Martin Palous, the current Czech Ambassador to the United Nations, visited an Experimental College class yesterday to offer an inside perspective on Czech politics
Palous addressed students in visiting lecturer Milan Kohout's "Art/Politics: An Insider's View of the Czech 'Velvet Revolution'" class.
Kohout hoped to "transplant knowledge of the Czech underground to the United States today."
He began the lecture with a brief overview of the "Velvet Revolution," the 1989 Czechoslovakian revolution that overthrew the Communist regime that had reigned in Czechoslovakia since the end of WWII.
It was one of a series of revolutions that spread throughout Eastern Europe in the end of that year.
"Velvet" refers to the bloodless nature of the revolution. In 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, a split often called the "Velvet Divorce."
Kohout described the Velvet Revolution as "an artist's revolution" - a rare phenomenon.
Kohout, who was involved in the Czech dissent movement, showed a slide show of his own experiences to give the students "a taste of the Czech underground."
Kohout then introduced Palous, a founding member of the Civic Forum, the nonviolent movement that led the dissident movement.
Palous was also elected to the Czechoslovakian Federal Assembly after the 1989 revolution and he became a member of its Foreign Affairs Committee.
In 1998, Palous became the deputy minister of foreign affairs in the Czech Republic and was appointed Czech Ambassador to the United States in 2001, a position he held for four years.
"I never agree with what [Kohout] says," Palous joked as he began his talk. Accordingly, he agreed to "tell my version of the story and cause a little confusion in your class."
According to Palous, part of the underground culture included "philosophical lectures and debates." The totalitarian regime tried to suppress these activities, Palous said.
"The regime couldn't stand situations where it involved opening of "public spaces," Palous said.
Palous compared the Czechoslovakian situation to that of Nazi Germany. He referenced an interview given by a German Jew. The interviewee was "not surprised by what Hitler did, [but by] what friends did," he said.
In the case of Czechoslovakia, "on the surface everything was fine," Palous said. However, "below the surface, something horrible was going on," and people were forced to live under repressive conditions.
Palous warned that people in society have a built-in tendency to conform, "something that can eventually turn societies into monster machines."
Palous said this transformation could be prevented as long as public spaces were kept open.
Differences in religion or preferred philosophical reading don't matter as long as we can "create something in common," he said.
Palous told the class he wanted them to consider "concepts related to human rights," including the difficulty of balancing one individual's rights with the rights of others.
"Rights are always limited by the rights of other people," said Palous, using the controversial Mohammad cartoons published in the Jyllands-Posten as a current example.
Palous closed his talk on a hopeful note: "The [most] important thing is friendship; it is what makes political society possible," he said.
Before addressing student questions, Kohout asked Palous if parallels existed between the conditions facing the Czech underground and conditions in the United States today.
Palous, true to his opening quip, disagreed with Kohout, saying that there is "a distinction between totalitarianism and democracy."
