Our age in the West has stopped producing heroes, when banality and mediocrity are the benchmarks .... so this blog is open in its admiration of the few that are produced.
So its with sadness that we mark the passing away of Vaclav Havel - a hero for our times.
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| Vaclav Havel - A Rolling Stone President |
So its with sadness that we mark the passing away of Vaclav Havel - a hero for our times.
I won't detail his life story, there will be millions of biographies
that do that, but suffice it to say that he gave the world the 1989's Velvet Revolution
in the then Czechoslovakia that was peaceful, and along with the
Solidarity movement in Poland showed that even the most oppressive of
regimes can be defeated by simple protest, as long as they are not
monsters (sadly, China, Libya and Syria, show that where the regime has
no conscience, then peaceful measures will fail).
He is rightly remembered in the modern components of the old Czechoslovakia (Slovakia and the Czech Republic), for his role in as the playwright of the Czech Spring of 1968, the Charter 77 group and after the 1989 Velvet Revolution he became the first democratically elected President of Czechoslovakia since the Nazi and Communist occupations from 1939 onwards.
Sadly he oversaw the break up of Czechoslovakia into the Slovakian and the Czech Republic states, but was then elected the president of the new Czech Republic a few months later in January 1993. After stepping down at the end of his second term as president in 2003, he devoted time to supporting human rights activists around the world.
He deserves all the plaudits ....
Sadly he oversaw the break up of Czechoslovakia into the Slovakian and the Czech Republic states, but was then elected the president of the new Czech Republic a few months later in January 1993. After stepping down at the end of his second term as president in 2003, he devoted time to supporting human rights activists around the world.
He deserves all the plaudits ....
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