Europe United in mourning Vaclav Havel
His motto was may love and truth triumph over lies. His example is one to remember in the hard, cold December at the end of 2011, not the best of years. Light a candle.
Vaclav Havel – Thank you
Your light has dimmed.
If your cell phone rings, now no one will answer.
All of your causes, like Olympic torches
have been passed on, to other barefoot runners.
Their footfalls, fade, into the distance.
Your death left us all behind, but stronger for your example and life.
Your plays and poems call out to the heart and
You spoke truth to power at great cost
chosing truth over lies
All your days
you fought for justice;
Thank you.
Written in Memorium December 18, 2011
cDeborah Sirotkin Butler
See also: The power of the powerless
As so many in our government more and more emulate Kim Jong Il it is our hope that the darkness withers. Mr Havel’s struggle after the summer of ’68 became a glorious sunrise for the Czech people. Oh that the spark of idealism in the Occupy movement will brighten our land and we can be the beacon of liberty.
Hope.
“As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” –Justice William O Douglas
the fact that this man fully supported one of the most disastrous military adventures in modern history.
The qoute that Bob cites above: “Walk with those who seek the truth. Run from those who think they have found it” Is particularly ironic given his frequent willingness to be used by the Bush administration because of his full-throated support of the invasion of Iraq.
This man endured imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Communists and ensured that his nations independence, the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and the withdrawal of Soviet troops occurred peacefully. He also made sure his country moved in a liberal, pro-Western direction and integrated it into the EU, NATO, and brought it economic freedoms and social liberties as well. This stands in stark contrast to the revolutions in Romania that were violent, and the Eastern former USSR states that have gone off in an illiberal direction. Plenty of human rights proponents supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein one of the worst dictators in the world. Even now people are estimating mass graves of one to two million of his citizens could still be unearthed. Good liberals like President Clinton, Madeline Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Tony Blair, Michael Ignatieff, Nicholas Kristoff, Bill Keller, David Remnick, the recently departed Christopher Hitchens and even Al Franken supported it. I opposed the war from the get go,
I figured there was no national security rationale and it would weaken our efforts to kill Osama in Afghanistan. I turned out to be right and they turned out to be wrong. But their reasons for going in were just and based on the humanitarian presence that American power should be deployed to prevent genocidal maniacs from killing their own people. The US stood silently by during the worst atrocities of Idi Amin, cut and ran from Somalia, stood by in Rwanda. For these liberals the Iraq War was a natural extension of Clinton’s war to topple Milosevic. I would argue the Libyan model shows us how the Iraq War could have been fought successfully, with a broad alliance, with local boots on the ground, and with one stated humanitarian objective. My old international relations professor Charles Lipson, a liberal, made a compelling argument that the UN should have fought Iraq to enforce its own resolutions and its failure to back the war hurt its credibility on other human rights fronts and made its resolutions against various dictators ring hollow. More importantly no one should be judged by one mistake, his achievements outweigh his failures.
“Good liberals like President Clinton, Madeline Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Tony Blair, Michael Ignatieff, Nicholas Kristoff, Bill Keller, David Remnick….” These are hardly the people that I think of when I use the word “liberal”. This Madeleine Albright?
Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Bill Keller!!??
Vaclev Havel was in a position of responsibility and should be judged as such. You forget that he went against the will of the vast majority of his compatriots. At the time it was extremely frustrating to hear Rumsfeld talk about the “New Europe”. He could have spoken out about this but chose to align himself with the neocons. Moreover I don’t recall Vaclav Havel ever saying that he regretted having given Bush a lot of cover in what most thinking people now recognize was a major debacle, your “liberal” friends notwithstanding.
I’m not alone in not considering him a saint
Your link at least attacks what he did or did not do well as President in the Czech Republic, many of the same attacks could be levied against Mandela I might add, but both men accomplished much by standing against bad regimes. That their own terms in power failed to live up to all the hypes and hopes of their revolutions matters less than the fact that these individuals peacefully defeated entrenched regimes that should have had all the cards on their side. But simply saying supporting the Iraq War undoes all those other accomplishments was a tad bit unfair.
but I don’t think he deserves all the adulation that he’s been receiving of late. Maybe no one does, for that matter.