By Dan Olson
April 26, 1999
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.
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.