The first time I went to the country was (I had somehow forgotten this) during the Velvet Revolution of 1989. It was still underway, but the president had resigned. Though I don't remember seeing any protests, I had a faint idea at the time. Change was afoot. After all, we were suddenly able to visit.
We'd watched the Berlin Wall fall not 6 weeks before on television, and Vaclav Havel, the man about to become the last president of Czechoslovakia (later the first president of the Czech Republic) had been arrested only 5 weeks before our arrival, during the first big protest in Wenceslas Square. He became president about 3 days after we flew back.
From my perspective, we went to see family for Christmas, which was wonderful for multiple reasons, not least of which was that it was so different. Everything was utterly grey, though. The Czech capital, Prague, looked nothing like how it looks now; it was a shock a few years later to visit again and discover that it's a gorgeous city. (Digression: history in the making again, take a look at Prague during COVID-19 lockdown in the short film The Silence of Prague. In the second to last shot, just as the title gets to the top of the screen, there's an old city square with a clock tower on the left. My mom was just telling me that she lived right around the corner of that clock tower in college, meters from what you can see in the frame.) My parents had mentioned protests and communism ending in the country, but it was all pretty distant to me, even though technically we were there.
The moment in history is called the Velvet Revolution (or the Gentle Revolution) because it wasn't violent, in general, and this was no mistake. Hundreds of different pamphlets had been circulating in the capital, and the sentiment on the street was to keep a premium on peaceful protest and maintain "humanness" under all circumstances. Of the two most famous flyers going around at the time, one was called "The Eight Rules of Dialogue." My mom has mentioned it to me before and read it out loud, translating it for me, but that was much later and I didn't put it in context until now. The Eight Rules set the stage for a new democracy.
More than 100 years before, Marx and Engels had called for a "violent revolution" as the only way to get communism up and running. But once Marx could see the consequences of those words in persistent brutality and dysfunction, he admitted that the statement had been a grievous mistake. Which brings us back to Czech communism: mistakenly brought in with violence, peacefully dismissed with protest when it simply didn't work anymore.
Vaclav Havel, the new president, had long been a popular playwright, poet, revolutionary, and essayist—since the 60s. Here's a quotation I like:
"I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions."
To me, that's a reminder of what democracy is about and why it works. We use words.
Here are the Eight Rules from that famous flyer, courtesy of the book Revolution with a Human Face by James Krapfl:
"The Eight Rules of Dialogue"
1. Your opponent is not an enemy but a partner in search of truth. The goal of our discussion is truth, in no case intellectual competition. Participation in dialogue assumes a triple respect: toward truth, toward the other, and toward the self.
2. Try to understand each other. If you do not correctly understand the opinion of your opponent, you can neither refute his claims nor accept them. Formulate for yourself the objections of your partner, so that it may be clear how you understand him.
3. Don't present insistence without objective reasons as an argument. In such a case it is just a matter of your opinion and your partner need not concede the weight of the argument.
4. Don't skirt the issue. Do not avoid unpleasant questions or arguments by directing the issue elsewhere.
5. Don't try to have the last word at all costs. No quantity of words can make up for a missing argument. Silencing a partner does not mean refutation of his argument or disavowal of his ideas.
6. Don't undercut the personal dignity of your opponent. Whoever attacks the person of his opponent, rather than his thought, loses the right to participate in dialogue.
7. Don't forget that dialogue requires discipline. In the end it is with reason, never with emotion, that we form our claims and judgments. He who is unable intelligibly and calmly to express his opinion cannot conduct a worthwhile conversation with others.
8. Don't confuse dialogue with monologue. Everyone has the same right to express himself. Don't get lost in minor details. Consideration toward everyone else can be expressed by your ability to save time.
I must say that's a truly awesome way to have a revolution.
I must say that's a truly awesome way to have a revolution.
