A Monument to Freedom of Speech: Havel's Place

After living in D.C. for a few years, I have become a daily witness to the statues of soldiers galloping on horses, politicians enthroned on gigantic ancient chairs holding scrolls presumably of some ancient wisdom, and orators frozen during an impassioned speech. The memorials to political events and figures sprinkled around the city are rarely understated pieces of art. They often clumsily navigate the process of portraying a semi-​realistic figure alongside abstract ideals like equality, suffrage, and liberty. Political events etched in stone to be larger than life imbue everyone entering the Capitol that politics is indeed something very commendable, stemming from the noblest origins. But one public art project reverses this trend of valorizing politics. .

Havel’s Place does not inspire awe; it is the opposite of the grandiose anachronistic approximation of Greco-​Roman architecture many landmarks in Washington, DC are characterized by. It is composed of two garden chairs around a table with a tree growing through the middle.. Rather than a statue hoisting a sword or an overwhelming temple to our ideals, the simple scene of Havel’s Place represents it’s message in a much more understated manner: a place for open, democratic debate. Monuments to political ideals usually show the endpoint of the ideal at play, but in Havel’s place, it shows the beginning of democracy, a simple conversation between equals.

October 3 2023, marks the tenth anniversary of the Havel’s Place installation situated in the Capitol, nestled in a corner of Alumni Square at Georgetown University, the first of a series that have now been placed across the globe. In this episode, I want to talk about the ideas behind Havel’s Places and their increasing absence in our lives. But I cannot do this without explaining the man they are named after, Vaclav Havel, and how he and his fellow dissidents in Czechoslovakia inspired a moral revolution, leading quickly to a political revolution-​- one without violence or bloodshed, a rare gift in the annals of history.

What is now the Czech and Slovak Republics used to be one state. Founded in 1918, declaring independence from the Austro-​Hungarian Empire with support from U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, Czechslokia elected Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk as its first president. A poor working-​class boy turned Czechoslovakia’s foremost sociologist and intellectual, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk began the Czechsloavkian trend of highly cerebral political leaders. This trend has persisted for decades, with many leaders of various political allegiances holding PhDs in the humanities and arts. The revival of Czech and Slovak national identities was intimately tied to the newly established constitutional democracy, which inspired a liberal pride in its citizenry.

It is truly tragic that a budding constitutional democracy a mere twenty years later would be surrendered to Nazi Germany by Britain and France in 1938 at the Munich Conference in a bid to appease Adolf Hitler’s ambitions to avoid War.

Without condemning or condoning it, as we all know, this strategy failed with the world being plunged into the Second World War. Throughout the War, Czechoslovakia was occupied by Nazi forces who aimed to eradicate the Czech and Slovak people. Despite the horrors they faced, the nation of Czechoslovakia made it through the War without losing its national identity or succumbing to the allures of Fascism.

But the end of the War in 1945 did not mean an end to Czechoslovakia’s tribulations. Rather than restoring its constitutional democracy, in 1948, the Soviet Union forces swapped places with the Nazis and became the new occupational force. Barbed wire and watchtowers were erected on the country’s border, enclosing a new involuntary citizenry. Political opponents and dissidents to the new regime were purged. An atmosphere of permanent occupation and fear was firmly established.

Under Communist economic policies, Czechoslovakia began a slow descent into economic decline, despite boasting some of the highest living standards of the USSR throughout the 41-​year Soviet rule. Typically, communists are anathema to libertarians like the crowd at Cato. But I find myself being obligated to praise Alexander Dubeck, appointed as leader of the Czechoslovakian state-​backed Communist Party on January 5, 1968. Unlike his predecessor, he wished to establish “socialism with a human face” more in line with Czechoslovakian norms of liberality and tolerance. He quickly reversed many hardline policies granting much greater freedom of the press, travel, and assembly and limiting the powers of the dreaded secret police. This brief period of hope was dubbed the Prague Spring.

With the opening up of Czechoslovakia came an unprecedented dissemination and discussion of newly available information. While researching, I came across one account of a taxi driver saying no one talked about football while drinking anymore, only politics, a reflection of the widespread hunger for knowledge occupation had repressed. With new information came new demands, with many establishing groups to bolster the wave of civil liberties and democratic reform. People such as the screenwriter Jan Procházka called for freedom of speech and an end to censorship, two things the USSR could not hold together without.

Though Czechsloakians enjoyed their recovered freedoms, USSR Soviet leadership in Moscow fretted that even the slightest chink in their armor would lead to the dissolution of their empire of satellite states. USSR agents surveyed budding dissidents for the first three months of the Prague Spring. Dubeck was summoned to Dresden, where he bravely refused Soviet demands to reverse his liberalization policies. In response, the Soviet Union pressured Dubeck into a meeting in Bratislava. The whole meeting was a sham to buy time. Two weeks later, on August 20 1968, 200,000 Soviet troops marched into Czechoslovakia to reverse Dubeck’s work. To achieve this, the occupying forces implemented a policy of euphemistically named “normalization” policies. Nearly a million citizens lost their jobs or were demoted for participating in the Prague Spring. Censorship was not only reimposed but doubled down to the highest degree. The situation was so extreme that in 1969, a student named Jan Palach set himself on fire in the middle of Prague to protest censorship, an event that harrowed the consciences of Czechoslovakians who kept their heads bowed lower than ever under the new regime.

During this miserable period, every aspect of Czechoslovakian society was tightly regulated, so much so that one needed an official license to perform music. Artists and bands outside of the regime’s acceptable standards began to establish a thriving underground world of authentic art so desperately lacking in the sterile communist regime bent on normalization. One such group was a band named The Plastic People of The Universe, a psychedelic rock band heavily inspired by Frank Zappa while taking influence from jazz music.

One of the band members celebrated his wedding by having rock bands play for the 400 guests at his home village hosting the wedding. This seemingly innocent event caused alarm to the communist authorities, who arrested band members and attendees for supposedly disturbing the public peace with songs that “contained grossly indecent and vulgar expressions.” Throughout the trial, authorities maintained that they were merely prosecuting hooligans for public disorder.

But their intentions were thinly veiled, and the reality was obvious. There was no real crime afoot, but the lifestyle of the band members, their free-​spiritedness, and their expressive nature were in direct opposition to normalization, meaning the regime must find a convenient “crime” to prosecute.

Disgusted by the trial of The Plastic People of the Universe, the philosopher Jan Patočka emerged into the political scene, quickly publishing a defense of the band members as authentic individuals who lead the responsible and authentic life of searching out what no other can do in your place.

One person very closlely following the Plastic People of the Universe was Vaclav Havel, who by 1977, Havel had become recognized in dissident circles for his plays critiquing the insanity of ideology taken to the extreme. Havel had followed the musical underground and was immediately sympathetic to The Plastic People of The Universe’s persecution by the Communist regime, which he had mutually suffered years prior.

The sight of young people on trial simply for performing music touched the hearts of many, a portion of those were sufficiently distraught they realized the extreme need for reform and push back against efforts of normalization. Patočka, alongside Havel and a few dozen more intellectuals, founded Charter 77 , an organization composed of people of all political, religious, and moral persuasions united by conscience and civic responsibility. But Charter 77 was explicitly not a political organization. In Charter 77’s first publication, its members declared, “Charter 77 is a free. informal and open community of people of different beliefs. different faiths and different professions. united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respect of civic and human rights in our country and the whole world.” Chater 77’s immediate aim, in Havel’s words, was “a real everyday struggle for a better life here and now.”

The Communist authorities acted quickly, arresting Havel, Jan Patočka, and other members of Charter 77. After an exhausting eleven-​hour interrogation of an older man in ill health, Jan Patočka died in police custody. Jan Patočka’s Socratic death galvanized members of Charter 77 who committed to a program of promoting freedom of public expression and religion. Charter 77 aimed to promote what is called civil society, the invaluable sinews of society that are eroding in our increasingly politicized world dominated by the state

Civil society denotes institutions and organizations distinct from government and businesses made for profit. The aims of institutions in civil society are varied and open-​ended from educational, spiritual, or health concerns. Examples of civil society include schools, universities, advocacy groups, churches, and sports associations. Civil society is composed of collective action, but unlike government, it has no coercive features. Thinkers such as Adam Ferguson have stressed a free society cannot exist without first a civil society.

Under the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia, civil society had been completely obliterated. Everything operated not only under the Communist government but also the official party ideology. Under widespread surveillance, civil society was torn from its roots and replaced with a depersonalized bureaucracy operating under a mandatory ideology. Musicians and artists all had to be approved of the regime. Every single aspect of society was regulated, commanded, and shaped by the Communist state. Sponteateoity and creativity laugnished under the officialdom of public officials enforcing a strict rigid ideological system on every single indvidual.

Havel outlined Czechoslovakia’s problem in his most famous essay dedicated to his former mentor, Jan Patočka. He explained that the current regime was not merely totalitarian but post-​totalitarian. A usual totalitarian regime uses naked force and violence to enforce its commands. But the post-​totalitarian regime resorts to more cunning tactics. The state forces people to support an often obviously specious official narrative and ideology. Facing demotion, blackmailing, and threats to their family’s futures, most cave and, in Havel’s words, live “within the lie.” Everyone under this post-​totalitarian system is both a victim of the system while simultaneously having a hand in creating and upholding that same system of oppression.

Havel identified the Communist ideology as a “hypnotic charm” that allows people to comfortably live within the lie of the system. Ideology helps bridge the gap between reality and the lie by creating excuses that abdicate individual responsibility. Havel describes ideology in numerous terms as a secularized religion, as a veil to hide under, and even as a glue that holds the totalitarian system in place.

To combat such a rationalistic, cold, and calculated tyranny, Havel advised the oppressed to begin living in truth, a phrase he borrowed from the fellow dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the author of The Gulag Archipelago. Individual responsibility was the core of Havel’s existential and moral philosophy. Living in truth means defying the humiliating demands of political systems and responding by establishing a life of truth and authenticity to accentuate the lies others uphold. For Havel, the truth is often a destructive ideal that flings one into a new world of responsibilities and challenges. Truth may destroy the comfort of our old world, but it brings new possiblities. For Havel the simple thought that we are not in the best of all worlds possible and that things could be better was the first step on the road to freedom.

Velvet Revolution

The younger generations of Charter 77 pushed for more involvement in public activities. Recognizing their reasoning, Havel approved. In 1987, Charter 77 had its first public demonstration commemorating the death of former president Thomas Masaryk. Through increased engagement with the public, Charter 77 inspired other movements to mobilize.

When the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, it shattered the illusion of Soviet Hegemony. If one can defect, so can the rest. Protests organized by the newly energized organizations of civil society brought huge numbers of people to the streets. By November 20, 200,000 people had taken to the streets jingling their keys as a symbol of both opening new doors and telling the regime’s enforcers to pack it up and go home.

Against all odds, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia relinquished power and ended the one-​party state that had existed for four decades. This event became known as the Velvet Revolution for its non-​violent nature. Havel was catapulted to the head of the newly founded Civic Forum organization and was elected as President of the newly revived democracy. Havel’s first-​ever speech as President, consistent with his writings of Power of the Powerless, urged everyone to take responsibility as co-​creators of the nightmare they had serendipitously emerged from without violence. Havel explicitly did not want people going around playing the blame game bringing retroactive justice on former officials. Everyone was in some way responsible, and those without guilt cast the first stone.

This long journey leads us all the way back to Havel’s Places. Commentators have commented on Havel’s places being dedicated to democratic values. This is partially true but not the whole story. Understanding the history of Czechoslovakia, Havel’s humble monument is dedicated to democracy and civil society. Following the tradition of political thinkers with their heads screwed on correctly, Havel did not hold politics up as a divine discipline. In fact, he understood that much of the good we tend to ascribe to democracy and politics really happens more often than not in the indispensable world of civil society. The Communist government of Havel’s day attempted to place the state at the helm of every part of society.

Today, in contemporary America, the Federal Government is increasingly involved with a longer and longer list of the minutiae of life. While we are not in as much danger as Havel and P, when politicians and those who follow them only see political solutions, the results will be dire. America has always been a nation where history is made far, far away from the centers of politics in the numerous associations, clubs, and foundations. Commentators as far back as Alexis De Tocqueville have recognized America’s strength has been to find non-​coercive no political solutions when appropriate. But today, when everyone’s problem looks like a nail, and politicians only have their political hammer, state solutions dominate, strangling out dynamism and pluralism in the process.

The life and work of Havel should bring hope to libertarians. We are prone doomsaying and losing hope. But No matter how large the leviathan state may be, even simple acts grounded in authenticity give us a glimpse into a life without the state, the possible moral alternatives to our current predicament start to jump out more clearly. How we will replace the violence of the state with the peaceful relations of indviduals is a topic perfect to discuss at Havel’s place.