I thought I would share a couple of quotes, in hopes of facilitating an open discussion. It's taken from Heda Margolius Kovaly's memoir "Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968." Kovaly was a Czechoslovakian citizen during both the German and Russian occupations and totalitarian dictatorships. She made it through Auschwitz, homelessness, starvation, and endless battles in Prague. I found both quotes significant for the present-day situation in the United States. Most citizens believe that nothing devastating could happen to them, that big daddy government will be their saviors, and that tragedies such as the occupations only happen in other countries. I've certainly been educated to believe this; in my history classes, these past devastations seem dream-like, unreachable, like I'm studying something from Ancient Greece, long, long ago. But we have not come a long way from these incidents. They are right behind us, and if we are not careful right in front of us as well. "The capitalist economy inevitably leads to depression, depression to fascism, and fascism to war." "The war had uprooted everything we thought we knew about life, people, history, ourselves; everything we had learned in school, from our parents, from books. The democratic government of Thomas Masaryk had instilled in us the certainty that some things could no longer happen. We had listened with only half an ear when our history teachers discussed torture or the persecution of innocent people. Those things could only have happened a long time ago, in the dark ages. When it happened in our time and in a form war worse than we could imagine, it felt like the end of the world. It seemed to us that we were witnessing a total break in the evolution of mankind, the complete collapse of man as a rational being." I'm not trying to suggest that our current recession or sliding global economy will necessarily lead to events similar to what Kovaly experienced. The point is just that we need to open our eyes and recognize it as a possibility. We need to connect ourselves with the past and with the people who have suffered. Otherwise, if something similar occurs we will be unprepared to counteract and rebel. Please share your thoughts and opinions. PB
Writer Naomi Wolf studied how democracies have been dismantled elsewhere in the world, and looked for similarities in method. In her subsequent book, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (which I have not yet read), she reports her findings. I've heard her speak via the wonders of YouTube and such, and though I have nothing really to add to the conversation at this point, I think you'd find her presentation to be exactly on-topic. She claims that the dismantling of democracies tends to follow the same steps (and she stresses that this is an extremely non-linear progression, where huge changes tend to happen quickly): Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. Create secret prisons where torture takes place. Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens. Set up an internal surveillance system. Harass citizens' groups. Engage in arbitrary detention and release. Target key individuals. Control the press. Treat all political dissents to be traitors. Suspend the rule of law. She talks at length about each, citing specific examples in history and their outcomes. Worth hearing, though I still want the book!
Wolf is a thief! She stole this from Dick Cheney's diary. Passage was titled: "What I Did on My D.C. Vacation."
...Further justifying Kovaly's contention. And it's so sad, it's true. Mass delusion, elite power-holding, breaches of freedoms, rights, and negligence for human life? We have our own Hitlers and Stalins right under our noses!
Bush and his comrades use some of the same tactics to hush the American people that Fascist leaders did. Propaganda, content-less speeches and reassurances, INTENTIONAL destabilizing of both the economy and social ties among Americans, creation of a bubble over America that keeps us completely disengaged from the rest of the world... it's all been done before. And the outcome could be the same.
Did you read Kovaly's memoir? A few chapters for your class? Which classes are you taking in History? The Czechoslovakian revolution is still fresh in the minds of many people, and it's still a reality for the people living there and having gone through the perestroika reformations of the late 1980s-early 1990s. The Czechs coined it rather appropriately in my opinion as the "Velvet Revolution". (It sounds so elegant, refined and very Czech-like, doesn't it?) I disagree that it's so far back in the past for the people living there. It is still very much a reality that Czechs are restructuring their Soviet economic freedom and defining their personal liberties.
No doubt. What I primarily had in mind, though, were Americans. We read Kovaly's entire memoir for a history-based Core class at my university (it's a small liberal arts school, so the Core is kind of unique and difficult to explain).
Well, I mean, the communist system with intendant Soviet occupation ('soft' or 'hard' occupation, depending on the country, but all had Soviet forces not afraid to intervene) was so brutal, dehumanizing, and ineffective in so many ways that the only logical option was its opposite. So, there was America, and there was Western Europe: outwardly prosperous, with food regularly stocked in stores, no rationing in peacetime, none of the political oppression familiar to the Soviet bloc nations. I mean, compared to how Communism worked for them, it was a system that worked. (the democracy in the West, that is.) So when the system finally collapsed under its own economic blunders, and with not insignificant pressure from NATO, America, the European Union, capitalistic democracy was really the only logical response. (They still had to ensure they could bounce back their economy by making trade unions with the West, so part of that capitalistic requirement was the only option.) Of course it has lapsed into a personality cult bordering on fascism in Russia. The tipping point was the fall of the Berlin wall, the attempted coup against Yeltsin in Russia, the independent states in Russia, and the Yugoslav civil wars. That's kind of the tipping point for all Soviet Communism. (When Soviet Russia "dismemembered" in 1991, right?) Well, they all kind of collapsed into each other, each tipping off something else. Agitation for democracy had been bubbling in the Czech Republic almost from the beginning. Like I think plastic_bagism mentioned, there was the 1968 Prague Uprising, and Czechoslovakia was a proud and prospering democracy between 1919 and 1938 before the occupation of Nazi Germany in France, etc. Memories of that died hard, mostly because of Russia - but in one sense, it wasn't all that hard to forget life before Communism. Anyway, I mean - that Czechoslovakia has only recently joined NATO in 1999. It's still a hair-like splinter or a sprouting tree compared to its neighbouring border countries from its recent national stability and economic detachments from Russia's empirical might.
That's pretty cool. I plan on taking my first History course next year. I also go to a small liberal arts school. I take sort of an inter-disciplinary program that allows me to pick courses from various programs and compile them into one degree called "Social Justice and Peace". LOL. I hear ya.
Does Ms. Heda Kovaly talk about the uprisings in Prague much in her book, plastic bagism? I may want to read this book.
Yep. The last half of the book is pretty much all about the uprisings during the end of the German occupation and the beginning of the Russian occupation. She and her husband were pretty involved. I would definitely recommend reading it. Not only is her story fascinating, but she's a brilliant writer.
The first fourth of the book or so is devoted to recounting her experience breaking out of a concentration camp and walking back to Prague with other escapees. After that the setting is all in Prague, and Kovaly discusses the post-war disillusionment and the continuing problems she faced even though she was technically a free citizen.
Awesome, awesome! There's a copy available at the library on campus so I'm going to borrow it. If you ever get a chance to read some of Primo Levi's work, I'd highly recommend it, plastic bagism. Mucho gracias for the hist lit!!
So glad you were able to find a copy. I've read Levi's "Survival in Auschwitz." A couple others of his have been sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of months now. I'm waiting for finals to end before I embark! Enjoy the Kovaly!
