Czech Republic

Havel the Dissident: A Legacy Worth Claiming

Richard Eskow — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:55:53 -0500

On a warm evening in 1991, a colleague and I found an out-of-the-way café in the old part of Prague. Two men with blank expressions stood outside. The interior was dim and close, with room for only eight or nine tables. The place was almost empty. Just a sleepy waitress, a bartender polishing glasses, and a single patron who sat alone drinking wine and chain-smoking cigarettes.

The President of Czechoslovakia wasn’t reviewing official papers. He was reading a book, a startlingly un-Presidential act to our American eyes. My companion, a neoconservative State Department official, already admired him for defying and defeating a Communist state. He'd impressed me by bringing a writer’s sensibility and an affinity for true underground culture to his role as head of state.

Havel even tried to appoint Frank Zappa as his Minister of Culture. “We’re not rock musicians,” Zappa told a reporter back in the sixties. “We’re electronic social workers.” The State Department wouldn't let Zappa assume the post, but Havel had made his point to the Czech public by offering this apparatchik's position to the composer of songs like “What’s the Ugliest Part of Your Body?” (“Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it’s your mind.”)

We never spoke to Havel that night. It didn't seem polite to offer anything more than the curt nod of acknowledgement any café patron gives another at that hour. But Havel spoke to us, to all of us. And on the occasion of his death, the real lessons of his life's work are in danger of being lost.

Today we’re told that the Occupy movement is too idealistic, too naïve. Naïve? Try Havel’s words if you want naïve: "May truth and love triumph over lies and hatred.”

Think of that as the Velvet Revolution’s “one demand.”

Portrait of the President as a Young Freak

As millions of people know, the underground playwright Havel first made his political mark in Charter 77. That group was formed to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, a banned and imprisoned rock band working in the Zappa mold of musical dissonance and cultural dissidence.

The Occupy movement is not on the cultural fringe, despite what its detractors say. But Havel’s movement began as a Yippie-like creature of the underworld. Charter 77 rarely had more than a thousand members. It was a strange blend of political idealism and the hippie subculture where people proudly labeled themselves “freaks” to the conventional world. Despite its later alignment with economically conservative forces, it was more Allen Ginsburg than Alan Greenspan.

And it was created to defend the Plastic People of the Universe, whose grating music makes Occupy’s drum circles seem like a children’s choir serenading the bored residents of a home for aging veterans.

Words

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité - what wonderful words! And how terrifying their meaning can be! Freedom in the shirt unbuttoned before execution. Equality in the constant speed of the guillotine's fall on different necks. Fraternity in some dubious paradise ...

Havel addressed the liberal democratic West on words in the 1970s, noting that the suppression of speech can give language enormous power:

I … live in a country where a writers' congress speech is capable of shaking the system ... a manifesto served as one of the pretexts for the invasion of our country one night by five foreign armies … a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions.

When a system has become inflexible and is in danger of collapsing, what it fears most is words. Think about that the next time you see a phalanx of cops tear down a tent city on television.

Havel had been burned by language, too:

The same word can at one moment radiate great hope, at another it can emit lethal rays … true at one moment and false the next, at one moment illuminating, at another, deceptive. On one occasion it can open up glorious horizons, on another, it can lay down the tracks to an entire archipelago of concentration camps.

And as we approach an election year that will be filled with the rhetoric of freedom, this observation still resonates:

The same word can at one time be the cornerstone of peace, while at another time machine-gun fire resounds in its every syllable.

Control

In 1975 Havel had the presumption to write directly to Czechoslovakian head of state Gustáv Husák with a few suggestions. There’s more than a passing resemblance between the fear-driven Communist society Havel condemned in that letter and the financial anxiety many Americans endure today:

The technique of existential pressure is ... universal. There is no one in our country who is not, in a broad sense, existentially vulnerable. Everyone has something to lose and so everyone has reason to be afraid. The range of things one can lose is broad, extending from the manifold privileges of the ruling caste... down to the mere possibility of living in that limited degree of legal certainty available to other citizens.

Today, one out of two Americans lives in financial insecurity. Even many upper-middle-class citizens live from month to month, just one layoff notice away from medical bankruptcy or home foreclosure.

“Everyone has something to lose,” observed Havel.

Havel's description of his 20th Century Communist society echoes our own:

The more completely one abandons any hope of general reform, any interest in suprapersonal goals and values, or any chance of exercising influence in an ‘outward’ direction, the more one’s energy is diverted in the direction of least resistance, that is, ‘inwards.’”

People today are preoccupied far more with themselves ... They fill their homes with all kinds of appliances and pretty things, they try to improve their accommodations, they try to make life pleasant for themselves, building cottages, looking after their cars, taking more interest in food and clothing and domestic comfort ...They turn their main attention to the material aspects of their private lives.

Havel concluded that "Despair leads to apathy, apathy to conformity, and conformity to routine (political) performance - which is then quoted as evidence of 'mass political involvement.'"

Ambition

Havel understood the psychology of greed and power, too. From his letter to Husák:

If it is fear which lies behind people's defensive attempts to preserve what they have, it becomes increasingly apparent that the chief impulses for their aggressive efforts to win what they do not yet possess are selfishness and careerism.

It is not surprising that so many public and influential positions are occupied more than ever before by notorious careerists, opportunists, charlatans, and men of dubious record.

From Prague to Washington, from Moscow to lower Manhattan, the opportunities change. But human nature never does:

Seldom in recent times has a social system offered scope so openly and so brazenly to people willing to support anything as long as it brings them some advantage; to unprincipled and spineless men, prepared to do anything in their craving for power and personal gain; to born lackeys, ready for any humiliation and willing at all times to sacrifice their neighbors' and their own honor for a chance to ingratiate themselves with those in power.

Technocracy

It’s a historical irony that those who claim they’ll govern with the most efficiency usually wind up governing with the least effectiveness. Today corporate-funded politicians from both parties argue that the country should be led by “technocrats’ who’ll govern without messy “ideologies.”

That’s a false premise Havel knew well. He called it the “process by which power becomes anonymous and depersonalized, reduced to a mere technology of rule and manipulation."

Washington's technocratic “bipartisans” dream of a world where, in Havel’s words, the "professional ruler is (seen as) the ‘innocent’ tool of an ‘innocent’ anonymous power … legitimized by science, cybernetics, ideology, law, abstraction, and objectivity - that is, by everything except personal responsibility to human beings as persons and neighbors." Havel's Prague is our Beltway:

States grow ever more machinelike; people are transformed into statistical choruses of voters, producers, consumers, patients, tourists, or soldiers, (where) in politics good and evil, categories of the natural world and therefore obsolete remnants of the past, lose all absolute meaning (and where) the sole method of politics is quantifiable success.

Havel condemned a system of state-orchestrated political theater, and the self-perpetuating failures of imagination which mistook the indifferent and pro forma participation of its citizens for genuine democracy. And he saw its universal nature:

(It) has a thousand masks, variants, and expressions. Essentially, though, it is the same universal trend … the essential trait of all modern civilization, growing directly from its spiritual structure, rooted in it by a thousand tangled tendrils and inseparable even in thought from its technological nature, its mass characteristics, and its consumer orientation.

“The contemporary concept of 'normal' behavior is,” Havel wrote, “deeply pessimistic."

Responsibility

“I favor ‘antipolitical politics,’" said Havel, "politics not as the technology of power and manipulation, of cybernetic rule over humans or as the art of the utilitarian, but politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them."

I favor politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans.

None of us—as an individual—can save the world as a whole, but . . . each of us must behave as though it were in his power to do so.

Decades later he said this to the leaders of Western countries:

Today, more than ever before in the history of mankind, everything is interrelated … Because of this, the future of the United States or the European Union is being decided in suffering Sarajevo or Mostar, in the plundered Brazilian rain forests, in the wretched poverty of Bangladesh or Somalia.

Havel had glaring faults. American neocons offered him small favors during his final rise to power. He reciprocated, consciously or unconsciously, by aiding their destructive military ventures and adopting their foolish economic policies. He succumbed to the politics of personality, both his own and those of the leaders who courted him. But it would be a shame if that’s all the world remembered.

Havel seemed unhappy in the role of leader. It's possible than he lost sight of his deepest insights, his truest gifts. It was the outsider Havel, the dreamer of the impossible, the surrealist and absurdist, we should remember. That’s the Havel who can and should inspire dissidents everywhere.

“Is the human word truly powerful enough to change the world and influence history?” he once asked. With his life and his words, Václav Havel gave us his answer. He showed us the power in each individual and the responsibility that accompanies that power.

At his best, and above all else, Havel was a dissident outsider who realized his power and used it. Now it’s our turn.

Czech Anti-Radar Protest Gaining Ground

Laray Polk — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:41:03 -0400

Following a year of protests and coalition building at home and abroad in opposition to the proposed U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic, activists Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar launched a hunger strike. The hunger strike that began in Prague on May 13 and ended three weeks later, has touched off series of actions that are gaining national and worldwide support. Within the Czech Republic, a chain hunger strike has been ongoing with new volunteers signing up weekly. As of the present, five hundred and thirty-five people from around the world have signed on to a 24-hour hunger strike to take place on June 22.1 In addition to the strike, an online petition has collected 122,444 signatures. 2
The U.S. radar slated for the Czech Republic is one part of a two-part proposal that involves interceptor missiles installed in a neighboring country. Poland has been the chosen location for the missiles though negotiations have recently broken down between the U.S. and Polish governments. AFP reports that “Moscow has threatened to point its missiles at Poland should it agree to host the US installation.” 3
Both parts of the operation, the radar and interceptor missiles, would entail permanent bases and the stationing of U.S. troops at those sites. The radar and interceptor missiles taken together, hypothetically would function as “defensive missile shield,” and presumably would work against ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) launched from “rogue” states (i.e. Iran) against non-rogue states (i.e. U.S.). A modified interceptor missile employed the U.S. in February 2008 proved to be effective in shooting down a satellite that had gone wobbly but offensive application in tandem with radar remains unproved. 4
The Czech Republic center-right government reached agreement with the U.S. over the proposed radar base yet 70% of Czech citizens stand opposed to the plan. Parliament is currently in an upheaval over the issue. Politicians within parliament chambers seem to be in sync with their constituents yet the plan moves forward among upper echelon politicians in both countries. The activists’ request for a public referendum on the issue has been quashed.
Právo reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to Prague on June 10 to sign two Czech-U.S. treaties on the installation of the radar base (the main radar treaty and the SOFA treaty that will govern U.S. troops stationed at the base). Once the treaties are signed they must be ratified by the Parliament and signed by the president, currently Vaclav Klaus, to come into effect. Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg commented recently that under present conditions in the Parliament: "I am not sure if we will succeed. Definitely the majority of the population is against it.”
Defensetech announced three months ago that the Pentagon has granted a $400 million contract to Raytheon to move the X-band radar currently in the Marshall Islands to the Czech Republic. The report contains a quote by a Missile Defense Agency spokesperson as anticipating the deal to be closed "within weeks."
Raytheon has received $5 million of the funds. The full amount is contingent on the two treaties being ratified by the Czech Parliament. If that occurs, U.S. Congress will in turn, release the remaining approved funding. Boeing received a comparable contract for the planned interceptor site. 5

Ne Základnám (No Bases Initiative)

The issue at hand is quite complicated and yet it can be pared down to one fundamental question: Do people in a democracy have the right to an opinion on what makes them safe or unsafe? Defense vs. Democracy: This is the question at the heart of Tamas’ and Bednar’s actions. Along with the No Bases Initiative (Ne Základnám), they are determined in pursuing a meaningful and actionable answer from those who govern, and their actions are finding resonance with people worldwide.

Defense vs. Democracy

Do matters of defense lay outside the purview of citizens in a democracy, or for that matter, any designated country? Do more weapons, installations and bases--whether on the ground, submerged in oceans, or orbiting in the upper atmosphere, make the world safer or merely more cluttered with measures more likely to result in the anticipated? Steadfast proliferation of such measures, while touted as increasing the safety of particular groups of humans over others, increases the probability of error beyond the stated claims of what that measure is for or against. An interceptor missile can easily become a first-strike missile. This is more than a matter of semantics or which device has been deployed first: accidents happen, systems fail, and intentions change over time.
In Lisa Peattie’s essay, “Normalizing the unthinkable,” the case is made that “the continuation of weapons production and military planning can be explained without recourse to any argument involving national interest.” 6 If this is possible than ordinary citizens can stake a claim in the decision-making process of weapons production and military planning wherever one may reside.
Challenging the military-industrial complex as a culture, a political mindset, and an institution that logically cannot make the world safer in the long-run, is not a new idea. Bertrand Russell believed that such challenges initiated by the citizenry is the only assured path to humankind’s survival.
Russell wrote the following words prior to the first sit-down demonstration by the Committee of 100 at the Defense Ministry in Whitehall, London: “There is a very widespread feeling that however bad their policies may be, there is nothing that private people can do about it. This is a complete mistake. If all those who disapprove of government policy were to join massive demonstrations of civil disobedience they could render government folly impossible and compel the so-called statesmen to acquiesce in measures that would make human survival possible. Such a vast movement, inspired by outraged public opinion is possible, perhaps it is imminent. If you join it you will be doing something important to preserve your family, compatriots and the world.” 7

De-Thinking the Normalized

If citizens were to begin to unravel defense issues for themselves, they might begin to perceive them as political staging, and largely industry-related. Peattie’s essay has at its core, a strong premise that the acquiescence to the ‘tone of planning” for war is a process that “is entirely normal and normalizing.” People can be persuaded to actively participate in all kinds of actions if a particular environment has been normalized. The process of normalization is most often coordinated by experts, and as Peattie writes, “a...central issue for war planners is the separation of planning from execution.”
Has the environment of the X-band radar to be located in the Czech Republic been prepared for normalization? And if so, how? A headline from The Prague Post on April 2 yields one possible answer: “CR-U.S. Scientists solidify relations: Collaboration increases appeal of radar base deal for local leaders.” The leaders in question are Czech scientists who are being incentivized by politicians. As stated in the report: “cooperation [in hosting the radar] would mean more U.S. funding and collaborative resources for local researchers, ultimately raising the Czech Republic’s profile as a world leader in technological development. Focusing on top local research in fields including nanotechnology, IT and cybernetics, local and U.S. scientists are now reviewing Czech research projects to pinpoint viable candidates for collaboration with leading U.S. research institutions.” 8
Merger between the military, industry and research universities is common practice in the U.S. Vannevar Bush, cofounder of Raytheon and director of the Manhattan Project, laid out this matrix decades ago in the 1945 report, “Science: The Endless Frontier.” 9
Bush learned from experience during the Manhattan Project to create an environment that denied scientists an opportunity for ethical input regarding the final application (the atomic bomb); i.e. the probable human consequences of their research and development. Over time, this approach has become commonplace. It is an environment and partnership that encourages scientists and researchers involved in a broad range of inquiry to remain politically disengaged. Continuous federal funding is a strong incentive for remaining willfully distracted from larger social and political concerns; and distraction of the scientific class along these lines has proved advantageous for planners.

Pugwash

The signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of were a group of eleven international scientists whose public proclamation led to the first Pugwash Conference in 1957.10 The annual Pugwash conferences in turn, led to powerful measures regarding the non-proliferation of nuclear and hydrogen weapons. Present day members of Pugwash are actively involved in a wide array of interrelated treaties such as the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty.
The ongoing strife between Russia and the U.S. concerning the proposed radar base in the Czech Republic and the location of interceptors missiles in close proximity, has been a contributing factor in the Russian Federation’s stated intention to suspend the CFE Treaty. An international appeal made in response to Russia’s announcement, posted on the Pugwash website, states: ”We fear that such a move could not only doom the CFE Treaty, but that it also could prevent the entry into force of the 1999 Adapted CFE Treaty, thus risking a collapse of the entire CFE regime. Such a development would undermine co-operative security in Europe and lead to new dividing lines and confrontation. “11
This last sentence of this statement is not far removed from passages contained in the declaration of the No Bases Initiative online petition: “The NMD project of the United States [National Missile Defense]...has divided Europe, which at the moment is not able to give a united, coherent and nonviolent response to the United States’ aggressive policies. The reaction of Russia and China has created a 'cold war' atmosphere. ”

Conclusion

In personal correspondence from Pugwash’s Washington office, I was reassured that, “Czech Pugwash colleagues have circulated news about this [radar base] via Pugwashforum.” On one hand, this is hopeful, Pugwash members in the Czech Republic are “circulating news” with one another. On the other hand, this issue is not solely the concern of Czech citizens whether they are activists or Pugwashites. This issue encompasses the struggle of a nascent democracy; the state of the E.U. and NATO and their future relationship with the U.S.; a U.S. policy, if pursued, that will continue to escalate tensions with Iran, Russia, and China; breeches in long-standing treaties; enormous and open-ended U.S. military expenditures; the creation of new U.S. bases in Eastern Europe; the endless perpetuation of countermeasures; and the luring of Czech scientists and researchers into an institutionalized system of collaboration and complacency.
Russell envisioned a populace of non-experts and experts alike--a socially progressive citizenry, confronting the continuation of a war culture. What Tamas, Bednar, and the No Bases Initiative has instigated can not be turned around. It remains to be seen if others dare collaborate as concerned world citizens.

“I do not deny that something will be lost in the process of unification, but more will be preserved, and something of great value--namely a sense of security--will be gained. It is to such a consummation that our imagination and our long range political thinking must be directed.” --Bertrand Russell

Notes:

1 Worldwide Hunger Strike petition at http://www.nenasili.cz/en/1494_worldwide-hunger-strike-22th-june-2008

2 No Star Wars petition at www.nonviolence.cz

3 “Poland, US at odds over impact of planned anti-missile shield: Tusk,” AFP, 23 May 2008

4 Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson, “Missile Defense Malfunction: Why the Proposed U.S. Missile Defenses in Europe Will Not Work,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 22.1, 23 April 2008

5 Rebecca Christie, “Exclusive: Raytheon Wins Big Bucks for Missile Radar Move,” Defensetech, 17 April 2008; see also Pavel Baroch, “Armament Companies seek out US commissions, Aktuálne, 3 March 2008

6 Lisa Peattie, “Normalizing the unthinkable,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1984, pp. 32-6

7 Bertrand Russell, "Civil Disobedience," New Statesman, 17 February 1961

8 Markéta Hulpachová, “CR-U.S. scientists solidify relations: Collaboration increases appeal of radar base deal for local leaders,” The Prague Post, 2 April 2008

9 Vannevar Bush, “Science: The Endless Frontier,” Report to the President, July 1945

10 Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 9 July 1955

11 see international appeal to “Bring the CFE Treaty into Force,” under “Appeals on Preserving the CFE Treaty,” Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, http://www.pugwash.org/