The Czech Republic

(Political essay written by M.J.Kuhn)

Honni soit qui mal y pense.

(Grammatically correct version of the inscription on the coat of arms of the British monarchy)

Introduction.

This is a sequel to the essay titled "Direct Democracy" written the previous year. Some chapters of that work, particularly the one titled "Suggestions" could also be considered part of this work since their contents are equally applicable here.

"Direct Democracy" was an all out effort to identify and remedy the ills affecting the present American way of life. At times the critique was harsh, but the author believes, always constructive.

The present essay "The Czech Republic" is also a severe critique of the current way of life of the Czech nation. It seems that that nation is unable to overcome the forced deterioration of basic moral values that it suffered under the communist hegemony.

This essay attempts to analyze the shortcomings of the current inhabitants of the Czech real estate and explain why things are as they are.

Little People.

In the late fifties I lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. One day I received a phone call from my friends at the Alliance Francaise (of which I was not a member) asking me to attend a meeting at the local University Club. A lady, just arrived from Paris, was to give a presentation on some aspects of French theatre. After the talk I was asked by the organizers to drive the speaker to her hotel in downtown Tulsa. (That may have been the true reason why I was invited.)

It turned out that she had recently visited Czechoslovakia, the country of my birth. I was eager to learn some fresh tidbits about life under the communist yoke and so I asked her many questions. She told me that before her trip she prepared herself by reading the official communist promotional literature in which it was said that in socialist countries theft became virtually extinct. That lady had a good sense of humor. Just to test this unusual claim she left a suitcase in front of her hotel and said to a uniformed SNB policemen standing nearby: "Since I am in a socialist country, I can absent myself for few minutes and leave my bag standing where it is - correct?" The SNB man started to laugh heartily and said partly in words, partly by sign language: "Lady, where did you hear such a nonsense? Here they will steal even the nose from between your eyes." The French lady never heard this typically Czech expression before and never tired recounting this episode to her many audiences. The SNB policemen, although he could not have realized it at that time, described in one sentence the cause of the economic dilemma of the contemporary Czech Republic. There was a saying in the Czech lands:"He who does not steal from the state steals from his own family".

The French lady considered the Czechs to be "little people" - people of preponderantly peasant origin who are able to withstand any storm simply by "crawling in a hole in the ground" and waiting patiently for the good times to return. She also said that the majority of Czechs are able and willing to collaborate with any regime to save their personal hide. Of course, her description of the Czech character made me rather unhappy; coming from a French national it made me even more angry and I had to exercise a good deal of self-control not to dump her at the nearest street corner and suggest that she should get herself a taxi.

That was a longtime ago. For many years after the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia (the infamous putsch of February 1948), I followed with anguish the misfortunes of my nation. But, after my latest visit to Czechoslovakia I had to, with regrets, agree with the French lady. Most Czechs are indeed rather little people. They enjoy analyzing the guts of their compatriots. And they have a disconcerting habit of choosing equally little people to run their government. Great people are occasionally born in the Czech lands, but usually they mature outside the borders of their native land. If one examines the history one finds that the greatest leaders were Czech or Slovak natives who acquired global outlook in foreign lands. One such world figure was Charles IV, another Stefanik and of course also the Masaryks. Such people, i.e., individuals with cosmopolitan experience are nowhere to be found in the contemporary Czech Republic.

Czech Emigration:

Since the end of the World War II there were two great waves of emigration; 1948 and 1968. As the numbers indicate the second emigration consisted of people some twenty years younger. There are also other differences. The first emigration had it much, much tougher than the second emigration. There were no passports and visas and no trains, cars or airplanes for these people; many finished their exodus on the cross-hairs of the communist border guards. Practically all of them were political refugees. (There are several chapters in the essay: "Direct Democracy", specifically chapters titled "Historical Perspective", "Displaced Person", "Age of Irrationality" and "Author's Biography" which deal with the first wave of emigration in greater detail.)

The second wave (1968) had it much easier. These were people who availed themselves of a temporary opening in the Iron Curtain and traveled to Western countries legally as tourists. When in a few months the Curtain closed again they made a conscious decision to let their passports and visas expire and not return home. These second wave emigrants, even those who came with communist party cards were treated better by the West than the first wave refugees - conditions were different and the dangers of communism were perceived far more acutely in 1968 than in 1948.

There was a third very small group of people who were able to leave Czechoslovakia legally throughout the years of communist domination. Most of them were diplomats and/or important party members. Some defected and applied for political asylum. Some of them returned after November 1989 and a few hold important political posts in the contemporary Czech government. I would suspect that many of them were associated in one or another way with the communist party Nomenklatura.

The Velvet Revolution.

In 1992 almost everyone whom I met in Prague considered himself to be a former "dissident". These "dissidents" took full credit for the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia; in November 1989 they decided that they had enough. They took to the streets, organized crippling strikes and at one mass demonstration in the Wenceslav Square they essentially shouted communism out of existence. To their great surprise communism fell and a playwright named Havel became the president of the newly formed Czechoslovak Federal Republic. The Soviet leader Gorbachev was, I was told, just an inconsequential bystander; the people at the various unauthorized civil demonstrations considered themselves to be the real creators of the "Velvet Revolution", as it became later known in the Western press. Whenever I recount this scenario in other countries, I am always rewarded with a generous laugh because in the remainder of the world Gorbachev is regarded as the person who through his "perestroika"and "glasnost" policies allowed the "Velvet Revolution" to materialize.

I have predicted as far back as 1950 that communism will eventually self-destruct. It was not too difficult to foresee that the people who ushered in the "Victorious February" will eventually inch away from the communist orthodoxy and that their successors will one day be forced to abandon communism altogether. But the Nomenklatura, i.e., the vast semi-hereditary bureaucratic apparatus of parasitic civil servants and technocrats will survive and continue to mistreat the nation in a manner similar to that of the communists. This is in fact what happened; communism fell but the communist way of conducting everyday affairs remained.

A lady "dissident" whom I made acquaintance with while sitting next to her during a theater performance treated me with considerable disdain when during the intermission, in the course of casual conversation she learned that I was a former Czech refugee. She could not understand why I, in her own words, "ran away" instead of having remained and "fought the bolsheviks", as she did. I had a hard time explaining to her that in the early 1950 when I escaped from the prison, I was not in a position do much fighting. There were at least 40 fully armed SNB men and soldiers encircling the forest in which I was hiding and their rifles and submachine guns were not toys. Laying in a ditch covered by dirt was not exactly meeting her standards of "fighting", nevertheless it was a good defense against instant death.

Between 1948 and 1968 the preferred mode of crossing the border between Czechoslovakia and southern Germany was a long and dangerous crawl on foot. Border crossing with passport and visa, via plane, car or train was a luxury that became possible, for a short time, only in 1968. For me, who was hunted for three weeks by the SNB all over Bohemia, "fighting communism" stories such as I heard from the dissidents meant little more than spitting from a safe distance in the direction of the communist party headquarters, or after 1968 of signing a manifesto about some nonexistent human rights. Maybe there had been some smashed jaws and broken bones among these dissidents, but I have not seen any. The executions and murders I know of, happened predominantly before 1968, well before the term "dissident" became part of the Czech language.

While in Prague in 1992, I visited the Organization of Political Prisoners. It was a disappointment; there I encountered the same types as the lady dissident in the theater. These people were imprisoned because they engaged in acts of civil disobedience, were composing and signing manifestoes, criticized the government leaders, etc. All of them knew that for these acts of indirect resistance they will suffer some hardships, but will not be killed. Yet they all acted as martyrs. Among them were disappointed supporters of the "Victorious February" who got into serious trouble with the regime only after the "Prague Spring" of 1968. By that time the treatment of the prisoners was more human because the communists learned that the "eternal times" of the communist hegemony may not be eternal after all.

I inquired about people with whom I was in the forced labor camp in the prison of Ceske Budejovice. Not one name showed up in their records. The man who ran the office acted in a markedly condescending manner. The people who got into trouble with the Husak regime interested him far more; these were his "dissidents". Some of them were former communists, or communist sympathizers who finally saw the light, suffered pangs of conscience, or got run over by the party bureaucracy. It was then that I truly understood the correct meaning of the word dissident. A "dissident" was either a young person who matured slowly during the Gottwald era, or he was a party insider who after years of slumber woke up and began to think on his own.

Freedom of the Masaryk era the dissidents did not know. One who found the life after the "Victorious February" unbearable, knew first hand the behavior of communist prison guards, was no dissident. He was a victim of the brutal communist regime of Stalin and Gottwald and often he was a victim of the future dissidents. If he was lucky he ended in some western country, if not, he perished or was permanently maimed in camps such as the uranium mines of Jachymov. The society to which the surviving refugees longed to return after the Velvet Revolution of 1989 no longer exists.

Communism fell in 1989 but the Communist Nomenklatura remains.

There were reforms after 1989, but many of them were of the "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" variety. Walking the streets of Prague and looking at the street signs, one could pretend that one was in a different city. But of course not, these were the same old streets, only the signs were different. Making of signs in this part of the world was always a good business. In one town a dirt road named at the beginning of the century "Na Luzankach" became "Gregrova" Street after 1918 and obtained an additional designation "Gasse" during the German occupation. In 1945 Mr Gregr's name was unceremoniously dumped and his street became the Red Army street. I do not have anything against the Red Army, but the post-velvet politicians renamed it to a neutral and entirely inoffensive "Hradecka" street. The last change may well be more permanent since the name of the town down the road is Hradec and this is unlikely to change. The politicians are learning.

The more I dug into the events following November 1989 the clearer it became to me that although the communist order was clearly on its way out, the members of the communist Nomenklatura were resolved to survive and incorporate themselves seemlessly into whatever political system would emerge. As a matter of fact this is what happened. The Nomenklatura managed to make itself important and indispensable by holding on to a variety of bureaucratic posts and administrative services. The visible leaders disappeared into retirement, but the cadres remained and continued to maintain connections among themselves. Because the revolution of 1989 was truly mild, "velvety", most managed to hold on to their old jobs. Before 1992 they suffered a good deal of uncertainty; they did not know what was going to happen to them. Once they found out that the answer is "nothing", they assumed their old behavior; monumental arrogance, selfishness and moral turpitude. President Havel by refusing to cut this privileged parasitic caste from position of power and responsibility has preordained the economic decline of his nation.

The nefarious activities of the former Nomenklatura could be felt in all aspects of Czech life, but primarily in the judicial system, in industry and in the financial sector. The contemporary Czech Republic is one of the few states in the world where an existing lower court can, with impunity, ignore te ruling of a superior court. The reason for this unusual behavior is that the upper court was given no means to enforce its ruling. And so it is with everything; everywhere willful confusion and obfuscation bordering on sabotage.

Transactions in the financial markets are untraceable because the markets were designed to be opaque. The so called "tunneling" of the various banks is invariably an inside job - with the real money appearing on the outside, often in foreign countries. The new legislators and managers worked in tandem; the former creating loop holes either through design or incompetence, the latter in finding and exploiting them. The celebrated Friedman model may be applicable to economically dominant countries with certain universally accepted financial safeguards but unapplicable to small countries such as the Czech Republic where the required legal infrastructure is totally absent.

The incomprehensible behavior of the new Czechs.

If you attempted to organize a business venture such as import-export you encountered so much statics that you usually had to give it up. By "statics" I mean conflicting regulations, fuzzy regulations, adversarial regulations and a real frightening possibility of arbitrary interpretation and enforcement of regulations. Add to it greed and/or incompetence and the resulting mix produces an environment in which only the mafia can thrive. The new Czech business people still think that they can do business as under the bolsheviks. But they are forgetting that their protectors, the communist commissars, are no longer in power. The Tuzex mentality that many new Czech entrepreneurs inherited from their communist predecessors acted as a repellent of every normal activity. Even people to whom the size of an expense account is of little importance are offended when they are told that the price of services, lodging and even entertainment (such as a theater ticket) depends on their nationality. This unique aspect of the Czech "hospitality" generated considerable consternation and in general raised red flags in all business dealings with the Czech enterpreneurs.

In the new Czech bureaucracy it is frequently impossible to find anybody responsible for anything. If you find the whereabouts of such a person he is usually unavailable for discussion. The bureaucracy is probably more circular now than it was under the communists. One central office in Prague sends you to a field office in another town and that other office sends you back to Prague. A director of a recently privatized enterprise still thinks along the lines of his past Nomenklatura type of behavior; the enterprise exists for him and his peers and not the other way around. You can see it clearly when he engages in a phone conversation with you. When you suggest to him to be more concise since the transatlantic phone charges are very high, he will cheerfully inform you that it does not matter to him since it is not he who pays for the call but his company. When he goes on a business promotion trip to western countries, he usually returns emptyhanded as far as orders is concerned, but with an expense account bill worthy of a maharajah, (which his company is forced to pay). He is insufficiently prepared for doing business with the West, ignorant of customs and his command of languages is poor. (And he does not care.) Business people from other countries are afraid to close business deals with the Czechs because they know that their representatives cannot be trusted; the Czechs, even more so than the Russians, are notorious for not holding their word and often even written agreements with them are not kept. Correspondence is either ignored or postponed into oblivion. Announcements of events such as conferences, expositions and even dates of fund raising events arrive a long time after the events were held - apparently nobody told the Czech secretaries that they have to be mailed before the actual happenings and that there is such a thing as air-mail. Shortly after November 1989 I investigated the possibility of importing PC-computers to Czechoslovakia. I was astonished to find out that there were no fixed government regulations about anything. The business atmosphere was such that only mafia could find it acceptable. You were at the mercy of ignorant and corrupted bureaucrats.

The Czech Foreigner

During my 1992 visit to what was then still Czechoslovakia I was surprised to learn that most people did no longer consider me Czech. Apparently, according to their thinking I did not suffer the same ordeal as they did. So, to make me suffer a little by treating me as a foreigner was only fair in their minds. They do not accept the historical fact that most of their suffering was self-inflicted. According to their thinking, somebody on the outside was always responsible for their internal problems.

They pictured me comfortably stretched out somewhere on a couch near a swimming pool and occasionally opening my mouth to ingest an American barbecued chicken or a Mexican flying taco. (Obviously, such behavior deserves punishment.) Many people equated my behavior with that of the Germans who came across the border to do grocery shopping. Now, I was somebody who came all the way from America to eat the poor Czechs out. This was a unique experience; it never happened to me anywhere else in the world. Other people eyed me suspiciously believing that I came back to claim some confiscated real estate. This latter concern was rather universal and reached almost hysterical intensity on both sides of the Czech border and contributed enormously to ruin relations between the domestic and foreign Czechs. Let me state unequivocally that I disagree strongly with the stand of these Czech emigrants who insist that property abandoned some quarter or even half a century ago and confiscated by the state must be returned to original owners. This is simply unrealistic. However, in the name of justice the original owners should be reasonably compensated for the loss by the successor of the state who issued the confiscation orders, i.e., by the present government. This should have been done a long time ago in the manner the western insurance companies compensate victims of earthquake, or flood disasters. The present owners who obtained the properties by means of nominal payment to the former state should be forced to pay the difference between the price of their illegal acquisition and the real value of the property (at the time of confiscation).

In 1990 I had not paid much attention to these negative aspects of behavior of the domestic Czechs. I believed that Czechoslovakia is on the way to unparalleled prosperity and that in a few years it would place itself in the company of such economically advanced nations as Switzerland or Sweden. Of course, I was wrong. I should have paid more attention to the behavioral trends that I have just described. Forty years of communism corrupted the Czechs to the bone. The elected politicians are but a concentration of the negative qualities acquired by the nation during the communist hegemony. Still, in 1992 I was under the influence of some patriotic euphoria and refused to see things as they really were. I warned the Czechs not to depend on German investments and look more towards the United States and Canada, especially towards American and Canadian expatriates. I indulged in dreams in which the domestic Czechs would cooperate with the Czechs in Americas, Europe, Australia to create export-import empires and bases for Research, Development and Manufacturing in Bohemia and Moravia. Companies such as TI, IBM, Digital, etc. were all eyeing what they called "Renewal of East-Europe" with great interest. And Czechoslovakia and later the Czech Republic were always foremost in their conversations. But, whenever I tried to arrange talks about some joint ventures, I was always frustrated on the Czech side either by incompetence or by having to deal with unobliging and corrupt bureaucrats; people who still believed themselves to be living in the pre-velvet times.

One source of continuous aggravation was the so called "birth number". Without a birth number you were subject to legalized extortion at practically every step in the Czech Republic. Of course, I never had any birth number. (For those who do not know what a "birth number" is: It is a bureaucratic invention that originated sometimes in the Gottwald era). To obtain the birth number, I was told, I must get my old (Czech) citizenship back. This was taken from me (automatically) the very instant I saved myself from further persecution by crossing of the Czech-German border. At that instant I became a "Displaced Person", i.e., a human being without any official nationality and without any passport other than the so called "DP status". The American citizenship was obtained much later by a process that went from Displaced Person Status through "Statenloss" and "Apatride" to American citizenship; definitively not directly from Czechoslovak citizenship to American citizenship. Now comes the hook that may well be called "The Communist Revenge Clause". To become a Czech citizen again I must, according to the new Czech laws surrender my American citizenship (how do you do it?) and wait five years in a state of bureaucratic limbo; i.e., without any accredited documents. Anybody who went through the status of statelessness before does not want to repeat it. On the positive side, the Czech authorities will graciously grant dispensation from the examinations in Czech language and history. The unwillingness of the Czech legislators to recognize dual citizenship has interesting and rather negative consequences for the Czech Republic. Americans who renounce their citizenship suffer loss of one half of the Social Security compensation. In practical terms this translates itself into considerable bundle of money which the the Czech legislators are denying to their own republic. This is a typical example of Czech nature: "Rather die than to see the exulants well off".

By 1993 I knew that things would definitely take a wrong turn in the Czech Republic. I realized that the French lady was right, not only were the majority of the new Czechs "little people", they were also "foolish people". Imagine, you have a large population of Czech expatriates, full of good will, some very rich, some with considerable political influence, ready to help their country of birth not only financially, but also assist in founding new industries and in development of new markets. And the attitude of the Czech government is: "Leave your money here and disappear." Well, the majority of the old Czechs did indeed depart, but they did not leave any money behind.

Compare this attitude with that of the Jewish nation of Israel and with Jews living in other parts of the world. If the Israeli Jews had the same attitude towards the American Jews as the domestic Czechs have towards the American Czechs, there would be no state of Israel today. Majority of Jews consider themselves Jews first and only then citizens of whatever nation they were born in or live in at the present time. (This applies even to high government officials).Every person of Jewish ancestry can without difficulty obtain Israeli citizenship, and is treated immediately as an Israeli citizen. Still, he can keep his original citizenship, if he so desires. I am not an admirer of the state of Israel because of its unjust stand on the Palestinian question and endless incremental theft of the Palestinian real estate. However, there are many qualities in the Jews both inside and outside of Israel that merit, if not admiration, then at least respect. Practically every American Jew contributes generously to funds that are used to support elections of American politicians sympathetic to Israel, to improve Israel's economy and increase its military might. Not only are the private contributions of individual American Jews channeled to Israel but also a fraction of taxes paid by all Americans. Israel's standard of living is many times higher than that of Egypt and its population much smaller, yet the American foreign aid to Israel is larger than the aid to Egypt. The reason for this discrepancy is the political might of the Jewish-American lobby. An American politician who is on the blacklist of this lobby has a hard time getting elected.

Now contrast this with the behavior of the Czechs. Of course, the American Czechs do not exercise nearly as much political clout as the American Jews. One reason for the more modest political influence are the much smaller numbers, another reason is that the domestic Czechs cannot rid themselves of the effects of communist propaganda that identified the foreign Czechs (especially the 1948 emigration) with traitors. It is rather disconcerting to offer help and then instead of a few words of gratitude, hear the words of rejection. In my case the most common rejection sendoff was: "Well, you really cannot understand how things are being run here." A little sharper version was: "Well, you cannot understand us because you are a foreigner". And finally there was one gem of a sendoff (by a person whom I did not know at all): "You will make us happy when you leave our country."

By this type of behavior the domestic Czechs sabotage their own self-interests and their own well-being. If, instead of hurling insults they would have made (since 1989) a concerted effort to involve the foreign Czechs in participation in all aspects of life in the Republic, they would have been far better off today. Certainly, they would have avoided the economic decline they now experience. Not only would the Czech-American communities invest billions of Crowns into the Czech economy, they could have also played an important role in bringing modern industries to the Czech Republic. Among the foreign Czechs were, and still are, people who have Western expertise in government, banking, industry and business, areas in which manpower in the contemporary Czech Republic is sorely lacking. For someone who is totally integrated in the international community it is much easier to organize international ventures than for someone who is familiar with the ways of one society only. The post-velvet government had an opportunity of a life time here. However, this was totally squandered primarily because of a fear that some of foreign Czechs might try to physically reclaim their properties which they abandoned when they left their country. By refusing to place the nationality and restitution problems on a firm platform underlain by international laws, the Czech government condemned its own nation to a secondary status . The elected Czech politicians traded Western standard of living for a few pieces of what are essentially destroyed pieces of real estate. This monumental imbecility staggers one's mind.

Law and regulations

Communist law or Democratic law? There is no law code that is just unless it rests on foundations of common sense and morality. Blind adherence to any written law code will not necessarily provide justice. Unfortunately, the contemporary Czech practitioners of law cannot see that there is more to justice than only a collection of written paragraphs. Very often the result is a technical miscarriage of justice.

The contemporary Czech law reminds me of a special character that the Czech school boy writes when he is not certain whether a given word contains "i" or "y". The school boy's solution is to write "y" and place a dot over it. Let the teacher choose. The Czech law is very much like the superposition of both letters; it can be interpreted either way. The judges are also like that; some are of the "y" variety and some of the "i" variety. Their training was under the communists and the inertia of the communist way of thinking is still in them.

As an example consider the decision of the Czech government dated 25.VI.1997 concerning compensation of the surviving political prisoners of the communist era 1948-1989. The government decided on a "generous" sum of 625 Crowns (about 20 US Dollars) per month of imprisonment. According to that decision I was entitled to such a compensation since in the late forties I was incarcerated under the now infamous communist law &40 No 231/48. Consequently I gathered all pertinent official documents (which I have discovered during my last visit) and mailed them together with a cover letter to a representative of a Catholic Church in the town where I used to live. The cover letter directed that person to approach the proper authorities, collect the total indemnity and donate the entire sum to the local Catholic Church. Well, as expected, the "proper authorities" did not think much of that particular government edict and refused to honor it. For most part they honor only laws and edicts with which they agree. And so it is with everything; the "velvet revolution" graduated into "velvet anarchy" where the pre-velvet Nomeclatura still calls the shots. This is why it is so difficult to start a new enterprise in the Czech Republic. You never know what obstacles you will encounter down the road because the interpretation of the laws changes with time. This is why the chipmaker Intel, who prospected location of a manufacturing plant in Central Europe is afraid to decide in favor of the Czech Republic. There is no guarantee that the rules of conducting the business will change once the plant is built.

Since the advent of internet one does not have to run around the offices of different ministries to collect and assemble various edicts, forms and updates. One can scrutinize their web pages and crosscorrelate them in the privacy of one's own office. Invariably, one finds that as far as international business, banking and investment are concerned there are conflicts and confusions between the regulations issued by the various government offices. There are also conflicts between the regulations and accepted practices.

Living conditions.

During my visit I observed with interest how the Czech people treat each other and I have found out that the perverse streak in their nature, namely envy and maliciousness, has intensified since the "Victorious February 1948". Their behavior to rich foreigners reminded me of Don Juan's Leporello in the final banquet scene and their behavior to poor foreigners resembled some of the racial scenes that I have witnessed a long time ago in the United Sates.

The behavioral problems are aggravated by the crowded conditions in which most are forced to live. It seems that they are always at each other's throats; aggressiveness is especially evident in people who live in poorer neighborhoods. At first sight the so called "panel" dwellings look very appealing, but one soon finds out that they are deficient in acoustical insulation. Apparently, the panel houses were not build for ordinary people but rather for real comrades. To improve living conditions in Prague the city must start with improvement of housing and infrastructure. Prague is a beautiful city for casual visitors but for its own inhabitants it can be an ugly step-mother.

Education

The Czechs are on the average rather well educated. Certainly, their gymnasiums are academically superior to American High Schools. But, there is too much emphasis on subjects that are useless, such as Latin etc., and not enough on live languages, particularly English etc., which are necessary to survive in today's world. There is too much emphasis on developing a profusion of various types of (mostly useless) bureaucrats. The curricula of the Czech law schools are in a state of permanent confusion. As far as study of ethics is concerned, the Czechs never considered it to be a key subject. In science the Czech schools, even the universities, have been deficient for a long time, primarily in theoretical physics.

One of the major failures of the Czech educational system is that it produces people who are unable or unwilling to think independently and who are ignorant of the processes of bringing their ideas to fruition. In the past everything had to come from "above". Now the "above" of the communist regime was replaced by a multitude of conflicting "aboves". So, nothing ever happens. The bureaucrat with the loudest mouth has the final say.

The Czech schools serve the students too much nationalism. In fact, the official curriculum is full of unjustified pride and xenophobia. (You can see it immediately by examining the history textbooks of the Czech schools). The concept of heroism is turned on its head. The Czechs who fought at the side of the West during WWII are still politically suspect while the few misguided hotheads who at the very end of the war started the Prague uprising (and had to be saved from annihilation by Russian-German general Vlasov) are treated as heroes. As a result of false histories the Czechs do not realize their own insignificance (in numbers, primarily) when they compare themselves with other nations. In international business, nationalism translates itself into too much unjustified pride and wrecks many potential deals. The Czechs should not be surprised when otherwise intelligent foreigners do not know that there is such a country as Czech Republic and that it is not somewhere in Asia but rather in the heart of Europe.

The Czechs failed to realize that they, or their own non-governmental organizations are the ones responsible for undesirable imports from the United States. Nobody forced the Czech promoters to invite Michael Jackson and other similar pop artists, Hollywood did not force "Conan the Destroyer" type of movies on them and imports of pornographic magazines such as Playboy are also strictly voluntary. Without invitation by the Czech promoters these entertainments of dubious value could not contaminate the Czech scene. On the other hand, there are also good things to be had in the United States; but for import of these, the responsible Czech organizations have not asked. In the final analysis, if trash is exported from the West to the Czech Republic it is because there is demand for trash in the Czech Republic.

Conclusion

The Velvet Revolution destroyed one of the last vestiges of communism in Central Europe. But, the vast bureaucratic apparatus responsible for maintaining the communist order was not dismantled. With only minor modifications it continues to hold the real power; now under the guise of democracy. The communist way of thinking still pervades everyday life in the Czech Republic. The real tragedy is that the people are not aware of it. For me the fruits of the devilish effort of the communist propaganda media to restructure the minds of the Czech citizens were ever more evident by reading the correspondence of my relatives from 1950 onwards. Every year the letters sounded stranger and stranger. Finally, in 1968-69 when the second wave of emigration arrived to the United States I could observe at first hand the legacy of the communist mind control: completely perverted view of recent history, unrealistic expectations, and overzealous reliance on governmental institutions. The potential necessary to bring the post-velvet nation to the levels of Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland resided in the Czech emigrants, primarily those who left the country in 1948, but that fact was purposefully ignored, spurned and even ridiculized. I believe now that the Czech nation will have to wade many years in the post-communist morass till it finds the moral heritage of its ancestors.

Concerning the recent economic decline: in a nutshell, what happened was that the Czech voters gave power to inexperienced leaders and these, instead of replacing the existing administrative bureaucracies with new institutions respecting democracy (supervised temporarily by Czech expatriates from the West), let them consolidate power and further expand. The former lower Nomenklatura consists of people totally unsuited for work in any democratic commonwealth. In fact, the only area in which they excel is sabotage of democracy. Under communism they lived a life of privilege, when stealing from the state was accepted "modus vivendi" and it is very unlikely that they will ever change.

After several years of make-believe euphoria hard reality caught up with the Czech Nation. It did not have to be that way - but now the Czech Republic is firmly committed to a travel on a wrong track and it may take several generations to correct it. I, who was born in Czechoslovakia feel unhappy with the current economical, political and moral condition of the present Czech Republic. But, there is nothing I can do. After November 1989 I actually entertained the idea of moving back to Czechoslovakia. The new Czechs convinced me very quickly that it was not a good idea.

At this point I would like to cast a look beyond the easily identifiable causes of recent economic decline, namely greed, dishonesty, incompetence and selfishness of the politicians, civil administrators, bankers and business leaders. What unites all these negatives is absolute lack of any belief in holding one's actions accountable to God. The communist state abolished God and most of the new post-communist leaders are in this respect faithful disciples of the communists. This, the most destructive legacy of the communist era, namely atheism, was not challenged by post-communist leaders at all. As the communists have amply proved, Kant's categoric imperative cannot replace God and human conscience.