Finding Freedom
July 2011
Banner photo: Finding Freedom [© Dariush M./Shutterstock]
Václav Havel--Leader of "The Velvet Revolution"
Supporters of Václav Havel celebrating his election to the presidency, Wenceslas Square, Prague, 1989 [© Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images]
It was the autumn of 1989, in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, and the sound of singing filled the air. The Prague Spring of 1968, the name given to a movement that had sought to offer "socialism with a human face," had been trampled underfoot by Soviet military intervention. Now, the artists whose activities had been banned and who had suffered for long years rose up in protest. The "singing revolution" had begun.
A singer took the stage. Back in 1968, she had been Czechoslovakia's best-loved popular singer. Now, the gathered crowd was wildly enthusiastic. But she was overcome by her feelings and could not make a sound. Then a little girl approached her and handed her a bouquet that contained one flower for each year of the singer's lost career.
"Thank you," she managed to say finally, in a voice husky with emotion. And then she began to sing, ever so softly. Never again would she be silenced.
Ten years prior to this mass demonstration, in 1979, the Czech playwright Václav Havel was imprisoned. He was 42. This was the third time he had been arrested.
Wherever he went, he carried a razor, a toothbrush and toothpaste; under constant surveillance of the authorities, he was prepared to be arrested at any moment. There was only one reason why the authorities were after him: he spoke the truth. While others were terrorized into silence, he continued to trumpet the truth and expose the lies the ruling regime was built on, to reveal the fact that "the emperor had no clothes."
Mr. Havel was imprisoned for four years. He was not free to write or read what he wished.
Though he was persecuted and defamed in his own land, he received many literary prizes overseas. He was even awarded honorary doctorates by universities in Canada and France.
The Czech authorities could no longer ignore him. Though they didn't relish criticism from abroad, they didn't wish to free their prisoner so easily, either. So they offered him a deal: if he submitted a written request for a pardon, it would be granted to him. The authorities wanted him to bow down and humble himself before them. But he refused.
Mr. Havel believed in the power of hope. He writes that hope is "an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. . . It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
The voice of a single individual, powerless as he or she may seem, who cries out the truth with his or her whole being is stronger than the voices of thousands who persist in their lies. Mr. Havel's hope came from his belief in that truth. And the quiet, bloodless revolution, the Velvet Revolution, that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1989 was testimony to his beliefs. It was a revolution that spread from heart to heart, from a single wave to ten thousand waves.
The Amateur Politician
In April 1992, President Havel spoke in Japan. His message was like a cry for freedom in the midst of oppression: "It seems to me that the world of politics should be humanized and spiritualized. Politicians should be more committed emotionally not only to their political fate but to that of the world. Instead of being involved in factional quarrels over power, they should listen more to the voice of their unique, individual conscience, the way poets do."
SGI President Ikeda with Václav Havel in Tokyo, 1992 [© Seikyo Shimbun]
Words such as these led to Mr. Havel's arrest and imprisonment. But they also led to his making history, and to being elected the first "amateur president" with the overwhelming support of the Czech people.
The day after his speech, I met President Havel at the State Guesthouse in Tokyo and told him that I was fully in agreement with his remarks. How much better and refreshing is an "amateur politician" who is always cognizant of the needs of the people than a professional politician who cares only for his own power and gain.
I remember President Havel's shy and modest smile, and that he spoke carefully, as if thoughtfully choosing each word.
"I wrote this speech based on my own personal philosophy of humanism, of love and kindness toward all humanity," he told me. "I wanted to talk about what intellectuals should do for the Earth and human society."
Our society today ignores the need to show love and kindness to other humans. Politicians, in particular, who think of themselves as professionals, are scornful of such ideas and laugh derisively at them. The intellectuals, the guardians of the human spirit, have a special duty to struggle against such cynical power mongers, to struggle against lies and politics that deceive the people.
Mr. Havel went on to explain his concept of "antipolitical politics." "This is politics from the bottom up: not mechanical politics but human politics, politics based not on theory but which grows organically from human hearts."
I recall a young man I met in Prague, that beautiful "city of a hundred spires," some four years before the Prague Spring, in 1964. It was just when the Tokyo Olympics were starting. I was walking along a street on a chilly morning. The faces of the people were expressionless, masklike. There was a poster for the Olympics on one street corner, and as I approached it, a tall young man came up to me.
His face was frozen into a white mask from which sad eyes looked out. I reached into my pocket and gave him one of the Olympic commemorative coins I had brought from Japan. "How much?" he asked, but I told him I was giving it to him. He looked at me in disbelief. When my small gesture of friendliness finally got through to him, his face changed completely. From beneath the mask broke the brilliant smile of an innocent child. I was astonished. It was as if he was starved for the simple natural expression of affection from a fellow human being.
I understood why subsequently the Prague Spring should search for the "human face" of socialism. This "human face" was quashed in the Soviet advance, but some of the Czech people did not abandon their hopes--and President Havel symbolizes those who kept hope alive against all odds.
When I asked what advice he would offer young people today, President Havel replied that we should respect each other and love humanity, and that all human beings who share this world should value peace and harmony. As he spoke, he savored each of his words--words untypical of a politician. It was attempting to practice this humanism honestly and faithfully that had landed Mr. Havel in prison.
Many interpreted the collapse of the communist regimes of Eastern Europe in 1989 as a victory of capitalism over socialism. Essentially, however, it was a revolution in a way of life. It was a revolution of people who had wrung all fear from their hearts as they rose up in protest against an oppressive society.
