R.I.P., Vaclav Havel A hero of mine has died. Another great intellectual light has left the planet. The Czech National flag and two black flags wave in front of Saint Vitus Cathedral
I only met Havel twice and wouldn't pretend to know him well. But he mattered as much to me as my father ... I met him once in Prague after he signed the Charter 77 and again in 1995 when Johno Johnson, President of NSW Legislative Council fame, invited me to luncheon in Sydney Parliament House. But I really first met Vaclav Havel at my sister Aga’s deathbead in 1975 when I first came across his classic play, Vyrozumní (The Memorandum). He was something of a bohemian George Orwell. Like Orwell, Havel satirised the 'doublespeak' of the official bureaucratic language of the communist regime …
In 2003 I wrote a short tribute to my hero who even inspired me to grow moustache after the military service in Czechoslovakia circa 1979 to 2003 when I shaved my moustache as Havel’s political era was over Today I Farewell My Teenage Hero: Vaclav Havel
The Cold River: A Tale From My Heart
Message from Vaclav Havel
We are all hugely diminished today by the passing of a man, small of height but towering in moral stature and courage over those he called the "professional rulers" ; Cold River: The Cold Truth of Vaclav Havel’s Freedom
Havel’s talent for the theatre of the absurd, when read in the context of the communist experience, is just mind boggling
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather,
When our hopes and our troubles were new,
In the years spent in wearing out leather,
I found you unselfish and true —
I have gathered these verses together
For the sake of our friendship and you…
Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.
- Vaclav Havel
Bells ring across country to commemorate Václav Havel Vaclav Havel: Living in truth A man for all seasons on behalf of liberty
Vaclav Havel's death is a reminder of something which parts of modern world are in danger of taking for granted, at best, and, at worst, of forgetting altogether.
Candles are placed at the Venceslav Square to commemorate the death of former Czech president Vaclav Havel, in central Prague, Czech Republic, December 18, 2011
How good a dramatist was Václav Havel? Undeniably one with a wry, sceptical, highly original voice. But he defied the easy labels we love to slap on writers. Just as Latin American novelists often claim that what we term "magic realism" is for them a truthful picture of life, so Havel made nonsense of the "absurdist" category to which he was sometimes consigned by critics. His plays are not a cry of protest against a meaningless universe. "The ultimate aim of Havel's plays," as translator Vera Blackwell wrote, "is the improvement of man's lot through the improvement of human institutions."
YOU could hear Vaclav Havel coming down the corridor of the palace a few minutes in advance. Clip-clip, clip-clop: the accelerated walk of a short-legged man in a hurry. And always the loud chatter of his political advisers, their competing voices like birdsong at dusk. Then came the whiff of cigarette smoke, and with a flourish, the man himself - a theatrical entrance for a playwright-turned-politician. As early as 1988, Havel had hatched the idea of a play about power and integrity. Then the world changed and for 13 years he was head of state, first of united Czechoslovakia and then of the Czech Republic. He moved from being a Velvet Underground fan, to being the architect of the Velvet Revolution and a reluctant co-negotiator of the Velvet Divorce from Slovakia.
• Vaclav , shy and bookish, with a wispy mustache ...Vaclav Havel's Lasting Words ; Google on Havel [The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less Quotes ; Cold War icon Havel dies ; To lose either Christopher Hitchens or Vaclav Havel would be burden enough to bear but to lose them both in the same week is cruel punishment, indeed. ; His home village of Hrádeček Images of Vaclav; As a practical politician and playwright, late former president Vaclav Havel would most probably carefully watch who will come for the funeral ]• · The dissident playwright who wove theatre into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War ; Vale Václav Havel ; Czech pay tribute to revolution icon Vaclav Havel ; Havel, a playwright, spent a ton of time in jail for his political writings
• · · Twenty-two years ago, almost to the day, thousands in Prague's Wenceslas Square roared, "Havel to the Castle." Days later, like a house of cards, Moscow's puppet government collapsed. On December 29, 1989, Vaclav Havel, the dissident artist who had begun the year in prison, took the oath of office as president of Czechoslovakia We will live in an indifferent, demoralized and undemocratic society ; The surrealism of encountering Mr. Havel and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright at the tiny Brick Theatre will NEVER leave my mind.
• · · · Vaclav Havel personified the “power of the powerless.” He understood — as John Paul II understood – the value of integrity, the value of truth. Vaclav Havel: I Was Told in 1968, "You Must Become President"*; When Václav Havel and 241 others signed Charter 77 during the Cold War in 1977, they were denounced by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia as "traitors and renegades" and "agents of imperialism." Such were the epithets by which some of the most courageous Europeans of the 20th century were known
• · · · · In the spirit of the season, and in honor of Vaclav Havel, who died Sunday (and whose life I’ve remembered in another post), what follows is a top-ten list, the first entry being Havel’s greatest hits, and the rest books and writers whom Havel admired—contemporaries or near contemporaries who lived in the same region and under similar regimes. (I am sticking here to non-fiction prose.) They, like Havel, are men and women who lived, and wrote within the truth ; The more platforms we invent, the more stories we need. Stories are critical to winning in the "Lifestream" we are in. When you're a marketer with an annual sales target to hit, stories are your best friend for connecting with consumers. Stand Up The Storytellers - New Havels Wanted Openness is fundamental to representative government. Yet the congressional process is replete with activities and actions that are private and not observable by the public. How to distinguish reasonable legislative secrecy from impractical transparency is a topic that produces disagreement on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Why? Because lawmaking is critical to the governance of the nation. Scores of people in the attentive public want to observe and learn about congressional proceedings. Openness is fundamental to representative government
• · · · · · Organised crime has long been big business in the country. But are mafiosi now enjoying protection by the state Who runs Russia? ; News of the deaths of Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il hit Burma at high speed this week, and many Burmese rushed online to share their thoughts about the leader of the Czech people, who they admired, and the oppressor of the North Korean people, who they disdained. Kim Jong Il and Vaclav Havel: Two leaders a world apart = Farewell to a Revolutionary, Good Riddance to a Despot
Every man should have a fair-sized cemetery
in which to bury the faults of his friends.
- Henry Brooks Adams