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Democratization: Learning from the Lessons of Others

9 September 2003, Ramallah

The Democratization Process in Post-Communist Czech Republic
Speaker: Dr. Ladislav venys

I am a political scientist by training. This may be the reason why I was never interested in becoming an active politician. I preferred working in the not for profit, non-governmental sector and established in 1990 an NGO called Center for Democracy and Free Enterprise which I have directed until today. In my brief address I would like to share with you my 13year experience in building democracy in the Czech Republic with some excursions to the neighboring countries such as Slovakia , Poland , Hungary and even some countries of the former Soviet Union .

The role of the not for profit, non-governmental sector in helping the democratic process in any country is very important. Unfortunately, in the central European countries, which used to belong to the Soviet Bloc until 1989, the NGOs get very little support and encouragement from the ruling democratic parties. They have to struggle hard to survive and fulfill the role of the counterpart of the government.

I don't want to bore you with too many details of our history as a background to my talk. But least a few major dates and facts should be mentioned to give you an idea what we have had to go through to become a solid democratic country. The first Czech kingdom was established on our present territory already in the 9 th century and through the middle ages we have had several strong kings, some of them ruling over large parts of Central Europe . At the beginning of the 16 th century the Habsburks of German origin took over the rule and in the course of one century they were able to decimate totally the Czech nobility. From 1620 to 1918 we were under the occupation of foreign empires related to Habsburks. In 1918, immediately after World War I we were able to become an independent country called Czechoslovakia .

This major event of our history was made possible by great support and encouragement of our nascent political elite by the then American government, especially president Wilson. (As a matter of fact, our Declaration of Independence was composed and written in English in Philadelphia and only later translated into Czech. ) From 1918 to 1938 we were able to build one of the most exemplary democracies in Europe and an economic system, which made us one of the ten most prospering economies of the world. (We were by 1938 the fifth largest exporter of arms in the world and our armament sector was considered one of the finest in the world.) The neighboring Germany , ruled by Nazis, occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939 and stayed in during World War I until 1945 when we were liberated by Soviet and partially also American armies. For 3 years we continued our pre-war democratic process but in 1948 the Communists, supported by the Soviet Union , took over and ruled the country until 1989. Those 41 years were very difficult for us. A handful of communists (about 10% of total population) ruled the country in a ruthless, totalitarian manner. Tens of thousands of people were jailed, quite many executed, for nothing but disagreement with the undemocratic, inhuman rule of the communists. Only once we tried to change the undemocratic rule, namely, in 1968 when we tried to give „a human face“ to socialism but were punished for our disobedience by a Soviet-led invasion of our country in August 1968. The communist rule tightened even more after this occupation and Soviet troops stayed in for more than two decades.

We knew that nothing major in our lives could happen until there is a change in the “empire of evil” i.e. the Soviet Union . The moment of hope came in 1986 with Gorbachev and his “perestroika”. In October 1989 he was enlightened and progressive enough to declare that the Soviet Union would not interfere in domestic events of its central European vassal states. Immediately afterwards, a very strong liberation movement started in all those countries and one after another became independent by throwing down their communist rulers. By the end of 1989 the whole area, formerly under Soviet dominance, was free and could start building democratic regimes and free market economies.

For Czechoslovakia it was a third attempt during the last century to build democracy. Let me share with you some of our experiences and lessons of the past 13 years.

In November 1989, when it became quite clear that the communist rule in Czechoslovakia had come to an end and after the neighboring East Germany 's dismantling the ill-famed Berlin wall, we faced all of a sudden the problem of having no new politicians to take over from the communist rulers. It was a group of dissidents, mostly intellectuals and 1968 reformists, who were the only people in the country to be able to negotiate with the communists at that important milestone of our most recent history. It was a very peaceful negotiation process which lasted a few weeks and which was led by a leading dissident (and later the first president of the post-communist Czechoslovakia ) Mr. Václav Havel. A number of compromises had to be made to keep the takeover relatively smooth and bloodless. The communist party still had quite a few of its members in the new government that was established at the beginning of December 1989. Even the prime minister of this interim government was a communist. Just before Christmas of that year Václav Havel was unanimously elected President of Czechoslovakia and the process of reforms, both political and economic, was started. Slowly but systematically communists were losing their positions in the government and the Parliament. After the first free, democratic elections in June 1990 the democratic forces took over completely and ended the more than 4-decade rule of the communists. Unfortunately, the „velvet revolution“ of 1989 made it possible for many communists to take up leading positions in many branches of our economy because there was no law preventing them from such an infiltration. This lack of legal barriers to stop them from doing so is attributed to the very „soft“ negotiations President Havel and his group of leading dissidents had with the communists at the end of 1989 and beginning of 1990. The net result of this very generous treatment of the communists is the fact that many former communist leaders have leading positions in a great number of large and prosperous companies and many more benefit from their former contacts and capital they amassed in the past by establishing small and medium – sized companies which were able to get themselves established quite fast in the reforming economic set up and profit a great deal from the privatization of state owned companies (98% of the production sector of communist Czechoslovakia was owned by the state!). That process started in 1990-91 and went on until 1997 when over 80% of the large, medium-sized and small companies was privately owned; the remaining 20% were gradually privatized in the following 5 years so that in 2003 we have more than 90% of the production sector in private hands. The former communists never tried in the past 13 years to take over again the political power and seemed quite satisfied with the economic power they got in exchange. Whether this was a strategy planned beforehand or just coincidence or good luck on the side of the communists is difficult to say. This is how it is at the moment and we have to make the best out of it, if we want or not. It is important to note at this point that Czechoslovakia is the only country of Central Europe which was so excessively democratic that it allowed the Communist Party to go on existing as a parliamentary party even after the democratic takeover in 1989. Consequently, it continues to be quite a strong opposition in our Parliament (about 15% of seats on the average) until today. It has, however, accepted the new democratic principles of ruling and behaves accordingly in the parliament as well as in the public life. Its influence in the country remains quite strong (currently about 18% of population supports it) but there is no danger it could again become a dominant and ruling party. This brief account of the political atmosphere in my country after 1989 shows quite clearly that you can transfer from a totalitarian rule to a democratic one in a peaceful way and don't have to use any extreme means of violence and warfare. What it needs is a group of good negotiators, patience, diplomatic skills and, last but not least, international support. We were lucky to have most of these prerequisites. It is true that our new political representation (we could call it an elite) was recruited not from professional politicians but former dissidents and common citizens willing to learn fast new skills and enter the tricky political arena in an attempt to help their country (and often also themselves) get out of the mess of the past two generations. This new „elite“, however inexperienced at the beginning, is now behaving in quite a professional manner and keeps the country firmly on a democratic path.

One of the major events of the past 13 years is certainly the split of Czechoslovakia into two independent countries on January 1, 1993 , namely, the Czech and Slovak Republic . It wasn't an easy decision to make after 75 years of marriage. Yet, again, our political elite, however still inexperienced, was able to negotiate a „velvet divorce“ resulting in the two countries now existing side by side, having the same (if not bigger) amount of trade and keeping a very friendly (much friendlier than before) relationship.

The „velvet revolution“ of 1989 and „velvet divorce“ in 1993 show clearly that everything can be negotiated in a peaceful way if there is, of course, good will on both the negotiating sides. The role of elites in such processes is quite important. It is therefore important that they are well trained and dedicated to the cause under negotiation.

An important factor in all negotiations of the kind mentioned above is, as I already mentioned, international recognition and clear support. We have fortunately had understanding and support of most of the world in the past 13 years and could luckily achieve most of what we wanted even in the international arena. We became members of NATO in 1999 and are going to become a member of EU in May 2004. What else can we wish? More prosperity? It'll come in due time but we have to work very hard to get where many prosperous countries of the world have get by now.

What is the lesson you could learn here in Israel from our experience? I think many aspects of our way to freedom and democracy cannot be compared to what you have here. But some Can. The level of animosities and hatred I can see and feel here are comparable to what we felt toward the Nazi occupation in 1939-1945 and then to Soviet dictatorship and later even its direct occupation in 1948-1989. Our problems in both the difficult periods of our recent history were, however, solved by foreign superpowers (in 1945 jointly by Russians and Americans – and in 1989 again by Americans and Russians – in that order). You have a more difficult situation here as you have Americans supporting only the Jewish community while Russians tend to stay aside and not get involved in the conflict. There is nobody important in the world who would support the Palestinians and would have enough influence to persuade others that there are two sides to the coin, You have to persuade the world that your case is strong enough to be paid attention to. Otherwise you are doomed. Your case cannot be solved domestically. Foreign powers have to help both you and the Jewish community to find a compromise, a solution. None of the two fighting parties can achieve a 100% victory. You have to negotiate, find or quickly train good negotiators, stop suicidal atrocities, and achieve your goals through clever diplomacy rather than bomb attacks. That's my advice to you at this moment of truth.

Discussion:

Dr. Abdul-Hadi:

- If you tell us that you were occupied for 300 years, we were occupied for 500 years.

- You are also telling us about educating elites; I don't think elites need to be educated.
They know what to do and they jump on the wagon whenever it is convenient.
Otherwise they will hide.

- In our case we have something worse. There are people who deny their identity. You have this many Palestinians in Israel and you know how they have been treated and how they have been dehumanized. Similarities are there but if you want to compare specific cases, which you hinted about president Havel: how he rose to power and his character. I recall what you call the Prague 2000. I was invited to this festival; it's a huge festival conference in Prague 2000. A small window was opened for him to bring Palestinians, Israelis to speak to each other, not to negotiate. He was attending with the former president of South Africa , Clarke. We also remember when the Romanian president started inviting Palestinians, Israelis for talks. Two years back I saw president Havel sitting watching talks and not interfering how things develop by themselves.

Dr. Venys: In 1968 when the Russian came and occupied our country we resisted in discussing things with them. I was one of those who were talking to the Russian soldiers when they came because we all spoke Russian well. I saw the Russian soldiers crying over things. They were told completely different things. The first groups of Russian soldiers because of these friendly discussions with Czechs after 10 days of staying in my country were returned to Russia and new soldiers came in. They were forbidden to talk to us. “Elite people” are mostly educated people who want to do something for their own country, use their education and experience and maybe to do also something for their ego because they want to become important, which is fine. If you combine all this you have a true elite member definition.

President Havel never wanted a solution at that conference. He just wanted people to talk, discuss things, and come up with ideas. That's what you are doing here, to have people meet here, discuss things and maybe there will be something important coming up that will help somebody here in his own work, in his own field. Who knows? Are we going to come up here with a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict? No. But it would be fantastic if we did.

Dr Abdul-Hadi: After 100 years of struggle for independence, I don't see a solution. I see an endless conflict. I see everybody is using this conflict for so many reasons. But again coming back to this. How can we see a democracy developing under the worst conditions ever? In your case under occupation several times, did the civil society (activists, intellectuals, teachers, academia, charitable organizations) were they functioning normally and benefiting from the circumstances to survive with the worst conditions or they had obedience and surrendered accepting to be tools?

Dr. Venys: They were totally dissolved; they couldn't do anything. Look I taught at Charles University in my country from 1969 until 1974. As a matter of fact, I returned from my graduate studies in the U.S.A. on the invasion night in August 1968. I came as a future diplomat. I was trained in America to be a diplomat. Because of the Soviet invasion, however, I never entered diplomatic service. Hundreds of thousands of people emigrated. Out of all my classmates only two people stayed. A large part of the educated elite actually emigrated after the Russian invasion in 1968. After teaching at the university for 6 years, I was asked to sign a declaration that I would teach only according to the lines of Marxism-Leninism. I did not sign. There were some 260 teachers who were kicked out in one semester from Czech universities in 1974. We couldn't do much. We had to become “nobodies”, to be able to survive. My uncle was jailed for 25 years, only because he delivered a letter of his friend who secretly emigrated to Germany to his mother in Prague . That was considered a treason.

Dr. Abdul-Hadi: What did the church do?

Dr. Venys: The church could not do anything. If you went to church you had to go there secretly. Otherwise, you would be punished. It went on until 1989. People were discouraged from being involved in anything, because they could be suspected of conspiracy. They were doing only what they were told to do. We were climbing many mountains; whenever we reached the top of a mountain, we discovered that there was a new mountain to climb. We did it for four decades non-stop – and didn't get tired! That's how we survived and could take over the reins of governing after 1989.

Finally I just want to read a quotation from the book IS THERE LIFE ON MARX? by Czech-British writer Benjamin Kuras, depicting quite well what really happened in Central Europe after 1989.

“The 1989 Central European revolution was a special hand-over of power by visible villains to invisible villains who hid behind a facade of national heroes whom they gradually turned into visible villains. The net result is infinitely cleaner public lavatories, which give a fleeting visitor the inspiration of being in the West. That in itself is not an achievement to sniff at.” (Karl Marx – what he would have remarked if he were still alive)

Dr. Ladislav Venys, Director, Center for Democracy and Free
Enterprise, Prague,The Czech Republic

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