25 Years After: Too Early to Forget

Today, on 17th November 2014, people all over the former Czechoslovak republic are gathering to celebrate two important anniversaries of our recent history. As usual, there is an open space for diverse interpretation of the events that happened on 17th November. As usual, some plotters come up with their conspiratorial theories and make doubts about the value of all bold men and women who were not afraid to fight for freedom at the expense of disrupting personal comfort and perhaps endangering lives of their family and all beloved. Such a space opens up always when it comes to essential historical moments, and this day is not an exception at all.

Nevertheless, 17^th November has a far greater significance than being a clash of opinions of then events. 17^th November has a significance of something more profound what transcends the borders of our small country and that goes beyond the horizon of our Czechoslovak history. Today, all over the world, people are commemorating two Churchill´s fingers symbolizing the struggle against lawlessness, lack of freedom and moral emptiness.

On this day, we are commemorating demonstrations of Czech students on 17^th November 1939 who were claiming fierce resistance against German occupation and denouncing a death of Jan Opletal, a young student of medicine, who had died a couple of days before as one of victims of the Nazi terror. Students were arrested by repressive authorities of the Third Reich and subsequently assassinated. Those who survived were deported to concentration camps across the Reich. On the same day, Nazis attacked the centre of Czech, still vibrant, intelligence when they shut down Czech universities across then Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Fifty years later, other students, not different to their predecessors, gathered to honor victims of these atrocities. Among their objectives were to enable freedom of expression, writing, reading free books and newspapers, freedom of assembly, freedom of travel without ubiquitous power of state and to make their lives according to their own will. Marching peacefully, they aimed to draw attention to unsatisfactory conditions of the socialist Czechoslovakia with their ambition for change. On the National Avenue (Národní třída) in Prague the peaceful protest was extinguished by the police cordon that massacred the students with batons. The incidents followed quickly and therefore students together with actors, dissidents and other people drove hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of Czechoslovakia. The jaded regime was dismantled. The rest is a well-known history.

After 25 years after so-called Velvet Revolution I was present at the memorial on the National Avenue in Prague, where thousands of people were gathering to light up the candles, to remember that freedom should not be taken for granted and to remember that in the past people were dying and suffering for freedom. People of all generations were coming and are coming even at this time when I am trying to express my experience. For me, it is a clear indication that despite imperfections of our young democracy, civil society is alive, makes loud voice and refuses to become an instrument in the hands of the powerful.

Today, on 17^th November 2014, I overall light up three candles. First candle is to commemorate the victims of Nazi terror. Second candle is to commemorate the victims of Communist terror. Third candle is to commemorate all courageous men and women living non-democratic regimes with lack of freedom. It is today when we must realize the fact there are still regimes that prevent their own citizens from expressing free and creative thoughts. Thus, November 1989 must be an example for all defenders of freedoms in countries like Burma, Cuba, Egypt, Hong Kong, Mexico, People´s Republic of China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela and others that confront the aggressive apparatuses of power. November 1989 must be evidence of global solidarity of students´ movements while keeping the hope of human dignity and free thinking.