Becoming Fool of Love: Museum of Communism (Prague)

Here's a blog I've meant to finish and post for a while... There is much more I'd like to add... maybe in time I will...

But for now.. a little story...
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Next to casino? How ironical!
(Czech humor?)

I took myself on a date last night, and went to the Museum of Communism. What can I say? I'm not as interested in fancy neon-coloured cocktails as much as I am into political history.

I am in the Czech Republic! I am in the country of Pavlav Havel, of Milan Kundera, of the Velvet Revolution! Uh.... what's the velvet revolution?

I didn't quite know.

And I was curious about the history of these people who I find so difficult to communicate with. Call me sensitive maybe, but I find it hard that my interlocutors often frown and remain closed, even as I apologize for not speaking their language. And I find it surprising that all the street signs, in this most touristic city of the world, are only in Czech.

I don't remember where I got that, but somewhere I heard that there is indeed a smidge of xenophobia running in the culture. I haven't spent enough time here to make my own opinion on this, but if it were true, I can actually sympathize. After all, the Czech have a long history of dealing with outside occupation.

I will skip the chapter on Nazy occupation and simply explain that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSU) became increasingly popular after the end of WWII. They had been popular before the war, and now that the Soviets had "liberated" the country it only made sense to go ahead and think communism...

So there were an increasing number of communists in the coalition government. Then, conflicts and powers struggles began to escalate. The KSU took gradual but effective control of the police force, which was now undermining a lot of the citizens' basic civil liberties. In the winter of 1948, the KSU - backed up by the Soviet Red Army - established themselves as the only ruling party.

The dictatorship lasted for forty-one years.

I walked around the museum reading the many explanatory signs - sometimes in English, sometimes in French - that described different facets of life under communist/Stalinist/Leninist/ rule: education, sports, agriculture, technology, fine arts, economy, propaganda, etc.
Interesting fact: Stalin saw prosperous independent farmers as the main threat to communism.

The most interesting part of the exhibition, however, was a short film showing the people's struggle and dissent, and... being met by the system, if you know what I mean.
I didn't catch the beginning of the film, but what I saw was enough to bring up a few tears to my eyes, again. What I saw were people gathering on the streets of Prague, asking for their basic rights to question authority, and being met with clubs and guns. What I saw were students, women, workers, rising up against a network of propaganda and secret polices, asking to be told the truth. What I saw were riots police behaving like trained animals and beating up nonviolent protesters.
That was 1989.
I also saw people with flowers in their hands, inviting the cops to come to their side.

And I got to hear the incredible story of Jan Palach one more time.
Palach was a young university student at the time of the Soviet invasion. On January 16, 1969, he immolated himself on Wenceslas Square as an act of political protest. In the After him, two more students committed suicide for the same reason.
On the twentieth anniversary of his death, demonstrations escalated in Prague and lasted for a whole week. The fall of communism in Czechoslovakia occurred eleven weeks later.

Of course, I am not advising that anyone commit suicide to protest against Wall Street. If I am sharing this story it's because I am deeply moved by it. In my lifetime, I've witness much despair, apathy, avoidance, and distraction in regards to the political challenges we must face. It is mind-blowing to consider how committed (what an understatement!) some people can be.