Fava’s Reflection on Prague, Democracy, and Globalization Under Threat

Efrem Fava begins his letter to President Havel recalling how during the journey to Prague he was reading “The Power of the Powerless” by the very same president Havel, which states that “a moral reconstruction of society is necessary, the radical renewal of the authentic relationship between man and the human order” that cannot be replaced by any political order.

Then happened the incredible: “we were blackmailed and held hostage, frozen, tired, hungry, thirsty, without hygienic services for eighteen hours until the four unwelcome individuals (whom the police could neither identify nor track down, ed.) voluntarily surrendered to avoid further inconvenience to the other passengers.”

Fava has not experienced either Stalinist, fascist, or Nazi dictatorship: “It has never happened to me, in any country in the world, to be treated that way. I asked myself how this could happen in a country recently reconquered for democracy and freedom, with a President of such moral stature, who personally suffered imprisonment and persecutions for his high sentiments of justice and freedom.”

Reflections on Literature and Spring

Then Fava remembered a paragraph from The Castle by Kafka, where it’s said that in those lands, spring is brief, very brief. “I thought about how short the spring of 1968 was, when we all rejoiced for the hopes raised by the human-faced socialism of Aleksandr Dubček, and when our hearts sank at the news of tanks on Václav and Mánes Streets. I thought about how brief the spring of 1990 was, when I saw Prague’s most beautiful buildings sold to multinationals, when I noticed there were now more banks than breweries in Prague, and when I saw, last Tuesday, September 26th, tanks again on the Nusle Bridge in Visehrad. I thought it was already over when I saw in Budweis a policeman with the face of Svejk (though not as friendly) pulling two teenagers off a train and beating them in front of our stunned eyes (police badge 244666, if that interests anyone).”

I thought that the Czech Republic has fallen under a new dictatorship, that of multinationals, which through economic globalization seek to dominate the politics of every individual state. A ghost that has been haunting the streets of Prague in recent days: they call it dissent, now, not only in Western Europe, but worldwide, from Seattle and Davos, from Bologna to Prague. Best wishes, Mr. President, even you being seized and held hostage by multinational corporations. The insurrection of the system, as is entirely evident, has not ended.”