#StandUp4HumanRights: International Day for the Right to Truth about Human Rights Abuses

"As we inaugurate this new international observance, let us recognize the indispensable role of the truth in upholding human rights – and let us pledge to defend the right to the truth as we pursue our global mission of human rights."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 24 March 2011

 

El Salvador's Msgr Oscar Arnulfo Romero slain 3/24/1980. Poland's Fr Jerzy Popiełuszko murdered 10/19/1984.

 On December 21, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24 as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. According to the proclamation the purpose of this day is to:

• Honor the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice;
• Pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all;
• Recognize, in particular, the important work and values of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, of El Salvador, who was assassinated on 24 March 1980, after denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable populations and defending the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposition to all forms of violence.
  

It also seems appropriate today to honor and pay tribute to Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, of Poland, who was kidnapped, tortured and assassinated on October 19, 1984 by sharing an excerpt from his February 28, 1982 sermon:

"The church always stands on the side of truth. The church always stands on the side of people who are victimized. Today the church stands on the side of those who have lost their freedom, whose conscience is being broken. Today the church stands on the side of Solidarity, on the side of the working people, who are often placed in one line along with common criminals. Dedication to freedom is tightly knit with human nature and with mature national awareness. This dedication is intertwined with the law and duty. It is intertwined with the law, and thus every man and every nation must experience the suppression of freedom as painful and unjust."

Both Archbishop Romero and Father Popiełuszko were victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and sadly over the past forty five years there have been many more:

• Scores of Germans were murdered trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989;
  
• In June of 1989 thousands of Chinese were massacred at Tiananmen Square for nonviolently defending human rights and freedom;
• In July of 1994 thirty seven Cuban men, women and children were massacred for nonviolently trying to seek freedom. 
• In February of 1996 four men were murdered in international airspace by Cuban government agents as they sought to save the lives of Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits;
• There are over 120,000 Mexicans registered as missing. In March of 2024 an extermination camp with secret ovens, and human remains were discovered on a ranch in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

15 years, one month and one day ago Cuban prison officials announced the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo at 3:00pm. He had suffered beatings, torture, and years added to his unjust prison sentence because Orlando continued to denounce human rights abuses in prison. He refused to look the other way and remain silent. The secret police and prison guards drove him to the last recourse of a non-violent activist: the hunger strike. Even there the regime sought to torture and humiliate denying him, a man on a water only hunger strike, water. It is believed that act of torture contributed to the failure of his kidneys and to his death. Oswaldo Payá said that Orlando died for the dignity of all Cubans. Following his death the dictatorship and its apologists continued to attack and smear this human rights defender. It is for that reason that especially on this day that Orlando Zapata Tamayo be remembered.

 

Orlando Zapata Tamayo, tortured and denied water, while on hunger strike murdered on Feb 23, 2010 

On July 22, 2012, Havana's secret police murdered Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante. In 2023, following a ten year investigation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the two human rights defenders were killed by Cuban government agents.

Oswaldo Payá  was sixty years old when he was assassinated. He was a family man and lay Catholic from Havana, an engineer who, in September 1988, founded the Christian Liberation Movement with fellow Catholics in the El Cerro neighborhood, and over the next 23 years would carry out important campaigns to support human rights and a democratic transition in Cuba.  Oswaldo would speak out against human rights breaches and demand victims' dignity, even if it meant denouncing the United States for mistreating Al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base prison in 2002. Oswaldo was a consistent defender of human rights, but not the only one.

Harold Cepero  was 32 years old when he was extrajudicially executed alongside Oswaldo. He was from the town of Chambas in Ciego de Ávila.  Harold began studying at the University of Camaguey when he was 18 years old, and in 2002, he and other students signed the Varela Project. It was a legal measure inside the existing Cuban constitution sponsored by the Christian Liberation Movement. Despite this, Harold and other students were expelled from the university for signing it and sharing it with others. The secret police would organize a mob to "judge", scream at, insult, threaten and expel the students who had signed the Varela Project. Following his expulsion on November 13, 2002, Harold wrote a letter warning that "those who steal the rights of others steal from themselves. Those who remove and crush freedom are the true slaves."  Expelled from university for signing the Varela Project with fellow students. He enrolled in a seminary and began studying for the priesthood before leaving to join the Christian Liberation Movement, embracing a new vocation as a human rights defender. 

This is not an exhaustive accounting, there are thousands of Cuban victims alone.

The right to the truth and the defense of the dignity of the victims are crucial elements in the process of obtaining justice. 

There are over 1,100 political prisoners today in Cuba. 

In Miami, on March 28, 2025 starting at 6 p.m., a march will begin at the Brigade 2506 Monument, at the corner of 8th Street and 13th Avenue in Little Havana, and will travel down 13th Avenue to the Museum of the Cuban Diaspora. The idea is to hear the names of all the remaining political prisoners on the island along the trajectory of the march. 

We must remember both the dead and the living, not for revenge, but for truth, memory, and justice.

It is a long known fact recorded in history by the great Roman statesmen Marcus Tullius Cicero that "The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong." 

Exposing the truth about these crimes and defending the dignity of the victims while seeking to hold those responsible accountable both under the rule of law and by the judgment of history will provide the greatest amount of justice that humanity can provide limiting impunity and the repetition of these crimes.

Living in Truth: 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum

Living in Truth

 

The theme of the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum is "Living in Truth" in tribute to the late Czech dissident-turned-president Václav Havel.  Living in truth as both a dissident and later as a head of state while defending and embracing human rights no matter how remote the chances for success are the reasons why many continue to celebrate the life of Václav Havel and mourn his passing from the world stage. At the same time it is important to remember some of those who had an impact on developing this powerful idea.

Erazim V. Kohák in his book Jan Patočka: philosophy and selected writings delves into the writings of one such individual. Jan Patočka was the Czech philosopher and Charter 77 member who influenced Havel's approach to the questions surrounding the challenge of reconciling a personal moral order with an objective moral order that transcends individual subjectivity. Backing up his teaching with action, he was also Charter 77's first casualty dying under prolonged interrogations over a two month period. Kohák refers to Patočka’s “solidarity of the shaken” as a community freed “from the preoccupation with the pursuits of peace and prosperity that inevitably lead to war and turn it instead to the pursuit of the Good, the care of the soul” that is “living with a clear conscience, living in truth, or in far older terms, seeking first the Kingdom of God.”

Oslo Freedom Forum has asked the question: "Living in Truth, what does it mean to you?" This is my answer as of today, and subject to amendment. Living in truth is doing and saying what you believe is true no matter the cost. While at the same time recognizing that one does not know the whole truth and that there is an objective truth that exists outside of each one of us but can be arrived at with a combination of humility and engagement with others. When this is combined with nonviolence it can become a powerful and often unstoppable force that can topple dictatorships.

A more succinct and powerful summary was made by Janie Hsieh, PhD over twitter: "For me it's about acting in the service of Truth." Below is a statement released by Oslo Freedom Forum with some slight tweaking following the first day of talks. Please watch the live stream.

Watch Live: First Day of Talks at the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum

OSLO (May 26, 2015) – Talks at the 2015 Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) begin this morning at 9:30 Central European Time (3:30am EST, 12:30am PST) and will be streamed live at oslofreedomforum.com. A full schedule of events is available here.

The energy in the room is high and we’re ready to hear from activists, dissidents, business leaders, members of the media, policymakers, and technologists who are promoting individual rights across the globe.

Today’s speakers will cover a range of ideas: how individual people can force repressive governments to crumble, the evolving role communications and technology play in advancing human rights, stories of challenging arbitrary power and corruption, and the absolute need for freedom of expression – even when it offends others.

Please join us online. Follow @OsloFF on Twitter and Instagram and use the hashtag #OsloFF. Your voice is an important part of this conversation.

Following the opening musical performance by The Wanton Bishops on Tuesday, May 26, Norwegian foreign minister Børge Brende joined the Oslo Freedom Forum at the Oslo Nye Theater to introduce the first session, followed by talks on the communications revolution, the right to offend, and more. Speakers included Malaysian MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, North Korean refugee Ji Seong-ho, Twitter vice president Colin Crowell, Kenyan technologist and Ushahidi co-founder Juliana Rotich, Iranian comedian Kambiz Hosseini, Afghan entrepreneur Saad Mohseni, and Charlie Hebdo columnist Zineb el Rhazoui.

Former president of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko will open the second day of talks on May 27. Other speakers include Moroccan writer, filmmaker, and gay rights advocate Abdellah Taia, Gabonese environmentalist Marc Ona Essangui, Stanford professor Larry Diamond, and Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol. After lunch, attendees and those watching the livestream will get the chance to participate in an interactive on-stage discussion with a panel of OFF speakers by submitting questions via Twitter to @OsloFF or by emailing questions@oslofreedomforum.com.

The Power of Living in Truth

The Power of the Powerless and the Farcical Elections in Cuba

"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." - Vaclav Havel, Letter to Alexander Dubček (August 1969)

Blogger Yoani Sanchez's voided ballot

 In a totalitarian state, such as Cuba, where only the communist party is "legal" and dissent is outlawed even a purely symbolic act like annulling a ballot with the word democracy requires courage.  Why does it take courage? Because in Cuba demonstrating dissent with the governing regime can mean that the dissenter and other adult relatives can lose their jobs, their children can be blacklisted from pursuing higher education and can also be targeted by government organized mobs at school. Their is also an undercurrent of terror that far worse things can happen to you and your loved ones. Finally, whats the point if you annul a ballot it is the dictatorship that counts the ballots in the end giving whatever result they deem suitable.

Czech dissident Vaclav Havel understood the great importance of such purely moral acts and the power of the powerless who rejected the lies propagated by the regime in power in order to live in truth. Vaclav Havel in his 1978 essay The Power of the Powerless offered the following observation that is relevant to Cuba today:

"When I speak of living within the truth, I naturally do not have in mind only products of conceptual thought, such as a protest or a letter written by a group of intellectuals. It can be any means by which a person or a group revolts against manipulation: anything from a letter by intellectuals to a workers' strike, from a rock concert to a student demonstration, from refusing to vote in the farcical elections to making an open speech at some official congress, or even a hunger strike, for instance."

 Mohandas Gandhi on September 11, 1906 in South Africa took part in the creation of "Satyagraha" the word that would describe their nonviolent resistance: 

'Satyagraha.' Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement 'Satyagraha,' that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase 'passive resistance,' in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word 'Satyagraha' itself or some other equivalent English phrase.  

 The choice that each and every human being faces today is the choice of living an integrated life within the truth backing it up with action or passively accepting the lie propagated by those in power. Cuba in 2012 is a cautionary example of what happens to a country and a people who have accepted the latter of the two options for half a century. It destroys not only the physical infrastructure of a country but the soul of its people.  Over the past few months following the death of Oswaldo Paya the world has seen how even a Spanish political leader can fail to live in truth and go along with the lie only to be sentenced to four years in prison in a Stalinist show trial. The West is not immune to the tentacles of totalitarianism. Militarism, the spread of surveillance technology, and the consolidation of media along with the decline of "objective" and investigative news reporting are troubling trends that threaten democracy. The complacency towards existing totalitarian regimes is another troubling sign.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was not inevitable but the result of a number of factors not least of which was the decision of millions of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Lithuanians, and Estonians to no longer live within the lies of the totalitarian regimes under which they had suffered for decades and the courage to back it up with concrete nonviolent action. 

Over 40 years after the letter to Dubcek, when President Barack Obama backed out of meeting with the Dalai Lama due to an upcoming trip to China, Vaclav Havel offered the corollary to the theorem expounded in the quote at the top of this essay in 1968 at the October 12, 2009 of the Forum 2000 conference he had organized:

I believe that when the new Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize postpones receiving the Dalai Lama until after he has accomplished his visit to China, he makes a small compromise, a compromise which actually has some logic to it. However, there arises a question as to whether those large, serious compromises do not have their origin and roots in precisely these tiny and very often more or less logical compromises.

Ending or initiating decades of tyranny is up to each and everyone of us and the choices we make for good or ill.  The consequences of which future generations will have to live with and make their own choices to engage in moral acts or compromise their principles. Vaclav Havel passed away on December 18, 2011 but his contributions and good works live on. Today in the Czech Republic activists, intellectuals and politicians gather to reflect on and discuss challenges facing humanity today seeking solutions at the Forum 2000. Meanwhile in Castroite Cuba farcical elections are underway in which only one party is running and the only choice Cubans have is either to go along with the fraudulent exercise or void their ballot as the country continues its half century descent into ruin.

 

International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims

"As we inaugurate this new international observance, let us recognize the indispensable role of the truth in upholding human rights – and let us pledge to defend the right to the truth as we pursue our global mission of human rights."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 24 March 2011

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, of El Salvador (on the left) was assassinated on March 24, 1980 and Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, of Poland was tortured and assassinated on October 19, 1984.

On December 21, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed March 24 as the International Day for the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. According to the proclamation the purpose of this day is to:

• Honor the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice;
• Pay tribute to those who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in, the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all;
• Recognize, in particular, the important work and values of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero, of El Salvador, who was assassinated on 24 March 1980, after denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable populations and defending the principles of protecting lives, promoting human dignity and opposition to all forms of violence.
  

It also seems appropriate today to honor and pay tribute to Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, of Poland, who was kidnapped, tortured and assassinated on October 19, 1984 by sharing an excerpt from his February 28, 1982 sermon:

"The church always stands on the side of truth. The church always stands on the side of people who are victimized. Today the church stands on the side of those who have lost their freedom, whose conscience is being broken. Today the church stands on the side of Solidarity, on the side of the working people, who are often placed in one line along with common criminals. Dedication to freedom is tightly knit with human nature and with mature national awareness. This dedication is intertwined with the law and duty. It is intertwined with the law, and thus every man and every nation must experience the suppression of freedom as painful and unjust."

Both Archbishop Romero and Father Popiełuszko were victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and sadly over the past thirty years there have been many more:

• Scores of Germans were murdered trying to cross the Berlin Wall between 1961 and 1989;
  
• In June of 1989 thousands of Chinese were massacred at Tiananmen Square for nonviolently defending human rights and freedom;
  
• In July 0f 1994 thirty seven Cuban men, women and children were massacred for nonviolently trying to seek freedom and in February of 1996 four men were murdered as they sought to save the lives of Cuban rafters in the Florida Straits;
  
• Since 1993 hundreds of women have been raped, tortured and murdered in Juárez, Mexico with impunity in what amounts to a femicide.

One year, one month and one day ago Cuban prison officials announced the death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo at 3:00pm. He had suffered beatings, torture, and years added to his unjust prison sentence because Orlando continued to denounce human rights abuses in prison. He refused to look the other way and remain silent. The secret police and prison guards drove him to the last recourse of a non-violent activist: the hunger strike. Even there the regime sought to torture and humiliate denying a man on a water only hunger strike - water. It is believed that act of torture contributed to the failure of his kidneys and to his death. It has been said that he died for the dignity of all Cubans. Even today the dictatorship and its apologists continue to attack and smear this human rights defender. It is for that reason that especially on this day that Orlando Zapata Tamayo be remembered.

Human rights defender Orlando Zapata Tamayo imprisoned, tortured and finally denied water and murdered on February 23, 2010

The right to the truth and the defense of the dignity of the victims are crucial elements in the process of obtaining justice. In addition it is a long known truth recorded in history by the great Roman statesmen Marcus Tullius Cicero that "The hope of impunity is the greatest inducement to do wrong." Exposing the truth about these crimes and defending the dignity of the victims while seeking to hold those responsible accountable both under the rule of law and by the judgment of history will provide the greatest amount of justice that humanity can provide limiting impunity and the repetition of these crimes.

The struggle against totalitarianism in Cuba and John Paul the Second's Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor

After the previous posting outlining some of the acts of terrorism committed and facilitated by the Cuban dictatorship over the decades one must pause and reflect on how to confront such an evil system. Pope John Paul II offers some reflections and a simple answer on how to battle such a system in his August 6, 1993 Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor of which some excerpts are presented below. Not an easy answer but a simple answer. Placed in bold that which appears most relevant to what is taking place in the struggle against totalitarianism in Cuba today.

Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth

"Totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. .... Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it".

The inseparable connection between truth and freedom

Consequently, the inseparable connection between truth and freedom — which expresses the essential bond between God's wisdom and will — is extremely significant for the life of persons in the socio-economic and socio-political sphere. This is clearly seen in the Church's social teaching — which "belongs to the field... of theology and particularly of moral theology" — and from her presentation of commandments governing social, economic and political life, not only with regard to general attitudes but also to precise and specific kinds of behaviour and concrete acts.

A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism

In the political sphere, it must be noted that truthfulness in the relations between those governing and those governed, openness in public administration, impartiality in the service of the body politic, respect for the rights of political adversaries, safeguarding the rights of the accused against summary trials and convictions, the just and honest use of public funds, the rejection of equivocal or illicit means in order to gain, preserve or increase power at any cost — all these are principles which are primarily rooted in, and in fact derive their singular urgency from, the transcendent value of the person and the objective moral demands of the functioning of States. When these principles are not observed, the very basis of political coexistence is weakened and the life of society itself is gradually jeopardized, threatened and doomed to decay (cf. Ps 14:3-4; Rev 18:2-3, 9-24). Today, when many countries have seen the fall of ideologies which bound politics to a totalitarian conception of the world — Marxism being the foremost of these — there is no less grave a danger that the fundamental rights of the human person will be denied and that the religious yearnings which arise in the heart of every human being will be absorbed once again into politics. This is the risk of an alliance between democracy and ethical relativism, which would remove any sure moral reference point from political and social life, and on a deeper level make the acknowledgement of truth impossible. Indeed, "if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism."

Only in the mystery of Christ's Redemption do we discover the "concrete" possibilities of man. " It would be a very serious error to conclude... that the Church's teaching is essentially only an "ideal" which must then be adapted, proportioned, graduated to the so-called concrete possibilities of man, according to a "balancing of the goods in question". But what are the "concrete possibilities of man"? And of which man are we speaking? Of man dominated by lust or of man redeemed by Christ? This is what is at stake: the reality of Christ's redemption. Christ has redeemed us! This means that he has given us the possibility of realizing the entire truth of our being; he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence. And if redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ's redemptive act, but to man's will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act. God's command is of course proportioned to man's capabilities; but to the capabilities of the man to whom the Holy Spirit has been given; of the man who, though he has fallen into sin, can always obtain pardon and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit".

104. In this context, appropriate allowance is made both for God's mercy towards the sinner who converts and for the understanding of human weakness. Such understanding never means compromising and falsifying the standard of good and evil in order to adapt it to particular circumstances. It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-justified, without even the need to have recourse to God and his mercy. An attitude of this sort corrupts the morality of society as a whole, since it encourages doubt about the objectivity of the moral law in general and a rejection of the absoluteness of moral prohibitions regarding specific human acts, and it ends up by confusing all judgments about values.

Parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector

Instead, we should take to heart the message of the Gospel parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (cf. Lk 18:9-14). The tax collector might possibly have had some justification for the sins he committed, such as to diminish his responsibility. But his prayer does not dwell on such justifications, but rather on his own unworthiness before God's infinite holiness: "God, be merciful to me a sinner! " (Lk 18:13). The Pharisee, on the other hand, is self-justified, finding some excuse for each of his failings. Here we encounter two different attitudes of the moral conscience of man in every age. The tax collector represents a "repentant" conscience, fully aware of the frailty of its own nature and seeing in its own failings, whatever their subjective justifications, a confirmation of its need for redemption. The Pharisee represents a "self-satisfied" conscience, under the illusion that it is able to observe the law without the help of grace and convinced that it does not need mercy.

105. All people must take great care not to allow themselves to be tainted by the attitude of the Pharisee, which would seek to eliminate awareness of one's own limits and of one's own sin. In our own day this attitude is expressed particularly in the attempt to adapt the moral norm to one's own capacities and personal interests, and even in the rejection of the very idea of a norm. Accepting, on the other hand, the "disproportion" between the law and human ability (that is, the capacity of the moral forces of man left to himself) kindles the desire for grace and prepares one to receive it. "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" asks the Apostle Paul. And in an outburst of joy and gratitude he replies: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! " (Rom 7:24-25).

We find the same awareness in the following prayer of Saint Ambrose of Milan: "What then is man, if you do not visit him? Remember, Lord, that you have made me as one who is weak, that you formed me from dust. How can I stand, if you do not constantly look upon me, to strengthen this clay, so that my strength may proceed from your face? When you hide your face, all grows weak (Ps 104:29): if you turn to look at me, woe is me! You have nothing to see in me but the stain of my crimes; there is no gain either in being abandoned or in being seen, because when we are seen, we offend you. Still, we can imagine that God does not reject those he sees, because he purifies those upon whom he gazes. Before him burns a fire capable of consuming our guilt (cf. Joel 2:3)".

The complete text of Veritatis splendor is available here

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html

In Spanish

Homilía pronunciada por SS Juan Pablo II en la Celebración Eucarística en la Arquidiócesis de Santiago de Cuba 24 de Enero de 1998

Discurso de Bienvenida al Santo Padre Pronunciado por Monseñor Pedro Meurice, Obispo de Santiago de Cuba, el 24 de Enero, 1998

Heroes and Exemplars of 1989: Vaclav Havel and the Power of the Powerless

Hero:
1. a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.


Vaclav Havel, Czech Republic
A brief biography of Mr. Havel would be summed up as playwrite, essayist, former dissident, and politician, but there is much more to this individual that bears a closer look. His essays on The Power of the Powerless and Politics and Conscience should be required reading in any civics course and should be read and reread by politicians who aspire to become statesmen. Visit his official website where some of his essays from both his time as a dissident and later as president are available online.

The purpose of this brief profile is to encourage the reader to search further and read Havel's collection of essays and watch the documentaries on the struggle of the Czech people to obtain and maintain their freedom, and in the process learn how to make the world a better place.

Vaclav Havel is hosting a concert "It is coming" on Saturday, November 14, 2009 at the Prague Crossroads to celebrate the nonviolent end of communism in Czechoslovakia on November 17, 1989 that became known as the Velvet Revolution.

Below a selection of images, quotes, phrases, and trailers of documentaries with the aim of better capturing this great person:


The only lost cause

The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle. Quoted in Amnesty International's essay "From Prisoner to President – A Tribute"

The significance of a purely moral act

Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance -Letter to the overthrown Czechoslovak Communist Party chairman Alexander Dubček (August 1969)

How you become a dissident

You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. The Power of the Powerless (1978)

The Pen and the Sword

I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions. Speech of October 1989, accepting a peace prize

On Truth and Love

“The truth and love will always beat the lie and hatred.”

Vaclav Havel Fall 1989 Prague

On Politicians

I have noticed that a politician – and this is a general phenomenon – always has a special halo around him, due to the simple fact that he holds a particular office. It has nothing to do with whether he is a good politician or a complete fool: the position itself lends that person a special aura. Interview, Atlantic Monthly November 11, 2009

Documentary: Citizen Havel

"Citizen Vaclav Havel Goes on Vacation" recreates a trip around Czechsolovakia that its future president Vaclav Havel took in 1985 when he was still the country's most prominent dissident. In the course of one week, he was twice thrown into jail for 48 hours of preventive detention and followed by over 300 plainclothed policemen, who would helpfully point out the right way whenever he got lost.

Two positive aspects of being a Dissident

..When someone makes the effort to become a dissident and joins the opposition and runs the risk of being persecuted, that fateful step has two positive aspects to it. The first is that they feel good about being in harmony with their conscience and their beliefs. When you lie a little, or make compromises you shouldn’t, you can have the ugly feeling of being soiled. If you decide to do something good, regardless of whether that advances your cause or not, you at least have the positive feeling of being on the side of truth. And the second aspect – and the experience of my country and of the other post-communist countries bears this out—is that these seemingly pointless, quixotic efforts may rather quickly turn into something important, and may eventually bear fruit. The just may be successful. Interview, Atlantic Monthly November 11, 2009

The Power of the Powerless Documentary (2009)

Narrated by Jeremy Irons, The Power of the Powerless examines the struggle for freedom during the communist era in Czechoslovakia. Featuring Vaclav Havel, who ascended to power during the bloodless revolution of 1989, The Power of the Powerless investigates haunting questions about the communist past, which still linger today.