Velvet Revolution after Ten Years

Ivana Noble 

Looking ten years back at the events of Velvet Revolution in former Czechoslovakia and at the fall of communism in the Eastern Block in general, is for me both: recalling a historical event, an experience of God's kairos, the time of a change, as well as touching a very personal experience of fulfilled hopes and prayers, yet in the way which is different from any expectation and which involves something like the call of Gideon, whom the angel of the Lord invites to be a ‘mighty warrior', and he, the man of the fields, finds this unimaginable.^[1]

In this article I will try to keep these two strands together, the historical and the personal. My particular interest will be in tracing the hopefulness of these days and their inspiration for the future, which now, after a decade often seems to be covered by the following years of building a post-communist democratic society, with its own hardships. My perspective is given by my involvements of that time, which reached from the church and theological college to the realm of policy, but its primary locus was also its determinant.

A Sketch of the Situation in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s

When Gorbachev's glasnost lightened the political oppression in the communist block, independent political, civic, cultural, as well as religious activities in Czechoslovakia started to attract a wider audience to work for changes.^[2] In 1987 Miloš Jakeš replaced Gustav Husák in the function of a general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and soon after him Ladislav Adamec changed Lubomír Štrougal in his prime minister chair. These two figures, which were still faithfully practising methods of oppression copied from Brežnìv's Soviet Union, tried to initiate a communist-directed reform of economy, without reforming policy as well. This, however, contrasted even with their verbal example, Gorbatchov's government, and thus brought a safer international climat for resistance, than in 1968.^[3] It was only in that time, when we started to hope that, perhaps, the communist oppression may not live longer than us. And this was an important factor also in a Christian resistance - asking for a change of relations between church and state. The most significant document of this was a 31-point petition from December 1987, which set forth among its primary demands:

- the faithful be granted the right to create free lay associations;

- all male and female holy orders be allowed to function freely;

- religious instruction take place outside State schools, on Church property and completely under Church supervision;

- believers have the right to be in contact with other Christian organizations throughout the world;

- the copying and distribution of religious materials be regarded as lawful activity;

- the government cease jamming Radio Vatican;

- the government return confiscated Church buildings;

- construction of new churches be permitted, as needed; and all valid laws and binding legal strictures affecting directly or indirectly the sphere of religious life be made to harmonize with the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.^[4]

The petition was signed by over 500,000 Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, as well as non-believers. However, besides the fact that there was once again a distinctively religious voice in the opposition, it was important that Christians did not struggle only for their rights and their religious freedom, but saw in the context of the respect of human right for everybody. It mattered as much that there were people in prisons, because they were spreading an independent politics or culture. This deep sense of solidarity and a growing awareness of how churches were oppressed under the communism opened door for a significant participation of both lay people and clergy in the events of 1989. The anti-clerical climax, typical for the society since the beginning of this century, gave a way to trust that at least some Christians might be interested in more than making their church buildings full again.

A wider Christian participation in the process of preparing the changes in the society was an important counter-voice to the communist government sponsored organisations, namely Pacem in terris among the Roman Catholics, and the Christian Peace Conference among other Cristians. Members of these organisations on a large scale collaborated also with the secret police and were responsible for public statements that they as Christians supported socialism as it was primarily concerned with world peace and human rights, that it gave full religious freedom to all who were decent citizens. They were the only "Christian" representatives, which were given hearing in the official media, and they also spread this myth of wonderful socialism abroad, never minding that other people, including their Christian brothers and sisters, were tortured in prisons at the same time. Unfortunately both organisations had a large membership, among clergy in particular, as it brought them advantages: nominations to higher church offices, possibilities to teach, to publish and to travel, or money to repair their churches. The late 1980s brought also a more visible public distance to this kind of a "Christian" collaboration with the totalitarian regime.

A change in the air

In the mid 1980s I was a seminarian in the Hus's Theological College, and with the changes of the political climax, the students were for the first time since 1968 allowed to go and study abroad. Thus I spent October 1988-April 1989 in Switzerland. There in the news and through an indirect mentioning in correspondence (if it got through, as the secret police still looked after the censorship) I could observe new developments. But many things could not be passed across the iron curtain, thus I did not know that my husband and my friends were interrogated by secret police, that some of them were taken by the secret police car to the middle of the fields far from anywhere, beaten and left there without documents and money, that there were dangers of house inspections and arrests.

A significant feature of 1988/89 was a growing number of people taking part in demonstrations, as well as a growing brutality of police suppressions. In 28th October 1988 there were celebration of the anniversary of Czech independence in 1919, it was followed by another demonstration in 10th November. At the anniversary of death of Jan Palach, in January 1989, there were demonstrations in Prague, which lasted four days, in spite of the fact that police tried to suppress them with water cannons and much violence. Old people and even children were beaten. Many people interrogated and many arrested, including once again, Václav Havel. These events were followed by a number of protest actions, in which a wider society than the usual disidents took part: intelligentsia - students, actors, artists, writers, scientists, but also many clerks and workers, organised resistance, which contributed to the growth of Movement For Civic Freedom, Democratic Initiative, Helsinki Committee, Club Renewal and others, which played an important part in the running the country after November 1989.^[5] The protest actions then united their effort in a petition ‘A couple of Sentences' made by a group gathered round Charter 77, asking a release of political prisoners, freedom for independent activities and for media, public discussions with regard to history, policy, economy. Till the autumn there was more than 40,000 signatures, in spite of oppression. Thus, when I came back, in April 1989, I could see a changes in the air. There was a hopeful transformation of civic conscience happening on a wide scale, a good proportion of a nation which was discouraged by the trauma of mobilisation in 1938 followed by Munich, of being handed over to yet another power of the darkness in Jalta in 1944, of being "saved from a counter-revolution" by Russians and their comrates in 1968, as we used to hear at schools and in media, was once again willing to risk and to suffer in order to gain freedom.

However, the events of 1988/89 had also its humorous strand. A couple of friends founded a civic foundation Society for a Jollier Present, whose aim was to show the absurdity inherent in the totalitarian regime and to lighten the atmosphere by making people laugh. I remember seeing pictures from one demonstration, where friends of this society were divided into two groups, one having helmets from a water melon skin beated people with cucumbers and salamis, caricaturing policemen with truncheons; the other imitating first aid, yet, instead of serving the people, bandaged the cucumber and salami truncheons, so that they could be used again. At the 21st anniversary of 1968 members of this society made of paper a huge whale and placed it on the river Moldave. Police, indeed, considered it to be a provocation and tried to catch the whale, but could not manage, thus fighting with a piece of paper they travelled almost as far as Charles bridge, accompanied by a laughing crowd. Humour was a powerful means to praise freedom. During the summer 1989, a joke-tape of Jakes's speech to communist functionaries of the West Bohemian district was widely distributed among people. The speech had a nickname "a post in a fence", a Czech saying for someone being left alone, as the communist functionaries were in a growing isolation. The laughter had also a purifying function in a way that it was an alternative to the desire for vengeance, as instead of victimising a "clear category" of oppressors, it showed the situation from an angle in which all could find themselves partaking in the diverse roles.

17^th November and its consequences

Václav Havel in the Power of the Powerless tells the story of an ordinary citizen, the greengrocer, who lives under the communist ideology and its demand of people to conform to the lie, to the fiction they do not believe^[6]. For this man in the story it is symbolized by the regular request to put up the communist slogan "Workers of the World Unite!" to his shop window. He does not believe in what he does, yet communicates what he does not believe as if he believed it.^[7] As Havel explains:

Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police aparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to pretend nothing. Individuals need not to believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfil the system, make the system, are the system. (1985:31)^[8]

Then Havel explores the possibilities of what we may call conversion: what if one day the greengrocer were to take down this slogan - what would happen to him (the lie-conformers would persecute him) and what would happen within him (he would start to live in truth)? These thoughts well summarise the mood of the raise our consciousness to the conversion from the "life in lie" to the "life in truth" in after the celebrations of the Students day in 17^th November 1989.

In that Sunday night my husband and I came back from Pilsen, where we took part in a Christian music festival, and there were most of fellow students gathered in the corridor, with some, who were at Národní Street, when the police closed other streets, encircled the people in demonstration and did not leave a single one to get out without beating. The crowd consisting mainly of students tried to stick together, they lit candles, gathered flowers, symbols of their peaceful resistance, when the brutality was growing. More than 160 people were injured that night, some heavily, and moved to hospitals. The students came with a frightening news that one student was even beaten to death. They saw a body in blood there, not moving, without a possibility to help, without knowing who this was. And it was only later we learnt, that this death story of a student Martin Šmíd was a secret police's planned fiction, not that very night. That night the students from the Artistic College announced a student strike and invited other colleagues to join in. Theatres entered the strike and offered their scenes as places for public meetings. For the people gathered in the corridor of my college this seemed the only viable option, to join in, as even for the non-hero types, like myself, the violence reached limit, that it could no longer be opposed indirectly.

On Monday morning we announced the strike to the dean and the college staff, taking responsibility for the college into our hands, as they told us on their leave. With a friend, then we went to see the organisers in the Artistic College. The first meeting was very moving. We were the fifth college in the country, which joined and we were warmly welcome, and really, with a surprise, as the students thought that Theological Colleges no longer existed, such was the separation from the rest of the academia successful.

In the coming days Prague was encircled by the army and People's Militsia, and each day there were demonstrations, which involved a growing number of people, speeches and songs from the building of Melantrich at the Venceslas Square raising people's awareness of the necessity of changes, as well as marching close to solders watching us with guns in an uncertainty, whether they will receive a command to use them that day or not. Each night there were meetings of the Student Striking Committee and of the Civic Forum, planning the next day. Students started to travel to other cities and towns, which followed Prague in the demonstrations, as well as to those which did not, to schools, factories, offices, public meetings, with posters, newspapers, with fresh information. It seemed as if during these days time run differently and so did human possibilities. Sleep was dispensable and excuses were lacking that one is not ready to organise people, to make responsible political decisions, to speak sensibly to the crowd or to media, or even to travel to distant places and lead a dialogue with a working class people or farmers. We knew that if the changes did not work out, those of us who took part in the organising might have to leave the country, if we had the time, or might end in prison or worse.

In 27th November there was a general strike, which meant a political breakthrough. In 9th December a new provisionary government of "national understanding" was established as an agreement of political parties, Civic forum and Public against Violence, with M. Èalfa in charge. In 29^th December Václav Havel was elected president - something unthinkable, which would a couple of months before sounded as a joke. The demonstrations turned into celebrations. Never before or after have I seen that many dancing people in the Old Town Square, as in the New Year's eve of 1990. Havel's speech on the need to continue the living in truth and of its power opened a new part of our history. And, perhaps like the Israelites after having left the slavery of Egypt, so we had to realise that we will not get to the promised land if we avoid the desert and the mount Sinai.

Ten years after

Ten years passed since the Velvet Revolution and one might get discouraged by some of the negative features in our society. The crimes of the suppression still have not been tried and those who were beating people on the streets say that they were only fulfilling commands, those who gave the commands say that they did not beat the people. This example shows an unwillingness to take responsibility for the past. Or one might be continually upset by a short sighted view of the future focussed in the values of consumerism. Not surprisingly, a number of its proponents are people who had their own profit as a priority during the communism, which led via party membership and carrier, and these are now among the right wing business men and women, who again want to gain as much and as quickly as possible at the expense of the less assertive. Those who share such understanding of "the good for me and my family", yet are less successful, dream of the pots of meat they used to have in Egypt. I could go on, but, perhaps, instead of mourning, it is important to follow also the track of the awe of maturing belief and practice of the living in truth.

The fact that we can travel, that there is a freedom of speech, that we can create as many associations as we want and live as religiously as we are able to, helped to see the desire for a deeper human authenticity, yet from another angle. It is less schematic, we have lost a sense of an enemy, of a persecutor coming from outside, in order to discover what is it within us which sustains and what prevents us to live in truth. This has been an important further step not only for individuals, but also for our communal life, including churches. The experience of transformation of a totalitarian society posed questions about transformation of churches too. The experience of 1989 brought into life the hope that changes are possible also in other fronts, and that they do happen, that God is neither meditating, nor wandered away, nor is on a journey, nor asleep in our history.^[9] It does not explain why God acts in history one time and not another time, but leaves us with a sense of gratitude, that some time is also God's kairos.

This time, then, is not the end, but rather a beginning of the process, which reveals a need for a continuous change, for a continuous conversion. Velvet Revolution, thus, appears as an unfinished enterprise, as an invitation to go on.

^[1]See Judges 6:11-27.

^[2]Sincethe late 1970s there were the two main movements defending human rights were Charter 77 and VONS (The Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted), both founded as a response to the Czechoslovak government signing of the Helsinki Accord in 1977, an independent culture was among others spread by Jazz Section and Young Music Society, and in both, political and cultural movements, there was a significant presence of Christians.

^[3]See V. Mencl, M. Hájek, M. Otáhal and E.Kadlecová, Crossroads of XX Century, Naše vojsko, Praha, 1990:392-397.

^[4] See Prague Winter: Restrictions on Religious Freedom in Czechoslovakia Twenty Years After the Soviet Invasion, Puebla Institute, Washington D.C., 1988:52.

^[5] See Crossroads of XX Century, 1990:394.

^[6] ‘None of us, either consciously or unconsciously, should allow a memory of justice and injustice, truth and lie, good and evil, the memory of reality as such to die away.' (‘Right to History', a Document of Charter 77, in ‘Nazism and Catholic Church', Studie 103 (1986), 9)

^[7] As M. Shore in ‘The Sacred and the Myth: Havel's Greengrocer and the Transformation of Ideology in Communist Czechoslovakia' summarizes, it is not harmless, ‘For the statement "Workers of the World Unite!" obscures the exclusion of nonworkers as well as the consequences of this exclusion. This conformity to tacitly prescribed ritual allows the greengrocer to live in peace.' (Contagion: Journal of Mimesis, Violence and Culture, vol.3, Spring 1996: 172)

^[8] As Shore identifies, Havel makes a distinction between a classical totalitarian system and a post-totalitarianism, which, as he says, ‘does not imply that the Czechoslovak communist system is no longer totalitarian, but rather that it embodies a new form of totalitarianism, perhaps best expressed by the frequently used metaphor that while all unanimously express their admiration for the emperor's clothes, everyone is more or less cognizant of the fact that no one can see them.' (1996:175)

^[9]Compare to 1 Kings 18:27.