democracy is one of the key words of the adventure of presidency. It was used as a fundamental word by a multitude of political regimes which connected it with a multitude of adjectives, ranging from people's through bourgeois to socialist- or, as Marcuse said, to freedom-less-ness, while deep within, maybe in the subconscious, there circled the summary by Rousseau: "There has never existed and never will exist a true democracy."

We get insecure from time to time. Even in spite of our faith. Then, as if we were rotating a prayer-mill, like the monks of Tibet, we keep repeating to ourselves: we are in the middle of a democratic transformation here, we are in the middle of a democratic transformation here. Then we say broodingly: only God knows how long this transformation can take. In the West this process unfolded and took place with different antecedents and among different circumstances. But there is no country preceding us in unfolding its democracy in the East. Even the tender democracy of the Czechs was burned up by World War II. They might need to go further back than us. But from all this, the point is not the priority, but the fact that we have nothing and nobody to compare ourselves to. There is no marked playing field. And time is not watched by time-keepers with stop watches as at running races, but by history. And history sets the price of the democratic transformation; it also decides whether a country pays too little or too much.

Only an imaginary authority may have accurately outlined ideas of democracy and the contradictory process of democratic transformation. An authority like this – supposing it to be benevolent and willing – may perhaps tend to interact with the society, abiding within the rules of democracy. But we are not even in the possession of such written rules. We can only have vague ideas that democracy is more than politics and more than the social-economic system supporting politics. We can only guess that democracy is a form of existence formed through the subconscious bargain of the individual and society, a unique temporary state, in which the individual cannot endanger the freedom of society and the society cannot curtail that of the individual. Throughout this the right of criticism is maintained. But its validity can only be recognised through new bargains, in which not the quantity but the quality is dominant, a quality which is yet indefinable today. This supposes a new phase in the development of mankind, in which a really democratic bargain and a new measurement of quality regulate the lives of both individuals and society.

With this I acknowledged that I do not consider the present state of the world, including the advanced industrial societies, to be at the height of its development. The experiences I have gained as a politician support my conviction. This is why my sense of humour operates even at times when those trying to make my situation impossible, are the ones who started the road to Damascus as Saul, or those, who were turned into anti-Pauls on the road leading to power. The motives of politics and political goals are said to sanctify the tools. Even if I do not agree with it and do not believe in it, I still have to accept it as a fact of experience that, if they do not sanctify, then in many people's opinion they justify them. I would like to at least sense – or feel – the line beyond which this Machiavellian pragmatism really endangers the tender Hungarian democracy. And if I sense it, I try to take action against it. Not as if I was a professional martyr', on the contrary, I am not. I would really like to smuggle a smile back onto the face of Hungarian public life. Sometimes I succeed in it, sometimes I do not. And this is enough for a start.