THAT YOU ARE WATERY WORDS AND UNTO DUSTY WORDS YOU SHALL RETURN

The Luck of the Slavs: Discover New Brutal Dreamers!
(West of Hell: Cold River)

Cast your minds back to the late 1970s when West German and Austrian journalists began to spot an interesting trend. A new series of risky escapes across the Iron Curtain had captured the hearts of the newspaper readers' with the consequence that - shock horror! - youth of Eastern Europe actually risked their lives in order to be free.

Czechoslovak's experience was simple: by 1977 the internal crisis of the totalitarian system grew so deep that it became clear to everyone, and when more and more young people learned to speak their own language and rejected the hollow, mendacious language of the powers that be, it meant that freedom seemed remarkably close, if not directly within reach. As soon as the theme of the Charter 77 spread through pubs, it seemed that the king was naked and the mysterious radiant energy that came from the charter turned out to be more powerful than the strongest army, police force, or party organization, stronger than the greatest power of a centrally directed and centrally devastated economy, or of the centrally controlled and centrally enslaved media.

What communists all had in common was the apparent need to steal extra priviledges, such as access to goods sold at tuzex shops, and to acquire amazing amount of power for doing whatever it was Husaks of our world did.

Meanwhile, many samizdat newsletters repeated the words of their teachers, such as Marta Chamillova: If you want to set something afire, you must burn yourself.

Censored letters from my two exiled aunties, French Zofka and West German Otka, eroded some of the myths and told many fascinating stories betwen the lines. At the heart of all oppression lies the abuse of freedom. My parents were denied the opportunity to visit their sisters living in the West. Lacking the protection of procommunist family, I have experienced what it was like to be taken for a slave...(more)
· Crossing the Iron Curtain in '1980' was Our Final Distinction From '1984.' [Musing about People ]
· Be Loyal to People Not Institutions [Chicago Tribune]