A-Infos (en) What is growing on the grave of socialism?

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A report on the aftermath of the S26 
demonstrations in Prague on the political 
situation in the Czech Republic by a Ukranian 
activist. 

What is growing on the grave of socialism? 
 by Olga Samborska 

 "In his plenary speech at the State of the 
World Forum (4-10 Sept 2000), a parallel event 
to the recent UN Millennium Assembly, Vaclav 
Havel called for [=C9] a change of paradigm =D0 from 
global diplomacy to global democracy." (GLOBAL 
FUTURES BULLETIN #116) 

 Now that the protests against the International 
Monetary Fund IMF are over, the passions are 
beginning to cool down. Finally we can observe 
the fruits of what the Czech democracy is about 
and what has been growing on the grave of the 
real-socialist system in the center of Europe. 

 Yes, protests are important, and so are the 
feelings of solidarity that accompany them. Yes, 
the IMF=D5s reactions to the upheaval around it 
are important, and so are the consequences on 
the development of the economy on a global 
scale. Yes, the first experience of Eastern 
European activists alongside Western Europeans 
is important, and so are the discussions of 
violence and non-violence that have arisen. But 
the discussion on each of these issues will 
follow its course. The protesters will have many 
new points to discuss in continuing their 
resistance. The IMF will have to deal with the 
demands of the protesters and make its policy 
more humane in some ways, because from now on 
and for a long time to come it will be under a 
strong observation and pressure throughout the 
world, until everybody has realized the 
uselessness of this type of transnational 
organization. Eastern European activists 
received a good injection of inspiration seeing 
themselves by the thousands in a politically 
active crowd. On the other hand, NGO campaigners 
will try to take their distance from radical 
activists in order to save their image as 
peaceful critics of IMF policies and continue to 
receive grants for their projects from 
international financial institutions. 

 Among the subjects present during these events, 
however, there is one that is left with an 
unclear future. This is the Czech state regime 
that during the past 10 years has evolved with 
the pretence of being democratic and during the 
recent events was faced with a serious test on 
the validity of this claim. Czech people have 
become used to believing that the revolution of 
1989 has at once turned their society from a 
totalitarian system into a democracy. We are 
faced with the paradox that Czech people are 
busy building democracy, but at the same time 
that democracy is already there. What does such 
democracy look like in reality? 

 The first thing that hits the eye is the 
legitimized violence of the ruling body of the 
Czech State. In Soviet times there was a point 
of reference in the name of which the revolution 
took place and the Communist Party legitimized 
its terror. The point of reference was the 
future =D0 the kingdom of communism. Now that the 
future has changed, what remains and continues 
to give unlimited legitimacy to the violence of 
power is the nation. In the Soviet system, "the 
distinction between the state and society 
disappears =D0 power purports to =D4represent all 
the people=D5" (1) and has the monopoly of 
defining people=D5s needs. In democracy, on the 
other hand, the legitimization of violence works 
by constructing =D4the people=D5 as a group with a 
common interest, which needs to be protected by 
the state, the police, the military from the 
=D4others=D5 (demonstrators, drug addicts, poor 
people, migrants, others that don=D5t fit in). Of 
course, for those of us who do not accept to 
exclude all these groups from any notion of =D4the 
people=D5, it seems absurd that the police might 
shoot into a crowd or drown the streets and 
passersby in a cloud of tear gas. 

 It is striking how unconditionally the Czech 
police took over the role of protecting a 
foreign institution like the IMF from those who 
came to Prague to protest against the policies 
of the transnational financial institutions. The 
police even forgot about local people=D5s needs. 
The Czech lawyer Vaclav Vlk complains: "The 
police should look after the property and safety 
of all citizens and not exclusively of selected 
individuals =D0 bankers." 

 The fact that the police took sides turned the 
Global Action Day and the Street Party planned 
for September 26 into Bloody Party. The 
authorities set up an army of 11=D5000 police 
officers against 10-15=D5000 demonstrators. During 
the IMF conference, police helicopters spent 71 
hours hovering over Prague. In the course of 
three days of actions the police detained 889 
people, 18 of whom were accused of =D4crimes 
against public servants=D5. Some of them are still 
in jail. Medical doctors gave help to 142 
activists and 123 police officers. 13 activists 
were taken to the hospital with broken legs and 
ribs, with wounds on their head or in similarly 
serious condition. The battle between police 
officers who blocked the way to the Congress 
Center where the IMF clique was meeting and 
activists who wanted to prevent the meeting 
ended in broken corporate property =D0 the 
McDonald=D5s, KFCs, banks that have in recent 
times become an inseparable and inescapable part 
of Prague. 

 When the signs and insignia of the old 
Communist enemy made their appearance on the 
streets, carried by a variety of leftists from 
40 different countries, it was already clear as 
common sense that the ordinary Czech person 
would take the side of repression against the 
protesters. Police officers started to play the 
role of real heroes and received, on the Day of 
Action against the IMF, the visit of the Head of 
State. Vaclav Havel staged his visit in a 
typical Soviet-style performance, shaking hands 
with the ones he had been confronting just ten 
years ago and with whom he as an ex-prisoner 
surely has a special relationship. The friendly 
visit of the President of the State legitimized 
the crimes of the police and gave the =D4green 
light=D5 for all subsequent brutality. The 
=D4heroes=D5 used the methods established for the 
Soviet-time repression machine, methods which 
seem to have become their second nature: use of 
physical force to humiliate people, etc. 

 The old propaganda trick of depicting the 
current state as =D4natural=D5 and protesters as 
uselessly fighting against the =D4state of nature=D5 
seems to appeal successfully to stereotypes 
present in the perception of people in the Czech 
Republic: "The market economy is seen as natural 
in opposition to the consciously created planned 
economy [=C9] because =D4nobody created it=D5", and 
"the market economy is seen as superior to the 
planned socialist economy." (2) In this 
dichotomy between =D4natural=D5 and =D4consciously 
created=D5, the latter is considered alien and is 
rejected. It is interesting to note that the 
=D4natural condition=D5 against which resistance is 
useless has to be imposed with an army of police 
officers, as we have witnessed in Prague. 

 The rejection of willful change is also one of 
the reasons why feminist discussions have been 
greeted with great skepticism. While feminism is 
rejected as something that may be needed in the 
West but has no place in the Czech Republic, on 
another level the public discourse is completely 
oriented towards the West: "Similarly, the 
indisputable incorporation of Czechoslovakia 
into the Eastern block has now been replaced by 
emphasizing its Western orientation." (3) That 
is an additional reason why the appearance of 
red stars in the streets of Prague had a very 
negative effect on the media and ordinary 
people. 

 During the events, the mask fell from the face 
of a society claiming to be peaceful. In a poll 
by the Sofres-Factum agency, almost 43 percent 
of Prague inhabitants expressed the opinion that 
demonstrators should work off the damage they 
had caused. Another 40 percent would be content 
to just make them pay, without forced labor. 
Only one in a hundred person did not see the 
need to punish protesters. 

 Jan Krause writes in the weekly Tyden: "They 
throw paving stones because apparently they want 
the world to be such as it has never existed 
before. Thoughtful, with solidarity, generous 
and just. Some were shouting names of communist 
enemies as their favorite heroes, others called 
for the unity of the proletarians from all over 
the world. We=D5ve heard all this before. The 
unity of the world proletariat was on the daily 
agenda and gave the communists a free hand to 
turn every citizen of the planet into a 
proletarian. We have it fresh on our minds. So 
we know how the =D4world of the righteous=D5 will 
end." 

 In this context the Czech Republic does not 
look like the best place for revolutionary ideas 
to take root. The only ideas that stand a chance 
are those that, from a Czech point of view, 
follow the common sense as it has proved its 
worth in history. Eva Hauserova, a Czech writer, 
visited an workshop at the official Public 
Discussion Forum at which Vandana Shiva talked 
about how globalization affects women from the 
Third World. She left completely disappointed by 
the calls for struggle. Her conclusion: 
"Fanatical leftists!" The media were just 
waiting for an analysis like hers. It appeared 
in the main Czech daily MF Dnes under the title: 
"I don=D5t want to be a resister against the IMF!" 
(MF Dnes, 29 September 2000). 

 The events in Prague confirm the prognosis of 
some analysts of the transformation period of 
Central and Eastern European countries: "The 
danger which one encounters in new societies 
created on the grave of socialism is that, in 
their very democratic enthusiasm, they tend to 
overlook the constitutive self-binding of 
democracy. National euphoria, all sort of quests 
for enemies (in the image of communists, Jews, 
excessive women, or members of other 
nationalities), can lead the new power to bow to 
the old totalitarian logic of retroactive 
legitimization of violence in the name of the 
nation or in the name of preserving =D4democracy=D5 
itself." (4) In other words, to limit democracy 
for the sake of some future democracy. 

 One year ago =D0 I had just moved to the Czech 
Republic =D0 I was talking to a former civil 
employee of the Ministry of Interior about the 
prospects of the Czech Republic becoming a 
member of the European Union, and the possible 
consequences of this move. I asked him whether 
he saw a danger that when the borders would 
disappear, the global activists=D5 movement would 
be free to come to the Czech Republic and make a 
revolution. His position was brave: "Compared to 
the Russian Mafia, these activists are peanuts 
for us." And true enough, no one in the Czech 
Republic, not even the police authorities, 
expected such a turn of events in Prague. This 
is why the main complaint addressed at INPEG as 
the organizers of the events was that the police 
had been relying on their promise that they 
would be engaging only in non-violent actions. 
In the eyes of the locals, violence had before 
been connected exclusively to migrants from the 
East, who were perceived as robbing shops, banks 
and apartments. This image had become so deeply 
engrained that local robbers had started 
speaking Russian in order to send the police 
investigation on a wrong track and put the blame 
on Easterners. In these September days, this 
image has been seriously shaken. Now, and at 
least until the shock ebbs down, it is the 
English and Italian language that carry the 
message of violence. Those people who before 
were scared to step onto the main streets of 
Prague because they saw Russians everywhere now 
have an additional group from whom they can be 
scared =D0 activists from the West! 

 The image of the enemy became clear already one 
year ago when the information surfaced about 
20=D5000 activists from all around the world 
coming to Prague to protest the IMF meeting. The 
label of "resisters of globalization" was 
created for launching a campaign against the new 
enemies against which the state had to mobilize 
its efforts. The historical architecture of the 
city of Prague had to be protected from the 
barbarians. The population had to be saved from 
the aggression. Children from Prague, 
pensioners, students were offered compensation 
if they agreed to move out of Prague into 
holiday resorts. The money for these 
compensations came directly from IMF conference 
budget. 

 It is hypocritical to say that if no violence 
had taken place in the streets, the Czech 
population would have taken the side of the 
demonstrators. The violence just provided them 
with a good excuse. In addition, =D4agents 
provocateurs=D5 of the police were active in the 
streets, succeeding in creating a situation that 
not only increased the anger of the Czech 
population but also an opportunity for 
laundering money under the guise of "covering 
the costs of the IMF conference". 

 A fundamental skepticism towards anything 
unfamiliar, anything that does not follow Czech 
standards contributed to forming the Czech 
public opinion. Appearance being often more 
important than content, the general picture of 
the protests outright shocked Czech people. "A 
herd of originals" or "a circus" are expressions 
that could be found in media for describing the 
demonstrators =D0 maybe someone should have 
explained to the people how come protesters 
choose dancing and a big show as a form of 
protest. We are reminded of a big discussion 
that took place in the pages of MF Dnes last 
winter about Western tourists visiting the 
National Theater and the Opera. Anger flared up 
because of the appearance of British tourists 
visiting the high places of culture in ordinary 
leisure clothes and disturbing the traditional 
Czech etiquette. The authors of the article at 
the time called the Czech audience to show more 
tolerance, but in September nobody even tried to 
heed this warning. Those who were not in a 
position to drown the protesters in tear-gas 
fill the media with dirty stories developed a 
strong rejection of those who had something to 
say in the streets. 

 Of course, in the Czech Republic, the tradition 
of taking to the streets to express one=D5s 
opinion was rooted out already in Soviet times. 
The ease with which the =D4Velvet Revolution=D5 of 
1989 took down the regime, helped by the 
interests of local elites to replace the 
previous system of power with a more effective 
one, taught Czech citizens that a better life 
can be achieved without big efforts. A well-
developed social-care system allows Czech people 
to close their eyes on poverty. Problems that 
are widespread in Eastern Europe, like unpaid 
wages over extended periods of time, high 
unemployment, pensioners searching the garbage, 
and the collapse of the health-care system, have 
not yet become very visible to ordinary Czech 
citizens. "As long as there is beer in the 
plenty, there is no reason to take to the 
streets," I heard someone say. That is why the 
call for standing up and fighting poverty and 
international financial institutions did not 
ring a bell about people=D5s own distress in the 
Czech Republic. 

 The IMF and the World Bank ended their meeting 
one day early. Activists believe that this 
happened because of the protests. Bankers 
believe that the meeting was ended just because 
they had finished their discussions and had 
nothing more to say. The Czech police officers 
are getting applause for their "brilliant" 
service. Away from the actual events in Prague, 
a side effect of the events is likely to please 
the German security apparatus. For years, 
Germany has been trying to get a contract signed 
with the Czech Republic allowing border areas to 
be watched by mixed teams of border guards from 
both countries patrolling both sides of the 
border together, similar to an agreement that 
has existed for years between Germany and 
Poland. The pressure under which the Czech 
authorities have been in the context of the IMF 
and WB meeting has finally made the signing of 
this agreement possible =D0 on 19 September, the 
German weekly Spiegel Online reported that the 
Ministers of Interior Schily and Gross put their 
signature under the document. (5) From now on, 
the front line of Fortress Europe on the Czech 
side will be "better" protected from migrants 
and radical activists moving around. In fact, 
hundreds of activists will not be able to come 
to the Czech Republic any time soon because of 
the deportation stamps in their passports. And 
hundreds of protesters need to deal with the 
brutality in Czech prisons and inform a wider 
audience about what actually happened during 
those three September days in Prague. 

 The Czech authorities hope that the Congress 
Center, a cultural center revamped especially 
for the occasion, will bring huge profits from 
future congresses, and only the Czech tax-payers 
don=D5t know yet that they will pick up the bill 
to maintain and run this huge building and carry 
the consequences of the promises of investments 
by the IMF and WB. But what is clear is that 
nobody will change their opinion about what 
happened. As it seems, the Prague events have 
helped reunite the power and the people, against 
an enemy called "resisters of globalization". 
This enemy from the West is now added to the old 
list of enemies that justified building a strong 
police apparatus =D0 the =D4Russian Mafia=D5, 
migrants, gypsies. In this atmosphere the police 
authorities have launched the idea of starting 
to use rubber bullets against demonstrators, and 
the parliament will soon consider this 
proposition. The society is clearly on the side 
of a stronger militarization of the police. 

 With all this discourse about =D4enemies=D5, there 
are real people sitting in Czech jails, even 
after all activists are released. Just a few 
months ago the Czech Republic was shaken by a 
strike in Czech prisons, after those who face 
horrible conditions there, as well as the 
brutality of the police, lost their patience. 
Their voice remained unheard =D0 but the 
international attention to the situation in 
Czech prisons after the Prague events can 
strengthen their struggle. 

 Another group is unlikely to ever protest their 
inhumane living conditions =D0 the asylum seekers 
kept in detention centers like Balkova and 
Cherveny Uezd, which are under the control of 
the Ministry of the Interior. While some of the 
migrants consider themselves lucky that the 
living conditions there are at least somewhat 
better than in their country of origin, others 
are under such pressure that it doesn=D5t even 
cross their mind to stage a political action 
against the humiliation they are exposed to in 
the detention centers. Only the circumstance 
that the police authorities were scared to 
release activists back into the streets of 
Prague after 26 September led them to decide to 
hold them in one of the detention centers near 
Plzen. This ill-advised move of the police 
allowed the bad reputation the detention center 
has among migrants as a part of the repression 
regime against them to break into the open and 
come to international fame. Activists were quick 
to find out that the atmosphere in the detention 
center is extremely oppressive and far away from 
any respect of Human Rights. Unfortunately, 
there is not much of a difference in the Czech 
Republic between detention centers, registration 
centers and prisons =D0 all three are places for 
marginalized people that are not considered real 
persons one would care for. This question was 
already raised some years ago by the 
Forschungsstelle f?r Flucht und Migration (FFM, 
Berlin). Now it has received increased 
international resonance through the personal 
experience of activists for whom the nightmare 
finished with their release. Others stayed 
behind, awaiting deportation, and new detainees 
are brought in every day, picked up by the 
border guards during unsuccessful attempts to 
secretly cross the border into Germany. The 
asylum seekers and so-called "illegal" migrants 
are under no official protection, since the 
UNHCR deals with the rights of refugees with 
refugee status, but not with refugees seeking 
asylum or even having been refused the status. 
This means that the latter are fully exposed to 
the brutality adopted by the state as a policy 
against them. 

 And there are those real-life activists who 
will remain in Prague after the international 
delegations have gone home, and who are sure to 
serve as scapegoats in the eyes of the public. 
There is reason to be scared of what is growing 
on the grave of real-socialism in the Czech 
Republic. If nobody stops it, that is. 

 Notes: 

 Renata Salecl "The Spoils of freedom", 1994, 
pp. 96-97. Ladislav Holy "The little Czech and 
Great Czech nation", 1996, pp. 180-181. Jan 
Potocka, Cesky denik, 27. Renata Salecl "The 
Spoils of freedom", 1994, p. 98. Spiegel Online 
38/2000, 19 September 2000, "Deutschland und 
Tschechien =D0 Gemeinsam gegen die Organisierte 
Kriminalit=E4t", 
<http://www.spiegel.de/druckversion/0,1588,94146
,00.html>. 

  www.savanne.ch/tusovka/en/1/olga-prague.... 

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