“humility in the face of the mysterious order of the Being”
"politics becomes too much of an expert thing... However, it seems to me that it should be primarily a thing of the citizens, with exceptionally levelled sense of responsibility and understanding of mysterious complexity of being [sic!]" Tokyo, 23 April 1992
"in 1995, he supported and signed another undemocratic law barring communists and former communists from employment in public agencies."
Actually, that law was already approved by Federal parliament on 4 October 1991 and in 1992, lawmakers widened its reach. The Constitutional court ruled that it was OK, although it should be temporary and replaced by a new civil service law. Still, it was a failure, the communist elites that pushed for the end of communism so that they could safely monetize the cultural and social capital they acquired at the expense of the people simply focused their attention elsewhere. In 1994, 40% of economic elites were people who had a job okayed directly by some body of communist party. But that goes beyond the scope of the law, which only affected those who cooperated with State Security secret police.
"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."
Restitutions were not about selling public property but about handing back property that was nationalized without compenzation over the course of the 20th century. Fields for farmers, shops for Jews (both those who lost them in 1939 or 1950), houses to landlords and estates to former nobility, provided they didn't collaborate with Nazis.
"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.”
Actually, in November 1991, Havel sent laws that would allow him to dissolve parliament and rule by decrees to the Federal Assembly, which turned them down and that was the end of the story. There was nothing authoritative about the way he proposed these laws.
Generally, the article brings nothing ground-breaking, noone probably thinks that communists like Havel even a tiny bit so a critique of his anti-communism will only interest other communists. Still, when rightists criticize him as socialist (even Marxist) or truthlovist, they at least get the basic chronology straight.
By the way, Communist Party of Bohemia nad Moravia distanced itself from the posters of Union of Young Communists of Czechoslovakia which celebrated death of Havel. According to the party, such behaviour is unethical and gross.
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George Will at it again. Brilliant!
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