Czech and Slovak Cultural Center

By Dr. Josef A. Mestenhauser

I wanted to write something different about Vaclav Havel and his passing than the meager media disappointedly covered. Media have a tendency to explain people by shortcuts, finding a label everybody recognizes and then placing a person into the box with that label. For Vaclav Havel who disliked these labels of being a playwright turned dissident these categories are insufficient and inaccurate. The problem is not only one of scale but also of historical significance and meanings. Theater has had a special significance in the Czech and Slovak history because it is associated with national awakening that may have saved the Czech language from extinction. Anybody who is associated with this tradition is not writing just for entertainment of people, but for a cause of solidifying national consciensness.  He prestige of the theater touched nearly everybody and people started creating an entire network of voluntary theater clubs and traveling puppet groups that still exist today and that neither the Nazis nor the communists could control. Being a dissident is relatively common with many examples from individual countries like Burma, China, India, Ukraine and many others. In comparison with these dissidents, Havel was a global dissident who challenged the entire Soviet empire that ruled almost half of the world on issues on which this empire was based, namely to turn everybody into one type of a socialist personality, to gain compliance through fear and to punish those who do not fit this model.

Havel’s work has touched not only the literary elites, but common citizens everywhere, as evidenced by the extraordinary outpouring of sympathy that came from all over the world. An example of his sensitivity to common human problems is the performance of one of his plays, the Memorandum that was first translated into German and produced in Berlin. Organizers conducted exist-interviews and were surprised that the most common response was “This is amazing. He is not even a German but understands our bureaucracy so well.”

Havel was certainly a playwright – of some distinction and a dissident of unprecedented courage, both with global outreach, but he was much more than that. All these qualities cannot be understood when they are used analytically, one at a time, because they all converged into one consistent and holistic personality. Still, with this caution, it is well to suggest several of these other qualities. Havel was certainly a philosopher of great distinction, whose writings, papers and speeches about society, religion, family, democracy, dictatorships, statecraft and civil society have filled eight huge volumes of his “collected works”. He drew heavily on other Czech greats such as Masaryk, Capek brothers and Patocka whose philosophies used to develop his own philosophical positions. He was also a statesman of high class – the label of being a politician is totally inadequate because he stood above the issues but understood variety of positions he respected.  During his first term as President he used to invite a number of prominent and common people from all segments of the Czech and Slovak society to his summer residence in Lany for dinner and discussion of contemporary problems and social issues. Rumors had it that the modest food that was served was not the attraction to come to these Friday dinners, but the sophistication of views and the sharing of perspectives that showed Havel as not only a skilled moderator but as a highly knowledgeable person who prepared carefully for these events. An example of his statesmanship was that the first international trip he took after his election was to visit Slovakia to re-establish ties and restore trust and respect. For a person who had no formal training in social sciences such as history, political science or psychology he was indeed a first class social scientist. Suffice it to cite his work on the “power of the powerless” that shows extraordinary grasp of the dynamics of living under a totalitarian regime that has become one of the most quoted works. In one of the passages he analyzed the past by confronting everybody in the former Czechoslovakia that “we were all complicit in installing the regime” and that it was time to learn from these mistakes to look forward to the future. His ratings after the publication of that article went down, as he expected.

Havel was also an example of a diplomat of a global stature who understood the nature of international relations, the role of small nations in it, and the need to create a global system of security. One of his equally courageous diplomatic acts was to apologize publically to the Germans who were forcefully expelled from Czechoslovakia often under brutal conditions and treatment – knowing that his ratings of support would also dip substantially. It was under his leadership that his associate well known to us when he was the Czech Ambassador to the US, Alexander Vondra crafted an extraordinary document of understanding with the German Federal government that put the issue to rest. That he was also a global leader is beyond doubt. He made a substantial impact on the European efforts at unification and supported NATO as the most effective instrument of global security. He was fiercely pro-American and supported every measure the US was promoting on the world scene. Another quality is that he was a thoughtful historian who understood the deep ties between the Czechs and Slovaks and the West. “Returning to the West” was his slogan that reflected Havel’s strong views about where the Czechs and Slovaks belong, thus rejecting the common myth, advocated my many including former President Benes, that Czechoslovakia was a bridge between the East and the West. The metaphor of the bridge proved to be a disaster for the people. Although few gave him credit for being an economist, he became a strong advocate of a free enterprise while rejecting what he termed the “cowboy capitalism” that was evident in the post socialist Czechoslovakia.

Above all these roles stood one of his defining characters, a human rights advocate and promoter of the civil society. He took a stand against such regimes as Castro’s and the Burmese military, and spoke on the subject each time he had a chance. He organized the “World Forum” of outstanding world leaders that included other famous dissidents such as Dalai Lama. Havel invited Dalai Lama to his summer residence in the “hradecek” near Trutnov a week before his passing. Speculations circulated in Prague media that he was seeking spiritual guidance for his final trip – indeed that was Havel’s signature character to prepare carefully everything he did.

Did Havel make mistakes? Indeed; he was neither saint nor a superman. One of his biggest mistakes that cost him his life was that he ignored his own health. Already when he visited us in the Twin Cities his health was highly precarious and we were required to furnish an ambulance that followed Havel within short reach wherever he went, staffed with medical specialists. From that time he lived on borrowed time. The second major mistake was that he underestimated the arrogance and persistence of the communists. He assumed that after all information about the atrocities they committed and the damage to life, liberty and property they caused, they will just fade away. That has not happen; to this date they accept full responsibility for the communist era and look foreword to the time when socialism returns.

Many of us political refugees value Havel’s for another reason. When it appeared that the people of Czechoslovakia willingly supported the regime, joined the communist party in large numbers, and worked enthusiastically to produce goods (mostly for the Soviets), many of us did not know how to explain the paradox how people raised on Masaryk embraced Stalin. Havel exposed the true nature of the system and the enormous propaganda machine and regimentation that sustained it. Havel made us proud to be Czechs and Slovaks again.

Twice in the last two centuries a small nation has produced and gave to the world two outstanding persons, Masaryk and Havel. The world responded with acclaim and co-opted them as their own. Too bad that the reception was more enthusiastic outside of the Czechoslovakia than it was at home. After his death the Czech people made amends by making Havel into an icon, placing him on the top of three most important people in the Czech history, (Charles IV, Masaryk and Havel) and thinking of him as the bright light that enlightens the building of the civil society whose realization he did not live to see, but whose foundation  he creted.

Havel remains a gift – that keeps giving.

Post script:

As Havel was disappointed, I am outright angry that he did not receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I do not know what the Nobel committee was thing in by-passing him.