Václav Havel Ambassador of Conscience 2003

From Prisoner to President – A Tribute

What is most remarkable about the recipient of the first ‘Ambassador of Conscience’ Award is that he successfully and effortlessly made the transition from prisoner to president, from dissident to democratic leader, from playwright to player on the world stage – and in so doing never lowered his moral standards; never lost his sense of humour; or forgot the absurd situation in which he found himself.

“The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.” V. H.

As an emerging playwright in the early 1960's in Czechoslovakia he became well known for his vivid plays about the de-humanizing and repressive bureaucracy of communist regimes. In 1975, after his production of “The Beggar's Opera” even the members of his theatre audiences became targets of police harassment.

But Václav Havel never wavered. He did not remain silent nor did he move out of the country (the authorities wished he would) during the repressive communist rule and although he was forced to take menial jobs, he continued writing, speaking out for human rights, and standing up against the communist dictatorship.

In 1977, he co-founded and co-authored Charter 77, a manifesto signed by hundreds of artists and intellectuals protesting the government's refusal to abide by the Helsinki Agreement on Civil and Political Rights. For his continuing courage, he was jailed several different times, and spent in total five years in prison.

“Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity...”

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Václav Havel became the leader of the 'Civic Forum', an organization of groups opposed to the Communist Government. In November 1989, massive crowds gathered in Wenceslas Square to challenge that government and there was a real danger of violence. President Havel showed great leadership and calm in bringing about a peaceful transition. It became known as the 'Velvet Revolution', and in December he became the first president of the new, free Czechoslovakia.

In 1993, he presided over the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia into two independent nations becoming the first President of the new Czech Republic.

On a state visit to Washington, one late night, Senator Edward Kennedy took President Havel to the Lincoln Memorial where he read aloud the beautiful words of the text of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address – inscribed on the walls. An interpreter translated the text to President Havel who wrote several of the phrases down. He then said to Senator Kennedy “I am not able to understand the language, but I can understand the poetry.”

There are very many memorable Václav Havel quotes. He is a brilliant essayist. Speaking of his 'dissident' background he wrote:

“You do not become a 'dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.”

But that label could not stick. No friend of freedom can be an enemy of society forever. President Havel's heroic opposition to repression won him many admirers throughout the world, including Samuel Beckett. In 1982, in a unique political action, Beckett dedicated'Catastrophe' to Václav Havel, a play about the suffering of a martyr in an oppressive country. I know that President Havel regards that as one of the finest tributes he has ever received – he repaid the compliment after he was released from Prison in 1983 with a short play entitled 'Mistake' dedicated to Beckett.

“If you want to see your plays performed the way you wrote them, become President.”V. H.

Through many years of hardship and repression, he kept the idea of freedom alive, and he successfully led his people to freedom. To quote another Kennedy brother, this time Robert, "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centres of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Those words eloquently describe the extraordinary life of our Award recipient and the ripples of hope he has sent forth across the world. He is a symbol of the aspirations of peoples everywhere for liberty and respect for human rights. Truly he is a man for all seasons, an inspiring leader for our times.

Bill Shipsey
October 2003

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