In the following essay, Amy Phillips writes about Czechoslovakia's totalitarian past and the Czech Republic's democratic present, and a newly-passed law that could very well impact that country's future.
Ms. Phillips writes for her own blog, The Fifty Minute Hour.
-- Tim Machesney
THOSE WHO CONTROL THE PRESENT ...
by Amy Phillips
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, in the spring of 1968, the nation of Czechoslovakia received a brief reprieve from the decades-long tyranny of Soviet Socialism. During the Prague Spring, Alexander Dubcek, the leader of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, implemented an action program to relax controls on censorship and free expression as part of a larger flirtation with democratization and political reform. Dubcek's plan was put in place as a response to calls for reform already fomenting within the Czechoslovak populace, and they gave legitimacy to grassroots movements calling for greater freedom for the Czechoslovak people. Dubcek's government made an apology for the detrimental policies of the past, and for the first time in over two decades, affirmed the basic human rights and civil liberties belonging to all Czechoslovak citizens. He called it "Socialism with a human face," but it was actually an affirmation of the now-common understanding that Soviet Communism was a totalitarian regime under which no citizen was free.
As citizens began to realize that they would, in fact, not be persecuted or arrested for exercising these forgotten freedoms, dissent sprang up all across the nation, but especially in Prague. Even reporters and editors in the state-run media began speaking their minds, criticizing socialism, and endorsing further reform. On June 26, Dubcek officially abolished censorship in Czechoslovakia. That month, Ludvik Vaculik published a manifesto entitled "Two Thousand Words", urging Czechoslovak citizens to seize control of their own futures by embracing democracy and fighting totalitarianism. The essay struck a chord with many Czechoslovakians, who were eager to broaden their horizons beyond the walls of the Communist system. They began to write books and essays, produce movies and songs, and above all, demand leaders who would support their right to be free.
During this time, some of Czechoslovakia's most celebrated artists practiced their crafts. Milan Kundera and Milos Forman were both in Prague that spring. In the summer of 1968, Moscow began to issue criticisms of Czechoslovak reforms. A meeting of Communist leaders from the Soviet Union, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, and Bulgaria met and produced a statement claiming that "the situation in Czechoslovakia jeopardizes the common vital interests of other socialist countries." In other words, the totalitarians were displeased that Czechoslovakia was faring so well without the iron-fisted rule they practiced in their own countries, and they feared that their citizens might get too many ideas about freedom and self-government. Leonid Brezhnev declared that "once a socialist state, forever after a socialist state," and ordered Dubcek to reinstate censorship and other totalitarian rules. Dubcek refused.
On the night of August 20, 1968, over 500,000 troops from the Warsaw Pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia and marched through the countryside towards Prague. They informed Czechoslovakian citizens along the way that they were there "to come to the aid of the working class and all the people of Czechoslovakia to defend socialist gains." Once they reached Prague, their first order of business was to shut down the thriving Czechoslovak state radio. The people of Prague managed to hold them off long enough for most reporters to file their stories of the invasion, which were later broadcast on underground radio, but the station was captured. The Warsaw Pact forces drove tanks through the streets, handing out leaflets proclaiming "normalization" and shooting people who got in their way with machine guns. Dubcek was captured, deposed, and replaced with a Communist Party loyalist leader hand-picked by the other Communist leaders of the region. The Czechoslovak President attended a meeting in Moscow later that week, after which he and other Czech and Slovak signatories agreed to allow Soviet troops to remain in Czechoslovakia until Communism could be fully restored. Might had beaten Right.
The repercussions of the Prague Spring lasted for decades after 1968. Thousands of people who had been active in dissident and free-speech movements were forced to emigrate under threat of persecution or punishment. Thousands of members of the intellectual elite were removed from professional jobs as writers or professors and forced to take menial jobs mopping floors or selling fruit. Alexander Dubcek was sent for 20 years into the Slovak forestry service. The "normalization" the Soviets had promised consisted of replacing parks and open meeting places with rows of identical cement buildings. Musicians and moviemakers who attempted to keep performing were arrested and their broadcasts shut down.
Ultimately, the reform movement and the ensuing military invasion unveiled previously unforseen tensions among the Communist states, and turned many European Communists against the Soviet way of ruling. The Prague Spring gave Czechoslovakia a taste of freedom that they savored for the next 20 years, and set the stage for the Glasnost era of the 1980s during which similar reforms were implemented across the USSR. When, in 1989, the Soviet Union fell, unable to keep the tide of reform from overpowering Communism altogether, the citizens of Czechoslovakia vowed not to let Communism return as it had before. They were finally able to fully embrace the ideals of the Prague Spring, including freedom of expression and free political discourse for all citizens.
Recently, on the anniversary of one of the worst defeats for freedom in the history of his country, Czech President Vaclav Klaus announced a measure to restrict the rights of free expression of 80,000 Czech citizens. Under the terms of the new civil service law, all employees of the Czech government will have to swear an oath of loyalty to the government or risk losing their jobs. Proponents of the oath claim that the new law will help to combat corruption, because a loyal employee is an honest employee. They also say that forcing government workers to swear loyalty will help to "motivate them to work as efficiently as possible."
The law also imposes several other restrictions on the abilities of government employees to freely associate outside of their jobs. Although I have been unable to find the text of the law, Article 44 of the Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms allows the government to impose restrictions on its employees pertaining to "the right of enterprising and other economic activities as well as the right to establish political parties and political movements and associate in them." In other words, it would be technically legal for the Czech government to declare that employees had to swear not to associate with fringe political movements.
No matter what, the very idea of having to swear an oath of loyalty to anyone or anything as a condition of government employment is repugnant. No person should be forced by his government to swear any allegiances for fear of penalties. It is especially troubling given the history of loyalty oaths in former Soviet states. Many Czechoslovak residents were punished and even deported because of legitimate ethical and moral objections to swearing required oaths:
Catholic Priests were required in 1949 to swear an oath of loyalty to the state: "The bishops decided that the priests could swear the oath if they added a proviso in the text saying that they would observe the state laws only if they did not contradict natural and Church laws. The state benevolently permitted this but disregarded it anyway. If a priest coming into conflict with the state quoted the proviso, he was simply eliminated through the taking away of state approval needed for working as a priest, though firstly by means of arrest and lengthy imprisonment."
In 1920, the Czechoslovakian government violated its treaty obligations to the native Hungarians living within its borders by expelling thousands of Hungarians for refusing to swear a loyalty oath:
"105,000 Hungarians were forced to leave Czechoslovakia. The majority of them were dismissed Hungarian civil servants, teachers, military officers, and landowners who had lost their property, and those persons who had refused to the take the oath of loyalty demanded by the new government. The authorities refused to grant citizenship to 45,000 Hungarians and an additional 10,000 were forced to leave their homes."
Now, I understand that the current oath is not a promise to renounce all independent thought to bow to the will of a Communist dictatorship. However, anyone who has lived under totalitarian rule should understand the danger of punishing people based on what they think, instead of solely on what they do. If the government wants to make all employees sign a contract promising not to reveal any state secrets or commit acts of open rebellion on pain of imprisonment, that seems like a legitimate deterrence measure. But making people promise to believe in anything in particular is not an acceptable action for a pluralistic democracy to take. The Czech government should repeal this law immediately, in the spirit of the brief but brilliant revolution that took place in their nation 35 years ago.
The first question which comes to mind is: how bad is corruption in the Czech Republic? The second is: are we sure this isn't just typical, mindless bureaucracy in action?
I can understand the fear of State repression in former communist nations (and, of course, if all the communists had been shot after the overthrow of the old communist regimes - as each and every one of them richly deserved - then this would be less of a fear; ie, if the old commies are still alive, how many of them are still ensconced in the halls of government?). But I'd like more details before I think this is sinister.
You know, US civil servants have to swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America. New York I believe also requires such for their teachers. California also requires a loyalty oath for state employees. Failing to sign the oath does indeed prevent one from being employed by the State of California.
OTOH, some state loyalty oaths have been struck down by the US Supreme Court for being overly broad or vague; e.g., the State of Washington's was struck down in 1964. (Baggett v. Bullitt)
In the UK, no such oath is required, however. (See here, for instance.)
Of course, the devil is in the details. Certainly preventing outside political activity seems to go too far.
The assumption that this law will restrict the fredom of SPEECH is altogether wrong.
Second, there are not 80,000 GOVERNMENT officials. Most of the people in question are not considered "government workers". It is hard to explain in English context.
Third, this law was inspired by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of the United States. The new Czech law is a burreaucracy babble, of course, but it is just a populism thing. To let the people THINK that the gov't is doing something about corruption. Courts won't start putting people to jails more. The penal code is still the same.
A minor correction to an otherwise fine submission.
In the lead paragraph, the other refers to the "Czechoslovak nation". In the European sense of the word, there never was a Czechoslovak "nation". A Czechoslovak state (actually, a federation, sort of) but not a nation.
Americans continually confuse these terms, so let's review them.
"Nation" is a community of people speaking the same language, originating from the same race and sharing more or less the same blood lines and culture, who readily marry among one another. In this country there is a predominant white American nation, a single generally monolithic black American nation, various Asian American nations, and others. Czechoslavakia during its 72 years of existence comprised two main nations, Czechs and Slovaks, each of which have distinct languages and different territorial boundaries. There also were Germans, Hungarians and Ruthenians.
"Country" refers to a specific geographic entity, typically under a single government.
"State" refers to the government within that country, which are not always synonymous. For example, there was a czarist Russian state, a soviet Russian state, and now, a republican Russian state.
"Regime" refers to the leadership of particular government in power at a given time.
Now for the best example of what I am trying to describe. In 1918, the victorious allied powers insisted upon and achieved the breakup of the old Austro-Hungarian empire which had largely maintained stability in southeastern Europe. In its place arose separate Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, with parts of the old empire taken by Poland and Romania. All of these were essentially unstable and ultimately unviable states which fell prey to quasi-fascist regimes, communist regimes, conquest from neighboring states, and mass death everywhere.
Jugoslavia and Czechoslovakia both fell apart at the end of the communist era, Jugoslavia with one of the bloodier civil wars of the last century.
The lesson is that disparate peoples were not intended to be squaded together on the same soil under the same government. This worked in the United States solely because the dominant class in American society is, and always has been, white Americans of European stock, and of these, mainly from the Germanic and Celtic parts of northern and northwestern Europe. All the others who could be absorbed into this framework essentially learned the same English language and largely scrapped their ancentral culture in favor of the one that has evolved to the present time.
All the others who could not or would not be so absorbed form a more or less permanent underclass, those who fill the social services programs, the prisons, and the low-paid jobs at every supermarket, fastfood emporium and largescale vegetable-growing enterprise in the country. Go ask any black, chicano, hmong, haitian, arab, filipino or others among the mostly submerged; they will tell you all about "one nation, indivisible" and all the rest of that slogan.
Or should I say "E Pluribus Unum?"
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, why don't you just ask me, or my parents? My family is Chinese, my parents immmigrated from East Timor, and I was born in East Harlem. Neither I, nor my parents, have ever considered ourselves to be a part of an oppressed, permanent underclass. We worked, we learned, we saved, we prospered, and we believe.
We believe in America, because we are Americans.
George, I never met any Chinese who were members of any underclass in any society. Nor any Jew (except for the ones who manage to leave the Arab countries which sometimes refused to allow them to leave for purposes of emigrating to Israel), nor anyone from India. And numerous other exceptions to the generality that I spelled out in my comments.
And of course you are an American. Except that someone would look at your skin color or talk with you or read your comments and think "Chinese American". The same as someone looks at any black man or woman in this country as thinks "African American" (or something a lot less polite if they really are racists). And the same as someone looks at almost anyone around Gallup, New Mexico and thinks "Indian".
But nobody looks at George W Bush or Richard Cheney and says "white Anglo-Saxon Protestant American". Just "American".
You and they are all Americans, to be sure. But the majority of whites in this society never ever get hyphenated.
Hey, cheer up. If these people were living in China, Timor, or even Harlem, they would stick out like people with dark green sacks over their heads.
Maybe you ought to try getting used to the world as it is, and not just as you would like it to be be, if everybody in this country actually believed their own line of political shit.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Arnold, I am looking at the world as it is - and I'm not seeing what you're seeing.
At work, I'm not the 'Chinese Guy' - I'm the guy responsible for all that database crap (to tell the truth, I think I'd actually prefer being the Chinese Guy. A lot less work would probably be sent my way if they thought I couldn't speak English). When I go out with my friends, the only time my race really comes up is when my face turns bright red after half of a beer. When I applied for my apartment lease, my checking account, and my job, I can honestly say race was never a factor. If people stare at me on the train, it's I left my fly is open, and not because they're not used to seeing Chinamen (no, really - it happened twice last month. Quite embarassing.).
This is why I take such great exception to your comment that "disparate peoples were not intended to be squaded together on the same soil under the same government". Admittedly, this has been true for all but the last fifty or so years of human existance. But it doesn't have to be so, and my own life is a perfect example that today, in America, it generally is not so.
The only time race has ever been a major factor in in my life was when I was applying to colleges. There's a lesson in that, as well, but that's for another thread.
Well, George, maybe race would be a major factor in your life if people saw you as a black man and not as a china man.
Some 40 years ago or more, I read an interview that Malcolm X gave to some dumbass liberal white reporter who began asking him naive questions, and got this as an answer:
"Being born in Omaha doesn't make me an American any more than being born in an old oven makes a cat a biscuit."
These are the same folks who feel they have reason to write songs with lyrics such as:
"If you're white your right,
if you're brown get down,
and if you're black stay back,
stay back,
stay back."
(I'm sure someone wrote that after being stopped for DWB (driving while black).
But I'm happy you're Chinese-American life is going so well, that you're responsible for all that database crap, and that you can get a buzz on only a half-bottle of beer (which probably makes you inexpensive to entertain). I'm in the same line of work, and the payoff is good. Which is what America is really all about.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI