Must We Adore Vaclav Havel?
1) Michael Parenti: Must We Adore Vaclav Havel?
2) Human rights more important than state rights
=== 1 ===
Da: Michael Parenti
Oggetto: [Clarity] Must We Adore Vaclav Havel
Data: 19 dicembre 2011 01.03.07 GMT+01.00
A: Michael Parenti <clarity@...>
Havel just died and the mainstream press is filled with adulatory obits.
Here is what I wrote about him about 15 years ago which might give readers a more substantive picture:
From Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds (1997) pp. 97-99:
Must We Adore Vaclav Havel?
No figure among the capitalist restorationists in the East has won more adulation from U.S. officials, media pundits, and academics than Vaclav Havel, a playwright who became the first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia and later president of the Czech Republic. The many left-leaning people who also admire Havel seem to have overlooked some things about him: his reactionary religious obscurantism, his undemocratic suppression of leftist opponents, and his profound dedication to economic inequality and unrestrained free-market capitalism.
Raised by governesses and chauffeurs in a wealthy and fervently anticommunist family, Havel denounced democracy's "cult of objectivity and statistical average" and the idea that rational, collective social efforts should be applied to solving the environmental crisis. He called for a new breed of political leader who would rely less on "rational, cognitive thinking," show "humility in the face of the mysterious order of the Being," and "trust in his own subjectivity as his principal link with the subjectivity of the world." Apparently, this new breed of leader would be a superior elitist cogitator, not unlike Plato's philosopher, endowed with a "sense of transcendental responsibility" and "archetypal wisdom." Havel never explained how this transcendent archetypal wisdom would translate into actual policy decisions, and for whose benefit at whose expense.
Havel called for efforts to preserve the Christian family in the Christian nation. Presenting himself as a man of peace and stating that he would never sell arms to oppressive regimes, he sold weapons to the Philippines and the fascist regime in Thailand. In June 1994, General Pinochet, the man who butchered Chilean democracy, was reported to be arms shopping in Czechoslovakia - with no audible objections from Havel.
Havel joined wholeheartedly in George Bush's Gulf War, an enterprise that killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. In 1991, along with other [e]astern European pro-capitalist leaders, Havel voted with the United States to condemn human rights violations in Cuba. But he has never uttered a word of condemnation of rights violations in El Salvador, Columbia, Indonesia, or any other U.S. client state.
In 1992, while president of Czechoslovakia, Havel, the great democrat, demanded that parliament be suspended and he be allowed to rule by edict, the better to ram through free-market "reforms." That same year, he signed a law that made the advocacy of communism a felony with a penalty of up to eight years imprisonment. He claimed the Czech constitution required him to sign it. In fact, as he knew, the law violated the Charter of Human Rights which is incorporated into the Czech constitution. In any case, it did not require his signature to become law. in 1995, he supported and signed another undemocratic law barring communists and former communists from employment in public agencies.
The propagation of anticommunism has remained a top priority for Havel. He led "a frantic international campaign" to keep in operation two U.S.-financed, cold war radio stations, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, so they could continue saturating Eastern Europe with their anticommunist propaganda.
Under Havel's government, a law was passed making it a crime to propagate national, religious, and CLASS hatred. In effect, criticisms of big moneyed interests were now illegal, being unjustifiably lumped with ethnic and religious bigotry. Havel's government warned labor unions not to involve themselves in politics. Some militant unions had their property taken from them and handed over to compliant company unions.
In 1995, Havel announced that the 'revolution' against communism would not be complete until everything was privatized. Havel's government liquidated the properties of the Socialist Union of Youth - which included camp sites, recreation halls, and cultural and scientific facilities for children - putting the properties under the management of five joint stock companies, at the expense of the youth who were left to roam the streets.
Under Czech privatization and "restitution" programs, factories, shops, estates, homes, and much of the public land was sold at bargain prices to foreign and domestic capitalists. In the Czech and Slovak republics, former aristocrats or their heirs were being given back all lands their families had held before 1918 under the Austro-Hungarian empire, dispossessing the previous occupants and sending many of them into destitution. Havel himself took personal ownership of public properties that had belonged to his family forty years before. While presenting himself as a man dedicated to doing good for others, he did well for himself. For these reasons some of us do not have warm fuzzy feelings toward Vaclav Havel.
--- Michael Parenti
_______________________________________________
Clarity mailing list
Clarity@...
http://transpacific.net/mailman/listinfo/clarity
Here is what I wrote about him about 15 years ago which might give readers a more substantive picture:
From Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds (1997) pp. 97-99:
Must We Adore Vaclav Havel?
No figure among the capitalist restorationists in the East has won more adulation from U.S. officials, media pundits, and academics than Vaclav Havel, a playwright who became the first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia and later president of the Czech Republic. The many left-leaning people who also admire Havel seem to have overlooked some things about him: his reactionary religious obscurantism, his undemocratic suppression of leftist opponents, and his profound dedication to economic inequality and unrestrained free-market capitalism.
Raised by governesses and chauffeurs in a wealthy and fervently anticommunist family, Havel denounced democracy's "cult of objectivity and statistical average" and the idea that rational, collective social efforts should be applied to solving the environmental crisis. He called for a new breed of political leader who would rely less on "rational, cognitive thinking," show "humility in the face of the mysterious order of the Being," and "trust in his own subjectivity as his principal link with the subjectivity of the world." Apparently, this new breed of leader would be a superior elitist cogitator, not unlike Plato's philosopher, endowed with a "sense of transcendental responsibility" and "archetypal wisdom." Havel never explained how this transcendent archetypal wisdom would translate into actual policy decisions, and for whose benefit at whose expense.
Havel called for efforts to preserve the Christian family in the Christian nation. Presenting himself as a man of peace and stating that he would never sell arms to oppressive regimes, he sold weapons to the Philippines and the fascist regime in Thailand. In June 1994, General Pinochet, the man who butchered Chilean democracy, was reported to be arms shopping in Czechoslovakia - with no audible objections from Havel.
Havel joined wholeheartedly in George Bush's Gulf War, an enterprise that killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. In 1991, along with other [e]astern European pro-capitalist leaders, Havel voted with the United States to condemn human rights violations in Cuba. But he has never uttered a word of condemnation of rights violations in El Salvador, Columbia, Indonesia, or any other U.S. client state.
In 1992, while president of Czechoslovakia, Havel, the great democrat, demanded that parliament be suspended and he be allowed to rule by edict, the better to ram through free-market "reforms." That same year, he signed a law that made the advocacy of communism a felony with a penalty of up to eight years imprisonment. He claimed the Czech constitution required him to sign it. In fact, as he knew, the law violated the Charter of Human Rights which is incorporated into the Czech constitution. In any case, it did not require his signature to become law. in 1995, he supported and signed another undemocratic law barring communists and former communists from employment in public agencies.
The propagation of anticommunism has remained a top priority for Havel. He led "a frantic international campaign" to keep in operation two U.S.-financed, cold war radio stations, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, so they could continue saturating Eastern Europe with their anticommunist propaganda.
Under Havel's government, a law was passed making it a crime to propagate national, religious, and CLASS hatred. In effect, criticisms of big moneyed interests were now illegal, being unjustifiably lumped with ethnic and religious bigotry. Havel's government warned labor unions not to involve themselves in politics. Some militant unions had their property taken from them and handed over to compliant company unions.
In 1995, Havel announced that the 'revolution' against communism would not be complete until everything was privatized. Havel's government liquidated the properties of the Socialist Union of Youth - which included camp sites, recreation halls, and cultural and scientific facilities for children - putting the properties under the management of five joint stock companies, at the expense of the youth who were left to roam the streets.
Under Czech privatization and "restitution" programs, factories, shops, estates, homes, and much of the public land was sold at bargain prices to foreign and domestic capitalists. In the Czech and Slovak republics, former aristocrats or their heirs were being given back all lands their families had held before 1918 under the Austro-Hungarian empire, dispossessing the previous occupants and sending many of them into destitution. Havel himself took personal ownership of public properties that had belonged to his family forty years before. While presenting himself as a man dedicated to doing good for others, he did well for himself. For these reasons some of us do not have warm fuzzy feelings toward Vaclav Havel.
--- Michael Parenti
_______________________________________________
Clarity mailing list
Clarity@...
http://transpacific.net/mailman/listinfo/clarity
=== 2 ===
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Archived+story+Bombs+combat+evil+Czech+president+Vaclav+Havel+says/5879053/story.html
Ottawa Citizen - December 18, 2011
Archived story: Bombs 'combat evil,' Czech president Vaclav Havel says
Human rights more important than state rights
By Juliet O'Neill
This article was originally published in The Ottawa Citizen, April 17, 1999.
PRAGUE: Czech President Vaclav Havel says the NATO bombing campaign is totally justified in the face of evil and that the rights of people must take precedence over the sovereignty of the state of Yugoslavia.
In an exclusive interview with the Citizen, the president of one of NATO's three new member countries said he will address the Canadian Parliament on the theme of human rights versus state rights during his visit to Ottawa in late April.
His unambiguous support for NATO is controversial in the Czech Republic, where the government has been deeply divided over the bombings and the country's ambassador to NATO was threatened with recall for being candid about the internal conflict at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
...Mr. Havel said he not only supports the NATO action but was labelled "a warmonger" for calling long ago for military force against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
"My opinion is that evil must be combatted and that force can be used in combatting evil if it becomes truly necessary,'' he said. In his view, force is the only way to get Mr. Milosevic to engage in genuine political negotiations. Diplomatic efforts had been exhausted, genocidal attacks intensified and NATO had no choice.
...
The NATO air strikes, which began only days after the alliance memberships of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were formalized, created such havoc in the government here that Mr. Havel worried aloud that the 19-member military alliance might hesitate about enlarging any farther to include other Central and East European countries formerly in the Soviet sphere.
The interview was held at Mr. Havel's huge office, adorned with personally chosen contemporary art, at the Prague Castle.
...Mr. Havel understood the interview questions in English but answered through an interpreter...
Mr. Havel's personal stature suffered a blow a few years ago when he married glamourous actress Dagmar Veskrnova, the woman who nursed him through his brush with cancer and took on the role of first lady with gusto. The marriage came a little less than a year after the death of his first wife, Olga.
Ms. Veskrnova is to accompany Mr. Havel on his 12-day North American trip, which begins next week at NATO's 50th-anniversary events in Washington and ends with a three-day swing to Canada, April 28-30, where he will receive an honorary degree at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg before flying to Ottawa to address a joint session of the House of Commons and the Senate.
In the interview, Mr. Havel said the character of the NATO events in Washington next week will be changed as a result of the war.
"I doubt if the celebratory elements will be stressed,'' he said, noting the gathering, planned before the bombing campaign, was intended to adopt a new strategy for the 21st century.
He was unperturbed about NATO violating the principle of state sovereignty by intervening in an internal conflict or about the absence of United Nations Security Council authorization for the attacks.
For one thing, he said, NATO was following its own model from when it bombed Serb targets during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina...
For another, he said, NATO's action conforms to the spirit of previous UN Security Council resolutions.
"Of course it would be better if there were a direct mandate from the Security Council,'' he said.
"But there are certain situations where the concern for the fate of human beings simply leads democratic states to taking actions, even without such a legal background, because in some cases the rights of man have to take precedence over the sovereignty of the state.''
"...The establishment of the Kosovo Liberation Army -- which is not made up of saints either - was a reaction to the oppression on the part of Milosevic's regime and especially the fact that Kosovo was deprived of its autonomy 10 years ago.''
Mr. Havel said he does not know how the situation will be resolved but he knows how it should be settled. ``The key is obtaining Yugoslavia's consent for the presence of peacekeeping forces on that territory,'' he said.
...
"This kind of ceasefire could pave the way for political negotiations on the future state of Kosovo, which obviously will be complex and it's difficult to predict a result,'' he said. "But without the presence of peacekeeping forces on the territory, I do not think the conflict can be stopped.''
He hopes it ends as soon as possible. "It now largely depends on President Milosevic.''
This article was originally published in The Ottawa Citizen, April 17, 1999.
PRAGUE: Czech President Vaclav Havel says the NATO bombing campaign is totally justified in the face of evil and that the rights of people must take precedence over the sovereignty of the state of Yugoslavia.
In an exclusive interview with the Citizen, the president of one of NATO's three new member countries said he will address the Canadian Parliament on the theme of human rights versus state rights during his visit to Ottawa in late April.
His unambiguous support for NATO is controversial in the Czech Republic, where the government has been deeply divided over the bombings and the country's ambassador to NATO was threatened with recall for being candid about the internal conflict at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
...Mr. Havel said he not only supports the NATO action but was labelled "a warmonger" for calling long ago for military force against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
"My opinion is that evil must be combatted and that force can be used in combatting evil if it becomes truly necessary,'' he said. In his view, force is the only way to get Mr. Milosevic to engage in genuine political negotiations. Diplomatic efforts had been exhausted, genocidal attacks intensified and NATO had no choice.
...
The NATO air strikes, which began only days after the alliance memberships of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were formalized, created such havoc in the government here that Mr. Havel worried aloud that the 19-member military alliance might hesitate about enlarging any farther to include other Central and East European countries formerly in the Soviet sphere.
The interview was held at Mr. Havel's huge office, adorned with personally chosen contemporary art, at the Prague Castle.
...Mr. Havel understood the interview questions in English but answered through an interpreter...
Mr. Havel's personal stature suffered a blow a few years ago when he married glamourous actress Dagmar Veskrnova, the woman who nursed him through his brush with cancer and took on the role of first lady with gusto. The marriage came a little less than a year after the death of his first wife, Olga.
Ms. Veskrnova is to accompany Mr. Havel on his 12-day North American trip, which begins next week at NATO's 50th-anniversary events in Washington and ends with a three-day swing to Canada, April 28-30, where he will receive an honorary degree at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg before flying to Ottawa to address a joint session of the House of Commons and the Senate.
In the interview, Mr. Havel said the character of the NATO events in Washington next week will be changed as a result of the war.
"I doubt if the celebratory elements will be stressed,'' he said, noting the gathering, planned before the bombing campaign, was intended to adopt a new strategy for the 21st century.
He was unperturbed about NATO violating the principle of state sovereignty by intervening in an internal conflict or about the absence of United Nations Security Council authorization for the attacks.
For one thing, he said, NATO was following its own model from when it bombed Serb targets during the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina...
For another, he said, NATO's action conforms to the spirit of previous UN Security Council resolutions.
"Of course it would be better if there were a direct mandate from the Security Council,'' he said.
"But there are certain situations where the concern for the fate of human beings simply leads democratic states to taking actions, even without such a legal background, because in some cases the rights of man have to take precedence over the sovereignty of the state.''
"...The establishment of the Kosovo Liberation Army -- which is not made up of saints either - was a reaction to the oppression on the part of Milosevic's regime and especially the fact that Kosovo was deprived of its autonomy 10 years ago.''
Mr. Havel said he does not know how the situation will be resolved but he knows how it should be settled. ``The key is obtaining Yugoslavia's consent for the presence of peacekeeping forces on that territory,'' he said.
...
"This kind of ceasefire could pave the way for political negotiations on the future state of Kosovo, which obviously will be complex and it's difficult to predict a result,'' he said. "But without the presence of peacekeeping forces on the territory, I do not think the conflict can be stopped.''
He hopes it ends as soon as possible. "It now largely depends on President Milosevic.''
=== * ===
E' nata indoona : chiama, videochiama e messaggia Gratis.
Scarica indoona per iPhone, Android e PC