Few people know (or care), that in the early part of the last century, Czechoslovakia was one of the most libertarian democracies of the era … and now, it would seem that the Czech spirit is still alive and well. While news of the Irish “No” has made all the news, EU watchers would be wise to look to the Czech Republic:
Few people in North America know much about Czech democratic traditions. I suppose it’s because the Iron Curtain effectively slammed shut the Czech experiment, which, prior to WW2 made Czechoslovakia what may best be described as the world leader in libertarian democracy.
To give you an example of how truly “progressive” the Czechs were … not to be confused with post-modern “progressives”, let me share with you my family’s story.
More, from a pouty BBC.
Czech democracy was alive and well until “Peace In Our Time”. It was the last democracy in Eastern Europe before the outbreak of WWII. Hopefully the Czechs won’t be foolish enough to trust the West to uphold their libertarian democracy again.
A Czech once told me that the period from the Nazi occupation until the fall of communism was known as “Fifty Years of Wasting Time.”
i’d remind you of how the czechs accepted their invaders with nary a peep…AND took to the Nazi bosses offer of double time ..paid hols…turkeys for Xmaas…extra pay for this and that as long as the Skoda works kept humming along…which they did(hundreds of thousands died because of that czech ‘enthusiasm”……which of course doesn’t answer the question of whether the czechs(in the final analysis) were greater collaborators than the frogs…..or not..
the one irrefutable testament to czech valour was of course the assassination of richard tristan heydrich…
don’t mean to be a killjoy…but facts are facts…
btw i’m irish…and i’m forever looking up at the high ground….which is proper….but not always of course….
Ah John … I think you confuse the Czechs with the Slovak’s Hlinka Guard. The Slovak population had a fascist movement which welcomed the Germans, otherwise 85% of Czechs (including Slovaks) were opposed to the Nazis. The RAF and RCAF had Czech fighter squadrons … my great Uncle fought in one. You may also be confusing the Czechs with the German population in Czechoslovakia, which was sizable. Thousands of Czechs fought a resistance campaign and many died in concentration camps … and unlike other Western countries, many Czechs perished because they tried to protect their Jews. My grandfather’s best friend was dragged to death behind a team of horses because he aided the partisans … he died on the streets my grandfather grew up on.
The Czech army was ordered to stand down, by the way, because a fight would’ve meant the destruction of Czech cities, chiefly Prague. Once France refused to back up her treaty with the Czechs, it was hopeless to fight with absolutely no chance of winning. The Czechs were entirely alone, with the UK and France refusing to help. The Polish, Dutch, and Belgians on the other hand, had the knowledge that the UK and France were in the fight … the Czechs were completely abandoned.
Your comments are not based on reality.
I have a very dear Czech friend, whose family left Czechoslovakia with nothing, to escape the Communist tyranny.
Her comment to me a few years ago was, “we left Czhechoslovakia for this?,” meaning for lib-left, limits-to-freedom-via-our-so-called-Charter-of-Rights-and-Freedoms slop pail Canada has become.
Vaclav Klaus is the inheritor of Jan Hus.
Indulgences sold then by the Church of Rome; indulgences sold today by the church of Gaia.
History repeats.
…-
Jan Hus 1370-1415
“The Pope was then [1412] at war with the King of Naples and was therefore in need of a considerable amount of money. So he decided to sell indulgences publicly to all Christians. “Everybody who bought indulgences for a certain sum was forgiven his sins and thus could buy himself an after-life in Paradise instead of in hell.” Hus severely criticized the Pope’s action. He also demanded that the vendors of indulgences should leave Prague. “When, induced by Hus’s preachings, three journeymen openly protested in church against such vendors, they were arrested by the city beadles and, in spite of the protests of the people, executed.” After this struggle against the sale of indulgences Hus had to leave Prague. “His friends feared for his life, inasmuch as he was excommunicated and Prague placed under and interdict: no Christian was allowed to offer him food or drink or lodging.””
“Soon after Hus’s arrival at the Council he was arrested and thrown into prison. In the winter of 1414 he was carried away to the castle of Gottlieben, where, hands and feet in fetters, he lay in a tower exposed to cold winds. His letters from Constance, which he wrote in prison and sent to Bohemia, are filled with faith and the love of man, of his native country and of the Czech people. Even on July 6, 1415, when led through the streets of Constance in a shameful procession to the stake, Jan Hus remained calm and of good cheer. While bound to the stake, Hus said: “The prime endeavor of all my preaching, teaching and writing and of all my deeds has been to turn people from their sins and this truth that I have written, taught and preached in accordance with the word of God and the teaching of the holy doctors I willingly seal with mydeath today.””
http://www2.kenyon.edu/projects/margin/hus2.htm
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, going to school with, working with and working for a number of Czech ex-pats. Most of these came to Canada in the 60’s and a couple in the 70’s.
One smuggled his manufacturing equipment, his capital and 300+ employees with their families out of the country.
This man’s story would write one heck of a book.