Another "In Memoriam."

Media photo

No one I know at this point really knew who this person was despite his popularity as a gifted writer and statesman.  At least they did not know of his death after a very productive, controversial and full and fitful life.  To those who were even a little aware of the end of the political threat that marxism posed to the world, and to the control of society by armed dictature, the presidency of Havel in Czech Republic was more significant than western influences in Hungary or the long - standing overtures of Yugoslavia to western Europe and the States.  By western influences, people like me mean not only anti - establishment influences in the central and eastern European societies, but the loosening of control by then repressive regimes, efforts at privatisation of business and commerce, and the amnesties of known anti - regime activists and unknown anti - communists alike. 

Havel was an iconic personality with his arts background and mastery of the Czech voice for political and societal reform at the end of the Cold War.  He was also probably for anyone a tremendous person to meet.  Any looking into the conditions he lived under during his adulthood will confirm this.  The world has truly lost a great personality and iconic character in view of freedom and social justice in the face of the bureaucratic and byzantium nightmare of communist influences and their regimes and the will to power of their leaders, officials, agents and secret agents everywhere.  See the "Economist" article below.

Václav Havel, playwright and president
Dec 16th 2011
EARLY in 1989, your correspondent, newly arrived in communist Czechoslovakia, passed an empty building in the Podoli district of Prague. Someone had written in the grime inside the window: "Svoboda Havlovi" [Freedom for Havel]. It was an interesting moment. The jailed playwright (as we used to call him) was behind bars for hooliganism following an opposition demonstration. The authorities could jail individuals. But they had lost the will, or the capability, to police the inside of shop windows.
See the full article
http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/12/v%C3%A1clav-havel-memoriam
Visit http://www.economist.com for more global news, views, and analysis from The Economist.

 
Also:  http://www.rferl.org/section/rferl_remembers_vaclav_havel/2068.html