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The Poet President
By Dan Olson
April 26, 1999
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Czech president Vaclav Havel, a poet and playwright, says freedoms taken away by totalitarian leaders can be restored overnight on paper. But he warned in a speech in St. Paul that keeping a democracy alive requires a civil society; one where people are free to associate with others and where the power of government is limited and decentralized.

The former Communist government in Czechoslovakia banned Havel's writing, and put him prison three times. Ten years ago he helped create the political movement which negotiated the "velvet revolution", the Czech Republic's peaceful handover of power from Communists to a democracy.


Hear the full speech.
NOWHERE IN HIS SPEECH did Czech President Vaclav Havel say he was giving Americans advice on how to be better citizens. Indeed, he said, it seems banal in a country with probably the most advanced civil society, to repeat the ingredients for a successful democracy, one ingredient being freedom of association.

But when Havel lists the obstacles to restoring democracy in his Czech Republic - convincing heads of education and health institutions, for example, to give people of all economic classes better access to the services - that his description could apply to any society in need of reform.

The 62-year-old Havel grew up in an upper middle class family. His formula for a civil society assumes that human beings are, as he puts it, more than manufacturers, profit-makers or consumers.

Havel's call for a decentralized government, less taxation, and more individual freedom sounds to many American listeners like the platform of a Libertarian. But John Patrick Dale, a St. Olaf college professor who has studied and taught in the Czech Republic, and who is familiar with Havel's writings says the Czech president is a Communitarian. Dale says Havel's philosophy is people should have the freedom to make money but also take on the responsibility of looking after their society.