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Globe and Mail
30-05-2025
- General
- Globe and Mail
Here's a radical idea to avoid speed camera tickets - forget vandalism and just don't speed
Throughout the annals of human struggle, there have been iconic acts of heroic protest. Acts such as Gandhi's Salt March in 1930, the Civil Right's Movement's Montgomery Bus Boycott of the 1950s and Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution in 1989. Will the 'Parkside Speed Camera Decapitations of 2025' one day be recorded alongside such illustrious acts? What's that you say? You've never heard of the 'Parkside Speed Camera Decapitations?' Think of them (there's no way a single individual is responsible) as 'Robin Hoods' but instead of stealing from the rich to give to the poor, these champions cut down the defenseless Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras under the cover of darkness. Their sacred quest? To preserve their right to speed and jeopardize people's safety. The Parkside Vandaliers, as I'll call them, get their name from the picturesque Toronto street that runs along the east side of High Park, struck their latest blow sometime during the night of May 22. While the good people of the west end slumbered, they toppled over the Parkside Drive speed camera. It was the fifth time in six months that the Vandaliers had struck. Credit where credit is due. What they lack in integrity they make up for in consistency. The Vandaliers have sawed the speed camera down, hacked it down and dragged it 200 metres to deposit in a duck pond. The attacks on vulnerable speed cameras have Torontonians in shock, dumbfounded by yet another example of man's inhumanity to soulless metal objects that can't feel anything. 'It's just Groundhog Day,' Faraz Gholizadeh, co-chair of the community group Safe Parkside, told The Toronto Star, alluding to the 1992 comedy starring Bill Murray as curmudgeonly weatherman Phil Connors who must repeat February 2 over and over until he experiences spiritual growth. Spiritual growth seems unlikely for the Parkside Vandaliers, a group of people who get their jollies lurking around at night lopping the heads off speed cameras. The Parkside Camera massacres are not isolated incidents. These are just a few of many acts of man-on-speed-camera vandalism in Toronto. There are 150 speed cameras in the city. Municipal officials say there have been 325 acts of speed camera vandalism so far in 2025. Though they have not issued a manifesto; it's a fair bet that the Vandaliers target the Parkside speed camera because it is emblematic of what they consider a 'cash grab.' It's Toronto's top-grossing ASE device, having issued 65,000 speeding tickets worth around $7-million since 2021. All 150 cameras bring in $40-million. Speed camera advocates note that Parkside Drive is one of Toronto's most dangerous streets. It's a 2.5-kilometre north/south arterial road that runs between a residential area and a park. According to a report by the city, about 21,000 motor vehicles and 1,000 transit passengers travel daily on Parkside Drive. 'Over the 10-year period between August 2014 and August 2024 there have been 1,487 collisions on Parkside Drive between Bloor Street West and Lake Shore Boulevard West. Of the collisions, five resulted in serious injuries and two resulted in fatalities.' The Parkside speed camera was erected in 2021 after a terrible five-car crash claimed the lives of two seniors. The driver responsible, Artur Kotula, had been told by an emergency doctor that he should not drive because he was suffering from seizures caused by alcohol use disorder. Kotula drove anyway, going more than 100 kilometres an hour in a 50 zone. In March, Kotula was found guilty of two counts of dangerous driving causing death and two counts of dangerous driving causing bodily harm and sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. You might think that the Parkside Vandaliers would be angry at folks like Kotula (who, along with his sentence, was given a 15-year driving suspension) but apparently not, because his head is still attached to his body. They're angry at speed cameras. Their ire is not exclusive to Toronto. In 2020, someone spray-painted the lens of Hamilton's first photo radar camera. In 2021, three speed cameras were vandalized in the Niagara region. Nor is it exclusively Canadian. In Italy, a person or a group calling itself 'Fleximan' spent 2024 cutting down photo radar devices. The BBC reported that Fleximan – a pun on the Italian word for angle grinder, 'flessibile' – had cut down 15 'autovelox' and left a note saying, 'Fleximan is coming.' When I imagine the Parkside Vandaliers at work, I picture them celebrating the decapitation of an automated speed enforcement device by exclaiming at the top of their lungs, 'Take that, lifeless speed camera machine that can feel nothing and will be replaced shortly!' And yet, while I admire the Parkside Vandaliers' out-of-the-box thinking – Don't like speed cameras? Decapitate them – I question their logic. Surely there are other ways to avoid getting speeding tickets that do not involve power tools and the nocturnal maiming of automated speed enforcement devices. You know, like not speeding. Maybe I'm just not radical enough.
New York Times
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
William H. Luers, Diplomat Who Backed Czech Dissident Leader, Dies at 95
In 1983, William H. Luers, a new American ambassador to Czechoslovakia, bet on a long shot for its future: Vaclav Havel, the often-imprisoned poet-playwright and enemy of the Communist state. But after leading a peaceful revolution to oust the regime, the long shot cultural leader became the democratically-elected last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of its successor, the Czech Republic. The ambassador's contribution to Mr. Havel's very survival in the last years of Communist rule, and his subsequent political successes were, in his own telling, results of maneuvers as gentle as the so-called Velvet Revolution that extricated Czechoslovakia from the Communists in 1989. To spare Mr. Havel from an assassin's bullet, a poison pill or a return to prison — where he might have been snuffed out quietly — Mr. Luers enlisted dozens of American cultural celebrities, mostly friends of his, to visit Prague, meet the playwright and then, at news conferences outside the reach of the government-controlled Czech news media, recast him in a protective armor of global publicity. 'I spent a lot of my career with artists and writers, promoting the arts,' Mr. Luers said in a 2022 interview for this obituary. 'I was worried that the Communists might poison him or put him back in prison. My strategy was to shine as much light on Havel as possible. So I brought in John Updike, Edward Albee and many other people to talk about how great an artist and cultural leader he was.' The recruited celebrities, Mr. Luers said, included the novelists E.L. Doctorow, Kurt Vonnegut and William Styron; Philippe de Montebello, the director of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art; Joseph Papp, the producer-director who created Shakespeare in the Park; the California abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn; and Katharine Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post. The secret police filmed and photographed the visitors, but they were hardly people who could be intimidated. Indeed, Mr. Luers said, it was ultimately the Communist authorities who were cowed by the worldwide attention accorded to Mr. Havel. The underlying message, he said, was that harming Mr. Havel might risk incalculable international consequences for the Czech government. Mr. Luers, who retired from the Foreign Service in 1986 and became president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for 13 years, died on Saturday at his home in Washington Depot, in western Connecticut. He was 95. His wife, Wendy Luers, said the cause was prostate cancer. In a 29-year Foreign Service career, Mr. Luers was a blend of diplomat and showman who cultivated friendships with artists and writers while seeking solutions to Cold War problems for five presidential administrations, from Dwight D. Eisenhower's in the 1950s to Ronald Reagan's in the '80s. It was an era of nuclear perils, regional conflicts and fast-moving economic and political changes. Specializing in Soviet and East European affairs, and fluent in Russian, Spanish and Italian, Mr. Luers worked at embassies in Moscow, Rome and other capitals of Europe and Latin America. At his career's end, he was ambassador to Venezuela (1978-82) as well as Czechoslovakia (1983-86). On his last and most important diplomatic assignment, Mr. Luers arrived in Prague months after Mr. Havel, the scion of a wealthy Czech family noted for its cultural accomplishments, was released from four years in prison, the longest of his several sentences for political activities in defiance of the government. Mr. Havel's absurdist plays ridiculing Moscow's satellite state had already raised him to international prominence, but had left him an official pariah and his works blacklisted at home for years after Soviet tanks crushed the brief Prague Spring uprisings of 1968. Mr. Luers set his leadership sights on Mr. Havel for his artistic talents and magnetic personality, and contacted him through dissident intellectuals in the Civic Forum, a notable opponent of the Communist Party. His American celebrity friends burnished Mr. Havel's name as a writer, but not as a statesman, which might have increased Mr. Havel's perils. Inside Czechoslovakia, only the underground samizdat press circulated the encomiums to him. Long after Mr. Luers left Prague and retired in 1986, the protective effects of his stratagem lingered, and Mr. Havel played a major role in the peaceful revolution that toppled the Czech puppet government in 1989. Weeks after that revolution, Mr. Havel was named president of Czechoslovakia by a unanimous vote of the Federal Assembly. In 1990, his presidency was affirmed by a landslide in the nation's first free elections since 1946. And when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were created as successor states in 1993, Mr. Havel became the republic's first president. Re-elected in 1998, he left office at the end of his second term in 2003. 'Bill Luers had a remarkable career — in fact many careers,' James L. Greenfield, a former State Department colleague who later was an assistant managing editor of The New York Times, said in a 2022 email for this obituary. (Mr. Greenfield died in 2024.) 'He was the ambassador to Venezuela, but more importantly to Czechoslovakia. While there he became the main supporter, defender and protector of Vaclav Havel.' William Henry Luers was born on May 15, 1929, in Springfield, Ill., the youngest of three children of Carl and Ann (Lynd) Luers. William and his sisters, Gloria and Mary, grew up in Springfield. Their father was president of a local bank and their mother was an avid bridge player. William attended Springfield High School, where he played basketball and golf and was the senior class president; he graduated in 1947. At Hamilton College in upstate New York, he majored in chemistry and math and earned a bachelor's degree in 1951. He studied philosophy at Northwestern University briefly, but joined the Navy in 1952, according to an oral history. He graduated from officers' candidate school, became a deck officer on aircraft carriers in the Atlantic and Pacific and was discharged as a lieutenant in 1957. He then joined the Foreign Service, and in 1958 earned a master's degree in Russian studies at Columbia University. In 1957, he married Jane Fuller, an artist. They had four children: Mark, David, William and Amy, and were divorced in 1979. That year he married Wendy (Woods) Turnbull, the founder and president of the Foundation for a Civil Society, who had two daughters, Ramsay and Connor Turnbull, from a previous marriage. His son Mark died of esophageal cancer in 2020. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his other children along with five grandchildren and five step-grandchildren. After 16 years in the Foreign Service at lower ranks, Mr. Luers became an aide to Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in 1973 (and personally delivered to him President Richard M. Nixon's 1974 letter of resignation in the Watergate scandal.) He became deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs in 1975, and for European affairs in 1977. Retiring from the Foreign Service, he joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art as president in a leadership-sharing arrangement with Mr. de Montebello, who as director presided over artistic matters and was the Met's spokesman. Mr. Luers, as chief executive, handled finances, fund-raising and outreach to government agencies. The dual leadership, at times tense, lasted until 1999. His strong suit was fund-raising. 'He's indefatigable,' Carl Spielvogel, a trustee, said of Mr. Luers. 'I don't know many people willing to be out at breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, but he was. And he's very good at it.' Mr. Luers doubled the museum's endowment, modernized its financial systems, enlarged its staff to 1,800 full-time employees, secured the $1 billion Walter Annenberg collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings for the museum, and oversaw the construction of new galleries, wings, exhibitions and public programs. When he stepped down, the museum had a $116 million budget, and crowds that often exceeded 50,000 visitors on weekends. In 1990, Mr. Luers arranged for Mr. Havel, who was conferring with President George W. Bush on a state visit to the White House, to make a side trip to New York to visit the museum. It was a touching reunion for Mr. Luers, who returned many times to the Czech Republic for meetings with old friends and Mr. Havel, who died in 2011. After the Met, Mr. Luers was chairman and president of the United Nations Association of the U.S.A., which provides research and other services for the U.N. For many years, he also directed the Iran Project, a nongovernmental organization that supported United States negotiations with Iran. Mr. Luers, who had homes in Manhattan and Washington Depot, wrote scores of articles for foreign policy journals and newspapers, including The Times. He lectured widely and taught at Princeton, George Washington, Columbia and Seton Hall Universities, and at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Last fall, he released a memoir, 'Uncommon Company: Dissidents and Diplomats, Enemies and Artists.' 'My greatest satisfaction was the success of Vaclav Havel,' he said in the 2022 interview. 'Havel proved my point that culture makes a difference, especially in international relations. The Communist system was deeply flawed. It underestimated cultural leaders' influence on the people.'
Time of India
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
2-day Kohima film fest wraps up with focus on women journalists
Dimapur: With the screening of 14 internationally acclaimed movies and documentaries, curtains came down on the two-day International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT) Travelling Film Festival at the Centre of Excellence for Music and Arts in Kohima on Saturday evening. Insightful panel discussions with the award winning documentary directors and producers Aparna Sanyal and Deepika Sharma were held during the festival. One of the highlights of the festival was the screening of the film Velvet Revolution. The film is a unique collaborative venture supported by IAWRT where the executive producer, Nupur Basu, worked with women directors from four countries who produced films in five countries — Illang Illang Quijano from Philippines, Deepika Sharma from India, Pochi Tamba Nsoh and Sidonie Pongmoni from Cameroon and Eva Brownstein from the US. Velvet Revolution is an exciting collaborative film where six women directors take their lens up close to women making news. This documentary film brings you the testimonies of women journalists from Bangladesh, Cameroon, India, Philippines, Afghanistan, Syria, United Kingdom and Ajerbaijan on how they spoke truth to power. Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Free P2,000 GCash eGift UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo Speaking at the valedictory event of the festival, Sanyal, the managing trustee of IAWRT India, expressed her happiness and fulfillment for finally bringing the IAWRT Travelling Film Festival to Nagaland, which had been in the planning stage for nearly five years. She thanked the Film Association of Nagaland and the partner organisers for hosting the event and making their dream a reality. She said it was such an inspiration to meet so many women film-makers from the state and wished that they would all be a part of IAWRT India chapter. The IAWRT was founded in 2005 under the leadership of Jai Chandiram, and the India chapter of IAWRT works to build and nurture a professional network of women professionals and academics in the media.
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
In Slovakia, our grassroots movement helped oust a neo-Nazi. We can do it again
Having grown up in Banská Bystrica in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, I vividly remember standing in the city's historic square a few days after 17 November 1989, the start of the Velvet Revolution, holding candles in solidarity with the students protesting in Prague. Never would I have imagined that 35 years later, I would be speaking at a rally in the same square, this time urging the preservation of democracy. Back then, when I was a young social anthropology academic at our local university, activism was far from my mind. But everything changed for me in 2013 when Marian Kotleba, leader of the neo-Nazi People's Party Our Slovakia, was elected as regional governor. The shock was enormous. No one I knew had believed that such an outcome was possible, yet it happened. Realising the dangers this posed, many like-minded individuals knew we couldn't stand by idly. On the night after the election, a group of us gathered on the steps of the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising, a site symbolising resistance against Nazi Germany and its Slovak puppet state. Echoing the past, we lit candles, shed tears, sang songs and embraced. That moment marked the beginning of our discussion of how to promote democratic values actively. Our goal was not to oppose a democratically elected candidate but to cultivate democratic awareness throughout the region and Slovakia. Not to talk but to do. From this small gathering emerged an informal grassroots movement that played a crucial role in mobilising civil society against Kotleba and his extremist party. A few hundred volunteers, with no prior activism experience, were driven by the passion to defend our freedoms and ensure Slovakia never returned to its history of Nazi or communist tyranny. The struggle was long and often discouraging. In 2016, Kotleba's party gained seats in the national parliament, emboldening his supporters. Yet in 2017, after four years of relentless effort, we succeeded in helping to oust Kotleba as regional governor. Our movement, Not in Our Town (Niot), exposed his extremist ideology through public discussions, educational programmes, protests and cultural events. We worked with journalists, academics and activists to distribute fact-based flyers detailing his mismanagement of the economy, his racist statements and harmful policies. We organised screenings of films like A Hole in the Head (about the Roma Holocaust) and The White World According to Daliborek (a documentary about contemporary neo-Nazis). We also engaged schools and local organisations to educate young people about democracy, tolerance and Slovakia's history of extremism. Our Schools for Democracy programme, a joint initiative of Niot and the Centre for Community Organising, used a method called living libraries, where individuals from various minority groups shared their life stories in classrooms. A critical strategy was increasing voter participation, since Kotleba's 2013 victory resulted largely from low turnout and apathy: in the run-off that elected him, only 25% turned up to vote. Through social media campaigns, door-to-door outreach and public events, Niot encouraged citizens to vote in the 2017 elections. Our campaign Spolu je nás viac (Together We Are Stronger) directly engaged voters, explaining how abstention enabled extremism. For example, we showed how Kotleba rejected millions of euros in EU funds that could have improved schools and hospitals. Most impactful, however, was talking to people face to face. This way we were able to explain Kotleba's failures as a governor: blocking EU funds, neglecting economic growth and implementing discriminatory practices targeting the Roma, Jews and migrants. None of these had put money in people's pockets – in fact, Kotleba's governorship had made life worse for many ordinary voters. Under his leadership, the Banská Bystrica region had the lowest investment levels in Slovakia and rising unemployment. Recognising that fragmented opposition had weakened past election efforts, Niot facilitated dialogue among democratic and moderate groups to unite behind a single democratic candidate. Ján Lunter, a respected businessman and credible alternative to Kotleba, emerged as the strongest challenger. Our efforts paid off. In the 2017 regional elections, Lunter won nearly 49%, while Kotleba suffered a crushing defeat with only 23%. It was a decisive moment, proving the power of grassroots activism. We were happy, but we knew this was only one battle in a longer struggle. Then, in October 2023, Robert Fico became Slovakia's prime minister for the fourth time, adopting an increasingly anti-EU and pro-Russia stance. His government introduced legal changes widely seen as attempts to shield party affiliates from corruption investigations. Civil society mobilised once again. On 22 December 2024, Fico visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow – without any public explanation. The next day, just before Christmas, Niot organised the first protest against Fico's visit to Moscow and his foreign policy. Despite the holiday season, hundreds gathered in Banská Bystrica. Since then, Niot has held weekly protests and marches each Friday, featuring speeches by activists, artists and academics. We coordinate closely with movements – such as Peace for Ukraine – in other cities, maintaining a peaceful, non-violent and pro-democratic stance. Police cooperation has been excellent. Our key message since December 2024 is simple: 'Slovakia is Europe. We are Europe'. Living less than 220 miles (350km) from Ukraine's border, the prospect of Slovakia aligning with Russia is alarming. Our protests have grown, now attracting 5,000 to 10,000 weekly participants in Banská Bystrica, a town of 75,000. On 7 February 2025, more than 100,000 people took part in protests in more than 40 Slovak cities as well as in cities abroad such as Prague, Brno, London, Luxembourg, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen and New York. Despite threats, we refuse to be silenced. In January 2025, a Telegram channel published the home addresses of several Niot activists, leading to increased police monitoring of local activists. Nevertheless, Niot continues to organise protests and public discussions across Slovakia to foster dialogue and engagement among diverse communities. Our organisation remains an informal grassroots platform, without a legal status. Decisions are made collectively, and our mailing list includes only about 150 citizens. The initiative's strength is in its diversity and authenticity. And in lots of off-line, face-to-face discussions that contribute to building mutual trust. We simply follow our right to gather, express our views and act on facts. Slovakia is one of Europe's most beautiful yet often overlooked countries. Though small in size, the Niot movement is determined to defend democracy here. It is not extremism but indifference that is the real enemy of freedom. Since the Velvet Revolution and our accession to the EU in 2004, Slovakia has flourished despite the challenges of populism. History has taught us painful lessons: we were invaded by the Nazis in 1939, fell into communist totalitarianism in 1948 and suffered Soviet occupation in 1968. Not in Our Town says, 'Never again. We will not be silent.' Professor Alexandra Bitušíková is a social anthropologist at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia
Al Jazeera
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
The lived experiences of communism should serve as a cautionary tale
In Sunday's general elections in Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came second for the first time since World War II. Its electoral success is part of a Europe-wide trend of far-right resurgence that has worried many. As a university lecturer, I have observed that as a reaction to this phenomenon, many young people are becoming interested in far-left ideologies, such as communism. Students study Karl Marx as a key political thinker and often admire the old ideas of Marxism and the writings of other communist ideologues for their critique of class relations and capitalism. As young people engage with these ideologies, it is important for them to be aware that they did not remain just theories. Communism was applied as a political ideology of the Marxist-Leninist parties in dozens of countries in Europe and Asia, which resulted in repressive totalitarian regimes. The communist regime in my country, Czechia, which in the 1940s was part of an entity called Czechoslovakia, has left a horrific legacy. Today, on the 77th anniversary of the election that brought the communists to power in Prague, I cannot help but think about how the regime scarred the lives of many families, including my own. I was born soon after the 1989 Velvet Revolution and grew up hearing about what it was like to live under communism for Czechoslovaks. It was a bleak and oppressive world in which the nationalisation of the means of production in reality meant stealing factories and homes from wealthier citizens so that the state could turn them into farmhouses or residences for top communist state officials. The concepts of fair elections and freedom of speech were mere dreams. In that world, individuals' opportunities to study, travel, or secure good jobs were often determined by their 'unblemished political profile' rather than their abilities. As a result, it was common to find qualified people who disagreed with the regime working in poorly paid and stigmatised jobs, while active members of the Communist Party, despite poor academic performance or lack of experience, occupied top positions. 'This all became normal for us. No one believed the totalitarian regime would fall,' my mother told me recently. Those who disagreed with or confronted the regime paid a heavy price. There are many accounts in academia and the media of the brutal practices of the State Security (StB) directed at Czechoslovak citizens deemed 'enemies of the state': mass surveillance, blackmail, arrests, torture, execution, and forced emigration. The stories of high-profile dissidents, such as the executed lawyer Milada Horakova or the imprisoned writer Vaclav Havel, who became the first democratically elected Czech president, are well known. But there are many other stories of people who faced repression that remain unknown to the public. The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has documented the cases of about 200,000 people arrested in communist Czechoslovakia due to their social class, status, opinions, or religious beliefs. Of these, 4,495 died during their time in prison. My father belongs to this mass of prisoners who are largely unknown. He was labelled 'dangerous to communist society' in 1977 and sentenced to 18 months in prison. When I was in my 20s, I found an old, yellowed paper file hidden in a drawer of the living room table, with the title 'Verdict in the Name of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic'. The fading typewritten text revealed that my father, along with his friend, was found guilty of avoiding military service and spreading negative political opinions. My father strongly disagreed with the Communist Party leading the country, and he refused to serve in the army because it had failed in its primary duty to protect the country and its civilians during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. In the summer of that year, 200,000 soldiers from the Soviet Union and other communist European countries invaded to suppress the democratic reform movement that was emerging – what came to be known as the Prague Spring. By the end of the year, 137 Czechs and Slovaks were killed. To maintain control in Prague, the Soviet Union permanently stationed troops as an occupying force in the country. Until they withdrew in 1991, Soviet soldiers killed 400 people and raped hundreds of women. Despite the brutal violence and crimes, the Communist Party still considered the Warsaw Pact armies to be Czechoslovakia's allies. So the court condemned my father for 'being against the Communist Party and society, damaging relations between the Czechoslovak Army and the Warsaw Pact forces due to his selfish reasons, and being a huge disappointment, given his promising working-class background'. He was just 22 years old and was about to get married to my mother. When I asked my father about the document and his time in prison, he fell silent. Only my mother shared a few insights: 'I was heavily pregnant and lost the baby. Your dad came to see me at the hospital and said he would be leaving for work for some time. Later, I found out he was in prison.' My mother sent my father dozens of letters, but the prison guards did not deliver them. She tried to visit him several times but was not allowed to see him. She would wait outside the prison, hoping to catch a glimpse of him when the prisoners returned from their forced labour. 'I saw him once for a few seconds. He was just a thin figure with no hair. He looked exhausted. We waved at each other,' my mother recalled. My father was released after 10 months for good behaviour. Recently, I finally managed to persuade my father to visit, with me, the National Security Archive in Prague. We hoped to find more information about who had led his case and who had spied on him – perhaps a friend or even a family member? To our disappointment, the staff handed us a thin file with a note: 'The majority of the documents with your father's name were destroyed by the State Security.' To hide as much of what it did as possible and make people forget, the communist regime destroyed documents just before its collapse. What we did find was a document from a prison guard who had tried to coerce my father into spying on other prisoners. 'The prisoner is friendly and very popular in the collective, making him a good candidate for delivering information to us. He is emotionally dependent on his fiancee, which can be used against him,' the document read. Perhaps his refusal to become a spy was the main reason why my father was never given any of the letters from my mother and was threatened with solitary confinement. Many people, however, collaborated with the regime, which makes it difficult for families to reconcile with loved ones who happened to be on the other side. This collaboration was driven either by belief in political propaganda or by fear of having a 'poor political profile', which could result in job loss or a lack of good prospects for their children. Simply put, families were confronted daily with a horrible choice; their lives were riddled with betrayal and the paranoia of being spied on. This also happened in my own family. For example, while my father was a political prisoner, my mother's brother was a notorious StB officer who blackmailed people to obtain information on dissidents and contributed to the arrest of many citizens – probably even my father. My paternal grandfather tried to flee the country to West Germany, while one of my uncles from my mother's side worked in a border guard unit known for shooting and killing people trying to escape the Eastern bloc. My paternal grandmother was an active member of the Communist Party, writing propaganda columns for one of the party newspapers Rudé právo (Red Law) and denying any wrongdoing by the regime, including the arrest of her own son. My father was rehabilitated by a democratic court in 1993 and his criminal record was expunged. My family members who had worked in the security forces were expelled from their positions. However, the choices, beliefs and deeds of the past continue to affect the present. There are many families like mine whose relations continue to be marked by traumatic experiences of communism. Many lost family members or relatives to various forms of political violence, including imprisonment in harsh conditions and executions. People who read theoretical Marxist and Leninist texts or embrace communist ideas in the Western context – where there is no direct experience with communist regimes – often fail to acknowledge these real histories. This lack of acknowledgement helps sanitise the flaws inherent in communist regimes – which promised to eliminate economic and social inequalities but introduced new ones and, in the process, engaged in grave human rights violations. When searching for a genuine alternative to the current social and political climate, we must learn from the experiences of those who lived under totalitarian regimes. Major political theories do affect our society, and thus, the lived experiences of those who suffered under such political systems should inform our understanding of them. Only then can we prevent the repetition of historical wrongdoings.
