It used to be called the Gramy, but
that was considered too close to the real Grammy. So the
award for the best in Czech music was changed to the Angel
and a statuette with an enormous wingspan was forged for
the occasion. There were no real surprises this year - the
same entertainers win every year - until the award for best
folk group was given to the wrong group. A good group to
be sure, but not the one the judges had voted for. Thankfully
other awards shows went smoother. The Lion award for best
film went to a movie about a carved piece of wood that devours
people. The awards show itself included a belly dancer who
was a bit on the porky side and a human flame-thrower that
set the arm sleeve of one presenter on fire. Now that's
entertainment. There were no such antics for the Mrs. Contest,
not with so many small children on the stage. Setting one
of them alight would not have gone over well with the four
cabinet members sitting in the audience. The government
came out in force for the contest because there's an election
in June and smiling mothers and children always make a great
photo op. The one minister who could claim he was there
on official business was Pavel Dostal, the minister of culture.
He's been under fire himself lately for his unwavering support
for Milan Knizak, the head of the National Gallery. Knizak
insists that the works of Roma artists aren't good enough
for his gallery, but he's not a racist because he once confronted
some neo-Nazis on the street. And his good friend Dostal
is his witness. Too bad Knizak wasn't on hand when another
skinhead stabbed a young Gypsy boy to death last year. The
judge concluded that the crime was racially motivated and
therefore gave him a sentence so stiff that it took even
the prosecution by surprise. Fourteen years, just four shy
of the victim's age. The one minister who never fails to
show at a Mrs. Contest is Stanislav Gross. The minister
of interior has been having family problems since it was
discovered that he owned a condo worth far more than he
can afford. At first he claimed his wife made all the money
by selling Amway (yes, Amway), only later did he admit that
what she does is promotion work for a company very much
interested in his office. And yet he remains the most popular
politician in the country because, well, he was the most
popular politician last year, and the year before
If he were a singer, he would definitely have a whole role
of Angels on his shelf by now. At least his ministry isn't
actually being accused of corruption, not like what's going
on over at Health. The ministry recently awarded a six million
dollar contract to an institute run by one of its own deputy
ministers. When asked why one of his deputies was chosen
to run the institute in the first place, the cadaverous-looking
minister of health replied simply that somebody's got to
do it (more Amway logic). Up on the hill, the Castle couldn't
as easily dismiss the scandal involving the presidential
guard. The leader of the guard, who fancied himself a ladies
man in the company of supermodels and the First Lady, had
been abruptly dismissed last year. And now, just days after
president Havel signed a bill ordering the archives to release
the names of former agents of the secret police, it was
revealed that the ladies man had been one of them, with
the absurd code name of Dostoyevsky. Not that nobody knew
about the former Agent Dostoyevsky. He and over 100 other
former agents had failed their security checks way back
when and only last year did the bureaucracy finally catch
up with them. The USA has expressed its displeasure about
the inept security checks being conducted by the Czech government.
One especially frustrating case concerns the second-in-command
of the National Police Force, whose security check was reportedly
rubber-stamped. This coming on top of the police force being
accused of muscling its way into parliament in violation
of the law. Thirty uniformed officers, some of them armed,
had barged in to hear the proceedings on a law aimed at
them. The president of the force tried to talk his way out
of the affair with his own Amway logic, but the head of
security for Parliament insists it was he who gave the green
light. And still all of these scandals were nothing compared
to all the attention still being given to the Benes Decrees.
Every time a column appears hinting that the Czechs must
come to terms with this uncomfortable chapter in their history,
a flood of letters overtake the editors. The gist of most
of them is, like hell we will! The argument has become more
heated now that Hungary too has demanded that the decrees
be nullified. The biggest fear is not having to say, "We
did a terrible thing", rather having to pay for doing
a terrible thing. The irony is that the Germans who were
expelled ended up much better off economically and politically
than the few who were allowed to stay behind. To make matters
worse, the government has begun returning the lands and
castles that once belonged to the former nobility. The nobility
insists all this property rightfully belongs to them because
it was stolen from them in turn by the First Republic, the
Nazis and the Communists. What they neglected to mention
is who they stole it from in the first place.
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