Vaclav Havel’s “Disturbing the Peace”

Whenever I need a moral boost I go back and reread Vaclav Havel’s “Disturbing the Peace”. This book is a series of essays by the dissident Vaclav Havel that were smuggled out of communist Czechoslovakia and translated by a Havel friend in the West. Vaclav Havel was a playwright who became a Czech dissident who became leader of the Velvet revolution (which ousted the communists) and who finally became president of the republic.

When Vaclav Havel stood next to President Bill Clinton in 1999 the moral contrast could not have been greater. Here was our own president—someone lacking any moral authority whatsoever—standing next to a man who had been repeatedly jailed for challenging the communist government and triumphing the cause of the people who suffer under totalitarianism. Not only was Havel a politician he was a playwright—i.e. someone with the keen eye of the novelist coupled with the political acumen of a statesman. Oh that our politicians would so well-rounded.

Haclav Havel was the foremost dissident under the communist regime. He openly challenged the ruling government with such essays as “Power to the Powerless” and “The Soul of Main under Communism”. (Actually I forgot the name of the latter essay. I think “The Soul of Man under Communism” is an essay written by Oscar Wilde. But Havel did address this theme in “Disturbing the Peace” and in essays he forwarded to the communist rulers.) Havel spent much time in jail. He was further persecuted because his family had been wealthy under capitalism. Such people were usually given menial jobs as punishment for belonging to the bourgeoisie. He challenged the regime when they threatened the rock-n-roll band The Plastik People. That was when he became friends with the American Rock Star Jethro Tull. As president he requested that Jethro Tull become Ambassador. That was derailed by the American Secretary of State James Baker under George Bush. What a prude—I wonder if Baker bothered to read recent Czech history before his knee jerk reaction. Actually I read somewhere that he did this out of retribution. Vaclav Havel eulogized Jethro Tull in The New Yorker magazine a few years ago.

One of the most exciting parts of the book is where Havel describes the dissident community’s efforts to publish a Havel essay advocating that the Czech government adhere to the terms of the Charter 77 human rights accord to which they were a signatory. The story is spine tingling thriller complete with car chases and obscure drop points. It reads like a John le Carre novel except it is real.

Havel’s dissident community operated out of the Praque theater the Magic Lantern. The artists and writers who gathered there were part of the cultural and intellectual community of which Havel was a leader. Some wrote for the government-sanctioned media. Other’s signed Havel’s Charter 77 essay and were consequently tossed out of their jobs and otherwise persecuted.

I have seen two of Havel’s plays performed in Praque. Both were quite good. In ore a rebellious intellectual, obviously Vaclac Havel himself, is forced to work in a brewery because of his recalcitrance. Obviously this well-read person is better suited to working as a editor, writer, or maybe even typing in an ordinary office.

One of Havel’s greatest essays in “The Soul of Man under Socialism” (again apologies for the incorrect title). It’s theme is that while the Czech’s might have not been brutalized like the Soviets under Stalin the Czech citizens lived under a constant psychological burden that slowly wore people down. There was that ever present fear that made people follow the regimen of flying the flag on the proper communist holidays. People’s spirits become dull as they are worn down by the monotony and arbsudity of it all.

Recently Vaclac Havel has been attacked in the press for his marriage to a young beautiful actress. She commited the ultimate Czech faux pas by leaving the family pet at home when they flew to the Canary Islands. This is in a nation of dog lovers. His wife has proven fertile fodder for the gossipy Czech press. The romantic liasions of an aging, great man who is living on one lung do nothing to diminish him in my eyes.

Havel’s first wife died a few years ago. She had helped him with his dissident activities. Their letters during the years he was in jail are published in the book “Letters to Olga”. These are deliberately written so that are difficult to understand. Consequently, Havel’s jailors and censors were too dimwitted to understand the subtle references to dissident activities and follow other secret messages in these notes. This is how Havel kept aprised of the situation outside during his time in jail. No doubt this secret communications with the outside world also gave him a spiritual comfort.

After you read “Disturbing to Peace” I also recommend “The Magic Lantern” by Timothy Garton Ash. This is a first hand account of the fall of the communism as the democratic revolution rolled across Czechoslovakia, East German, Hungary, and Romania. Garton Ash was privy to the inner circle of people who plotted and executed these bloodless coups. (Bloodless everywhere except, of course, in Romania.)