Written for Prima Zoom in April 2021 – unfortunately not much has changed in that year…
I never understood how people allowed Hitler to come to power, or here in '48, the communists and people allowed themselves to be deprived of their freedom.
Unfortunately, people usually look at historical events with distance and the advantage of someone who knows how everything turned out in the end. However, when an individual finds himself in the middle of an event, he is unfortunately often unable to understand the seriousness of the situation. Because people absolutely do not accept the fact that history keeps repeating itself - that is, they know all the platitudes about freedom, they even like to quote them, but they are not willing to accept that this could actually apply to their current lives as well.
After all, today people are already further away, today is the 21st century, it cannot happen today - but whenever at one time or another people lived and lost their freedom, "now" was also the most modern present and the peak of progress.
So it is sad to see the complete failure of the elites and quality journalists who so easily jump on the wave of propaganda, self-censorship and put themselves under the cauldron of unfreedom, where they slowly boil voluntarily like those frogs.
Palach was called mentally deranged in '69, piets were destroyed and the media remained silent. At the beginning of March this year, a person shot himself in front of the Ministry of Health. But the next day, the big headlines reported a new miracle vaccine, and the news was completely lost, or not even published by the mainstream media. People carried candles and flowers in front of the ministry, but again this pieta was deliberately removed from the place in front of the door. But the media continues to be silent - just like in '69.
Propaganda, one single correct opinion, self-censorship, ostracism of other thinking, intimidation - those methods are still the same and still perfectly functional.
Eighty people gathered to save an old tree in the middle of Prague, but only thirty people gathered in front of the Faculty of Education to support children and a literally lost generation, which has been denied the right to education for a year, but thousands more "fought" from the comfort of their rooms likes on Facebook . After all, they are at work in the morning...
Thousands of crosses on the historic Old Town Square don't matter, but for spray-painting the words "For the victims of an incompetent government" the offender is threatened with a fine and the police are intensively searching for him.
I realize with regret that there are people - and probably most of them - who simply do not need freedom for their lives. They adapted under socialism and they adapt now. It is important for them to be able to go skiing, to get to another district to their cottage, or to be able to go to Croatia in the summer, but they do not solve this with a principled fight for freedom, but they are only looking for instructions on how to get around some senseless regulation, or to finally have peace of mind, they get vaccinated. And if they also receive 100% salary compensation, they are perfectly satisfied with their often non-existent job - which they don't know yet. They don't complain, but alas, they will eventually lose their jobs, or find out that they have damaged their health with an insufficiently tested vaccine - then they will like to remember their freedom and even start to invoke it. But then it will be too late again.
But that freedom is not about taking a picture of yourself with a tear in your eye in the square next to thousands of crosses and getting a few likes from the friends of the "democrats" on Facebook - the silent majority sitting nice and warm in the living room.
After all, freedom is a constant struggle and monitoring of what is happening around you and active involvement, and what is most important – involvement even at the cost of one's own sacrifice. Because it simply cannot be done without her. You can't wait for someone to save you. Because that someone never came in the past - and he won't come today.
So it is again only up to us.
