Aktuality
"Pravda a láska zvítězí nad lží a nenávistí" (Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred) - Vaclav Havel, RIP
Friends,
One of the great men of the 20th century and one of my personal heroes has passed from the scene. His essays, particularly "The Power of the Powerless", his absurdist plays, his defiant courage and eloquence as a dissident, activist, and non-violent revolutionary, and his role as moral authority for his nation and for the world have been a profound inspiration to me.
Two very good brief summations of Havel's life:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/vaclav-havel
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/world/europe/vaclav-havel-dissident-playwright-who-led-czechoslovakia-dead-at-75.htmlI only had a handful of encounters, all of them brief, with the great man: in the early 90's when I lived in Prague and worked for Jiri Dienstbier and Občanské Hnutí (Civic Movement), and saw him at various receptions, and concerts ; and then not again until a Plastic People concert at the Black Cat in DC in 2005 (both Havel and Madeleine Albright were in attendance- Albright left after 3 songs - Havel stayed until the end), and the following summer in Prague in an almost empty Cafe Slavia, and then lastly, in New York, later the same year, at a production of one of his plays - I spoke briefly with him in my rusty Czech, for which I apologized. He told me that my Czech was better than his English.
At' žije Havel!
Joe Feuer