Vaclav Havel Dead

[Sheilbh]

RIP


Edit:  I almost suspect (and hope) that this line from the BBC report is one last joke he's made:

He was comforted in his final moments by his wife Dagmara and several nuns, his secretary was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

[Richard Hakluyt]

 

[Scipio]

RIP, Velvet President.

Hey, that sounds like a funk group.

[Caliga]

 

[Martinus]

RIP

It seems like this Christmas the toll is higher than usual. Cesaria Evoria, Vaclav Havel, Hitchens, a few others as well.

[jimmy olsen]

Sad news, he was a truly great man.

[Sheilbh]

It seems like this Christmas the toll is higher than usual. Cesaria Evoria, Vaclav Havel, Hitchens, a few others as well.

It's certainly higher quality

[mongers]

He remains a great man.

Someone whom many of the conspiracy theory obsessed youth and their fellow internet travelers should look to for inspiration rather than todays youtube charlatans and demagogues they listen to; Havel knew what it was like to live in and struggle against a Real police state.

I remember seeing a filmed undercover interview he gave the bbc in the late 70s, whilst having been notionally released from prison, through the window the film showed just a couple of dozen yards away, two plainclothes state security men permanently monitoring his every move.

[Josephus]

 

[Warspite]

He remains a great man.

Someone whom many of the conspiracy theory obsessed youth and their fellow internet travelers should look to for inspiration rather than todays youtube charlatans and demagogues they listen to; Havel knew what it was like to live in and struggle against a Real police state.

I remember seeing a filmed undercover interview he gave the bbc in the late 70s, whilst having been notionally released from prison, through the window the film showed just a couple of dozen yards away, two plainclothes state security men permanently monitoring his every move.

'The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.'

(To throw a Hitchensism in there)

[Martinus]

Sad news, he was a truly great man.

I'm curious - what do you know about him? His political stances? Etc.

[mongers]

He remains a great man.

Someone whom many of the conspiracy theory obsessed youth and their fellow internet travelers should look to for inspiration rather than todays youtube charlatans and demagogues they listen to; Havel knew what it was like to live in and struggle against a Real police state.

I remember seeing a filmed undercover interview he gave the bbc in the late 70s, whilst having been notionally released from prison, through the window the film showed just a couple of dozen yards away, two plainclothes state security men permanently monitoring his every move.

'The noble title of "dissident" must be earned rather than claimed; it connotes sacrifice and risk rather than mere disagreement.'

(To throw a Hitchensism in there)

I think he actually rejected that appellation.

[Sheilbh]

Timothy Garton-Ash has a nice appreciation in the Guardian.  Garton-Ash's 'The Uses of Adversity', a collection of essays on his time as a research student in East Berlin, and his subsequent travels around the Eastern Bloc, in the 80s is simply superb and the origin of my admiration of Havel.  It's well worth a read though for the different forms of dissent in the different countries that Garton-Ash writes about.  Especially from a Western perspective that simply sees some general 'collapse of Communism' rather than interesting and unique dissident movements and emerging revolutions. 

His character sketch of Havel is wonderful.  Him sitting in his farmhouse, I think at one point sneaking through the forest to share a cigarette with his secret policemen.  I'll re-read when I get home. 

This has prompted me to read a couple of Havel's essays - I'd only read famous quotations and stories before.  They're worth a look and his website's got a number of them online.

[Sheilbh]

I think he actually rejected that appellation.

I'm not sure it was a simple rejection.

The life of a dissident in Czechoslovakia is really not particularlyjolly, and spending time in Czechoslovak jails is even less so. Our frequent jesting about these matters is not in conflict with their seriousness; rather, it is their inevitable consequence. Perhaps we simply couldn't bear it at all if we were not at once aware of how absurd and so how comic it all is. Many of those who sympathize with us abroad would not understand our joking or would take it for cynicism. (More than once I have noted that, when meeting with foreigners, I do not translate much of what we say, just to be sure.) And when a dissident friend of mine, tasting what, for us, were exotic delights at the American Embassy, hailed them with Patočka's famous remark, "There are things worth suffering for," we all laughed; it never occurred to any of us to consider this unworthy of the dignity of Patočka's heritage, of his tragic death, and of the moral foundations of the dissident stance in general.

In short, perhaps it is part of the plebeian tradition of Czech culture, but here we tend to be more acutely aware of the fact that anyone who takes himself too seriously soon becomes ridiculous, while anyone who always manages to laugh at himself cannot be truly ridiculous.

[dps]