The Constitution bars the Czech president America needs. He died, too. After the 1989 “velvet revolution,” playwright Václav Havel became the nation’s first president. He died in 2011.
After reading a lot about American politics, I found Havel’s book “To the Castle and Back” in a charity store a few days ago. After 50 pages, I wondered, “Why can’t we have a president like this?”
Havel, one of the great men of this and the past century, thought about the world and what was right, not simply what got him what he wanted. One of the most essential things to do was to always speak the truth, even when you tried to hide it. Which is ideal for an American president. But.
Trump lies like we breathe. He differs from other presidential candidates only in degree. But politics offers numerous opportunities to deceive.
Politicians can lie or spin the story. Avoiding questioning and managing circumstances to prevent criticism. Another: using every major question to pander to a culture-warring audience. for a third. Everyone does.
“I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you,” Havel said in his first major address as president of Czechoslovakia. Apparently not.
“The Power of the Powerless”
That’d be wonderful. A politics of falsehoods is like a dense fog that makes it hard to breathe and see. It’s like living in a Norwegian death metal band’s bass drum. Like Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight.”
Because his experiences showed him how crucial truth was to being completely human, Havel had an advantage over our politicians. Truth had sustained him through years of opposition to the system. He and his companions resisted so long and patiently because they thought the truth had to be spoken and would do good.
“Repeating this defiant truth made sense in itself,” he continued. In 1975, he sent an open letter to the regime’s leader, which may have landed him in prison. I think it’s always best to be honest.
He and his companions felt the truth would prevail, maybe after they were gone. It was a seed they imagined would “take root and send forth a shoot.” Nobody knew when. But eventually.” If people kept stating the truth, even a totalitarian regime could not suppress it.
“Truth purges fear,” he stated a few months after the Velvet Revolution. He and his fellow dissidents “maintained an inner perspective, a willingness to endure, a sense of proportion, an ability to understand and forgive others, and a light heart only because we were speaking the truth.” We may have died of despair.”
In a remarkable historical coincidence, Havel became president. Our political system won’t create him. We won’t have someone of his intellectual and moral depth, and our political system will devour anyone who always tells the truth.
Why not someone like Václav Havel? Who would rather lose than lie? Someone reliable?
