Jan Hadrava

"First of all, the value of that rebellion, that people can say no to something that is wrong, that people can rise up out of some fear, that it can be done, that we have it in us and that we are creating our own historical image. That's the great value, the value of rebellion as the ability to rebel. Well, then, it's a value that maybe doesn't sit well with some people, but I think it was the right thing to do, because if it had been bloody - which it could have been. It could have been. Those passions can be inflamed and the crowd then acts differently. It can be stirred up. Charismatic leaders can do that. But if a charismatic leader doesn't want to do it, that's good, because then the conscience is bad. Then cutting it off from the past is a big cut, it is a blood cut, but it is wrong then. Then, after a few years, it's bad. Of course, it's also bad that there hasn't been some kind of settlement. There should have been trials along these lines, the people who were actively involved should have been tried and punished. I'm not saying there were a couple of trials. I was a witness, I testified against Lokvenec, who then went to Slovakia, so I was questioned several times in this matter. But I think the laxity of the approach was wrong. On the one hand, the blood would have been very bad, but on the other hand, the kind of malleability, the softness of the transition, where we said, all good things we get, we get. That was too much. There could have been more alignment with that grace. Especially for the fifties. And not the kind of people like me, but those people who sat for five or six years, somebody arrested them, somebody put them on trial. And that was not good. The third thing, which is the most fantastic thing, is democracy, whatever anybody says against it, that's a tremendous victory. It is also plastic, democracy is very weak, it is constantly renewing herself, it is like a phoenix. It is never permanent, permanent, in that permanent form, as if frozen. That is the most beautiful thing about it, that it is constantly being created, constantly being questioned, and constantly being revived, like a phoenix. It is created by us humans. Because politics is only a part of democracy. Society has its own dynamics, its own self-movement. And that's where the democratic or other principles are created. And of course politics is part of it, a big part. The whole stratification of governments and powers, like the executive, the judiciary and so on, is very, very good and democratic. It's the only living democracy, you can't live like that anywhere else. It cannot be in a totalitarianism. Totalitarianism contains everything. It covers everything - the court, the government, everything. That is a tremendous victory."

"And the square was empty. There was Erich Kříž and Paukert, a few other people, and students from the gymnasium. But it wasn't a mass event compared to Karlovy Vary, where it was growing in front of the post office. Day by day, more and more people joined, and it wasn't just Jindra Konečný, [Jiří] Kotek, who was in charge, there were other people. But above all, the crowd was growing. So in Sokolov on Budovatelů Square, where about a thousand people live, there were only a few people and students. And the students had a kind of primacy there, which is nice. They were the ones who were happily supporting it. Well, and there on this fountain that's in the middle of the square, Erich spoke and other speakers spoke. And I also spoke there. And in that speech, because I didn't know how to speak, even though I had gone through some amateur theater, but still I wasn't a speaker, and I had a hard time finding free words, it was still as if that freedom was knocking a lot, but still there were State Security officers everywhere, still the Communist Party was in power. But I still found the words, I spoke something about returning to the values of the first republic, the values of Masaryk, Benes. And in that speech I called myself an 'elemental', that I was an 'elemental'. And now, undemocratically, the election to the Civic Forum began to take place. The Civic Forums were to some extent self-appointed, they had to be formed somehow, from people who had the courage to go for it, who wanted to go for it. It was not possible to call someone up and say, elect someone amongst yourselves to the Civic Forum, it was not possible. But yet the search for democracy was actually already about - and now let's elect someone to the Citizens' Forum. The choice was already there, it was already like it was already suspected or known that this democracy was supposed to be discussed like this, right, by some kind of election, like the people would decide. Well, the students started chanting 'Ži-vel, Ži-vel' (Element), which was me, and in this strange and a little bit grotesque way, where actually the fifteen to eighteen year olds are voting for you, because the others... not that it was completely empty, but it wasn't full, so I wouldn't say that the Sokolov people were home, they were more hidden than the Karlovy Vary people, I can judge this. And that's how the Civic Forum was established."

"It actually started with me feeling like a bad person. That there was a visible evil, that something had to be done, and of course the general atmosphere around me contributed to that. We, of course, can feel, especially in those revolutionary moments, that we are the bearers of history, that we influence it, that we are the makers of it, that we almost create it. But this is not true. Nor is the fatalistic view that history goes its own way and only chooses characters to play the roles it is supposed to play true. But in those years 1986-1987, I felt more and more that I had to do something myself. I started going to the so-called plenary sessions of the National Committee. And the Loket was in a desolate state. So I thought to myself, at least I’ll make some difference in this little sandbox. So I went there, spoke up, and participated, but they kept cutting me off. They had a poster up there for some kind of tomorrow, that they were going to build something. I said, 'What are you going to build, you're not doing anything! The walls are falling down!' I couldn't even speak. I was ashamed. I was ashamed to say something honest, because they were occupying the public speech. It was pointless, stupid, wasn't it? But they were occupying it, and as I got up on that platform in that plenary session, when the speech had sounded before, and I was speaking as if in my own language, I was having a hard time getting it out of me, and I was still ashamed of my own speech for being inappropriate. I was all out of place. I knew in myself that I had to at least say something like that, to talk about it here. About the local things, in the place where I live."

"There's something that characterizes that time, I think. And maybe a little bit of Sokolov, too. We didn't really know that our free action - I would stress here that we acted freely, moderately freely - could arouse any interest. One deviated just a little bit from what they understood, and there was already that interest. Because they needed to have you. If you weren't sufficiently processed and you deviated in some way, acted differently in some way, you were suspect. That different behavior, that different outlook didn't even have to be somehow anti-state, directed against socialism, but it was enough that he was just single, and he was already suspect. So I interpret that they were interested in things that were not directed directly against them, but they were free. And that poetry and art in general is always free, good art has the character of freedom in it. Even under the Bolsheviks, politics didn't affect everything. Even if totalitarianism tries to obfuscate all that, society has its own self-movement, its own invention that it moves through, that it creates outside of politics. Even though the communist was trying to control everything, to have control over everything, and they may not be dissidents, but these people have their own concerns that they react to somehow. There is this internal movement of society that cannot be grasped and influenced. It's still there today, although politics doesn't play as much of a role as it did under the Bolsheviks, when it was supposed to be the central, all-encompassing thinking. But politics affects us all, but the self-movement of society, its inner strength, goes beyond politics. Most of the time we can't even map it. Then maybe sometimes some powerful political action will come out of it."