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The month, and year, started off on
a sour note. With elections on the horizon, President Havel
used his New Year's address to urge his fellow citizens
to turn out what he called the tightly-knit brotherhood
now running the country. Havel, the only president this
country has known since returning to democracy, abhors the
idea that his successor will be either current premier Milos
Zeman of the Social Democrats or, even worse, the leader
of the Civic Democrats, Václav Klaus. Zeman, who has alienated
the Castle with his all-too cozy relationship with Klaus,
would be even less welcomed as president in neighboring
Austria and Germany. The Austrian far-right party under
Jorg Haider organized a petition this month against the
nuclear power plant in Temelin. The petition got a weak
show of support and Prague and Vienna had already worked
out a compromise involving safety upgrades for the plant.
But it managed to goad the uncouth Zeman into saying some
nasty things. After calling Haider a Fascist (who in turn
called Zeman a Communist), the premier launched into a tirade
against the Sudeten minority that was expelled from Czechoslovakia
at the end of the war and which now gives substantial support
to Haider. He labeled them traitors, adding that their expulsion
was the minimum punishment which they deserved. And for
good measure, he called anyone who signed the petition,
Sudeten or otherwise, an idiot. Imagine an honor guard welcoming
this man as president in Vienna. Klaus might find more of
a reception, if only because he has proved himself to be
as big a Euro-skeptic as Haider is. He is also a fanatical
sportsman and sees nothing wrong with lending his face to
an advertising billboard for a German ski company. The rest
of the political establishment denounced it as a cynical
ploy by Klaus to divorce himself from the fat, chain-smoking
Zeman before the elections. Ethics have never been Klaus'
strong suit, as evident in his relationship with Vladimir
®elezný, the TV magnate accused of swindling his former
partners. The police no sooner let ®elezný out of jail than
Klaus welcomes him on the floor of parliament. In response,
66 artists have written an open letter to Klaus demanding
that he come clean about himself and ®elezný. The letter
was political in its scope, numbering among its "artists"
several of Klaus' opponents from the strike at Czech TV,
but it too goaded him into making some ludicrous comments.
Such a letter, he insists, endangers his freedom and the
freedom of the whole country. People's courts are a thing
of the past, he added, and so long as ®elezný is an innocent
man, he will welcome him wherever he pleases. Fair enough.
But Klaus should take a leaf from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar,
when the citizens of Rome come across a man they believe
is one of the senators who took part in assassinating Caesar.
"No, no," he pleads, "I'm not Cinna the senator,
I'm Cinna the poet." No matter, tear him apart for
his bad poetry, they reply. And that was the end of Cinna.
Even if ®elezný is just an honest intellectual who struck
it rich, as Klaus insists he is, he should still be torn
apart for his bourgeois television. His station actually
holds an awards show for itself and elevates its anchor
girls and investigative journalists to rock star status.
As for the real stars, who plug one kitschy variety show
after another for TV Nova, they haven't changed faces since
the station started. The majority of them started their
careers under the old regime and one of them, Helena Vondrackova,
has just lost her suit against a reporter who claimed she
had been a party girl for the Communists. She was demanding
an apology, which is pretty cocky coming from a woman who
once recorded a duet with David Hasselhof. She declined
to make an appearance in court, perhaps as a guarantee against
crossing paths with ex-premier Lubomir Strougal, whom she
was linked to for many years. Strougal stands accused of
covering up three murders carried out in the 1950s by the
secret police. This was the era of the people's courts that
Klaus was alluding to, when honest intellectuals like Milada
Horakova were summarily tried and executed by the government.
Another of those executed was General Pika, who helped free
Czechoslovakia from the Nazis. The man who prosecuted Pika
was recently set free by the courts. Although he had submitted
forged documents to ensure the execution of Pika, the court
ruled that he was covered by a statute of limitations that
dates back to the Hapsburg Dynasty. The old man emerged
from court and, with his trademark sour mien on his face,
declared total victory for himself. If only he were a poet.
The real poet himself, President Havel, hasn't had much
to say about old political enemies getting away with murder.
The end of the month closed with a celebration honoring
the 25th anniversary of Charter 77. The charter, signed
by Havel and others during the rule of Mr. Strougal, amounted
to a declaration of free thought and expression. The Communist
government reacted by throwing a number of them in jail
and issuing its own "Anti-Charter" to rally the
artistic and academic community behind it. Most signed because
their careers depended on it and Mr. Havel showed no bitterness
towards them in a speech that got less attention that the
buffet table. They came around later, he claimed. One of
them was at his side no less, the First Lady, who was a
working artist at the time the government went around collecting
signatures.
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