The Power of the Powerless
The forces of history are always bigger than us – we are at their mercy. What will be our fate? How will destiny unfold? What influences guide us? Can we be dedicated to Living in Truth?
In the Spring of 1968, my 14-year-old teenage attention is laser-focused on Czechoslovakia. The great Alexander Dubček is my hero. As secretary of the Communist Party, he puts the Prague Spring Reforms into place beginning of January that year. In West Germany and France much political turmoil and transformation is happening. Starting at 12 years old, I am devouring books by Albert Camus, Thomas Mann, Nellie Sachs, Heinrich Heine, Günther Grass, Hilde Domin, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and many more. I read Czech writers, poets, and playwrights, like Václav Havel, Bohumil Hrabal, Pavel Kohout, etc. Ours was a socialist family. Every night, we heatedly discuss sociological trends and political events at the dinner table. In 1968, the Prague Spring movement is aiming for Socialism with a human face. What impresses me greatly back then, is that Dubček and the Czechoslovakian reform leaders do not want to copy capitalist countries in the West. To my young rebel spirit, their liberation from within is utterly appealing and admirable, resonating deeply with my innate spirit and budding visions of a better future.
My old German edition of The Tin Drum by Günther Grass
In the night of August 20, 1968, half a million soldiers from the Soviet Union – as well as Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, as part of the Soviet Bloc – march into Czechoslovakia. The morning of August 21, tanks are rolling into Prague. My young teenage self is ignited. Spontaneously, I design and paint big cardboards and mount them on both sides of my bike, declaring: USSR out – Dubček in! The next morning, August 22, I pedal into the big yard of my Gymnasium (public high school, equivalent to elite prep school, but public and free) in Regensburg, and then push my colorfully decorated bike through the indoor halls for everyone to witness. This of course creates a huge uproar and scandal. Supposedly it is forbidden. I am a shy, but on fire, and passionate. The school’s directors call my parents in, and threaten to expulse me. Ultimately, I will park the bike right outside the yard where everyone has to pass by to enter the school – still a very visible statement to my delight. For weeks I drive my “protest bike” everywhere. Western Europe is afraid of the USSR invasion bringing a blood bath. Some are reluctant to support the Czechoslovakian socialist reform movement. Back then, the town of Regensburg is very conservative. But all over Europe, writers, intellectuals, and artists proclaim their solidarity.
Letters from prison to his wife Olga
When I ask my Papa if I can paint our family’s small Renault for the same purpose as my bike, he says he would like it, but we need money for food and rent. He would lose his job as engineer. The company he works for is half-state & half-private with a clear clause against political expression at work which includes the car. My father’s simple response turns into a big lesson for me: what it demands to take care of a family. Food was a serious issue in the early days of our family. I understand – my heart bursts with love. Papa’s many sacrifices burn themselves into my being. That summer, wanting to learn Czech, I find via a newspaper ad, an elder teacher from Prague. A long bike ride away, he is very kind, and each week his wife is preparing tea for us. I feel victorious being able to afford the reasonable private lessons from my small allowance. He introduces me to the Czechoslovakian composers Smetana and Janáček, using the librettos of their operas. I will visit Prague many times, my parents as well, sometimes we travel there together. It is a love affair.
Not only from the history of Nazi times, but also from the Cold War, including the realities of our uncle’s family and grand-parents in East Germany behind the “iron curtain,” I have been educated intimately about the workings of oppression. The Prague Spring in 1968 (Jan 5 - Aug 21, 1968) and its period of increased freedom is suppressed, intellectuals are imprisoned, politicians expulsed from the party, heavily demoted, their lives and survival made extremely difficult. Not till the Velvet Revolution in 1989 are the Czechoslovakian people free to express themselves. What a turn-around for Dubček who now re-emerges from 21 years of having been silenced. In a dramatic twist, Havel becomes president. Complex forces of history are at play.
At age 14, I am propelled to declare my solidarity to the “whole world” via my bike. Today, I see this youthful action in 1968 mirrored in the creation of my 641 Garage Memorial Mural, a two-year endeavor, and a spontaneous response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Back then and now – it is about the power of the powerless. Currently, in some big cities in America, in the land of the free, we the people are brutally and violently invaded and occupied. Yet, there is massive peaceful resistance, people are not lulled. I am so very very proud of those folks in Minnesota. They risk, act and protect. Not for show, but by reflex. Citizens are murdered execution-style in plain daylight by the government’s paramilitary. Then unashamedly, the regime lies to us the people. How do we protect our neighbors? How to stand in solidarity? Defend human rights? And the rights of Earth...
“…man has grasped the world in a way, that has caused him, de facto, to lose it;
he has subdued it by destroying it.” –Václav Havel, 1981, Letters to Olga
Last week, Václav Havel (1936–2011), my life long hero, was again in the news here in America. The Prime Minister of Canada quotes in his speech at Davos from Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless. The metaphor of the greengrocer and his sign in the store. Reading the speech stirs memories in me, dramatic flashes from the past. Over the decades, I have read everything by Václav Havel. To me, he is a European version of Nelson Mandela. The Velvet Revolution in 1989. Twenty-one years later the Prague Spring. Havel was part of both, and after years in prison, he becomes head of State. His moral leadership makes it possible to avoid bloodshed from retribution. This brings home the ultimate victory of great moral strength and conscience. Wise and benevolent leaders are rare on the world stage these days. They will emerge again from the inevitable cycle of the evolutionary renewal process. Like the ordinary people in Minnesota whose actions stun us, and provide inspiration. The forces of history are always bigger than us. But how do we as individuals and communities participate and contribute? That is the deeper question if we want to defy tyranny. Like many others, both Havel and Dubček had to live years and years of imprisonment, interrogations, house searches, isolation, heartbreak and betrayals. They endured and succeeded. This I consider a great consolation and inspiration for us.
The Power of the Powerless – read the brilliant and timely Václav Havel 1985 essay:
https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23
Prague Spring in 1968: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/soviets-crush-prague-spring-1968/
So much to be learned from the Velvet Revolution in 1989 in Czechoslovakia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
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