Arrogant "Americans"

On Wednesday, I heard a domestic disturbance outside of my window. Although I should have been studying for my Czech test the next day, I could not resist listening to what was happening. Apparently, an English speaking man was upset that there were construction workers outside doing their jobs. Perhaps it was too noisy or they were in his way, I’m not quite sure. He was getting in their faces, and, trying to do their jobs, they pushed him out of the way. Apparently, he fell into his wife, and, in the process, she was pushed as well. The man became quite upset and started to call the workers “animals”. Obviously, they had no idea what he was saying, but he continued to yell at them. He called the police, and when they arrived, there was obviously nothing they could do. The workers were only doing their jobs, and it was clearly not their fault. The English speaker would not have this. He yelled at the policemen, speaking single words like “man”, “push”, “punish”, “animals”, etc as if saying isolated nouns would be more comprehensible than complete sentences. Every once in a while, he would throw in a Czech word, but his method of trying to explain the situation was ridiculous. He kept yelling at the pusher “You, HUMAN!” apparently trying to tell him to act like a person and not push people. Looking at the scene from above, it was obvious who the real animal was.
Situations like this highlight the arrogance of us “Americans”. I use quotes because the term itself is arrogant. We use this word that applies to two continents, not just fifty states. The word itself describes the typical “American”. Our exaggerated sense of importance and belief that we are always right is what makes other people look at us in distaste. The man’s refusal to try to speak civilly with the police men in Czech and his continued behavior toward the construction makers gave me a bad taste in my mouth. I know that his behavior gives all citizens from the United States a bad name. Luckily, I knew enough Czech to tell the construction workers that I agreed with them, but can my small act toward solidarity make up for the behavior that I have frequently witnessed in my fellow countrymen?

Cemeteries

Cemeteries fascinate me; every marker that I see represents an individual, and each of these individuals has a story. Walking through a cemetery, you feel peaceful; all these people have come to the end of their journey and are able to rest. At the same time, you want to mourn, especially at the site of gravestones that mark the bodies of those who were not able to live a full life. Childrens' graves are particularly hard to deal with. Whether from some illness or some accident, they’ve left this world for the next. Looking at these stones, it’s hard to not think about your place in the universe and God in general.
I have seen two amazing cemeteries in Prague. The first was in Vyšehrad, which lies on a hill in New Town overlooking the rest of the city. The cemetery is old, but it continues to be used. Among the gravestones there are statues of angels and monuments to historical figures. Both Mucha and Dvořak were buried here. As the hill is the second biggest hill in Prague, it seemed a beautiful place of rest. Like their souls, the tombstones were reaching towards the heavens.
However, I would much more prefer being buried in the Municipal Cemetery. This graveyard, located in Prague 3 next to, of all things, a gigantic shopping mall, is perhaps the biggest and oldest cemetery I have ever seen. It looks like something out of the movies. Ivy grows over the older stones and the trees that tower over the graves. Each marker is immense, and there are monuments and angels throughout the resting place. At one point, I heard a lone voice singing a simple tune and as I followed, I found myself near the center and discovered a statue of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion; I didn’t mind that I couldn’t find the source of the voice. Somewhere hidden within the cemetery is the grave of Franz Kafka. Although I could not find the stone, I am quite sure I will return. The place was hauntingly empty and beautiful. The sun filtered through the branches to create an almost holy atmosphere. I wanted to cry and laugh and play all in the same moment.
There is also a section of the cemetery for new graves. I saw one gravestone that had the pictures of a man and a woman who had died on the same day. I knew enough Czech to see that they were parents and that their children had lost their parents in some fatal accident. It was a beautiful grave and quite touching.
It made me wonder how I would want to be buried when I pass away. Although my thoughts were a bit morbid, they were appropriate at the time. What I really want is for people to look at my grave and smile. If there are tears, I would hope that they were tears of happiness, remembering all the great times we’ve shared here on earth.

Coincidences

Sometimes the immensity of this world boggles my mind. I know but a little part of this world, and yet I have seen so much already in my lifetime. If you look at a map, though, these things that I have seen cannot to begin to fill the entirety of this globe. All I have seen our little dots within little counties that our part of a bigger state. Within these cities, I know but a part and will never be able to truly know any place. (Even Lindstrom can sometimes surprise me with a new street or park that I have never seen) At the same time, the world is quite small, and the coincidences that occur in said small world are just as mind boggling.
For example, at the hostel in Budapest we met a guy whose parents lived in a small town in Maine. It just so happened that the grandparents of Liza, one of the other students in the CHP program and now my good friend, also live in that small town, and the two families were old friends. Furthermore, Liza was in the same swimming class with the guy’s little sister. How we all could end up at the same hotel in Budapest is beyond me.
Yesterday, another strange coincidence occurred. Although Robby knew that he was going to come to Prague for a couple of days, his brother did not have similar plans. Pete didn’t even know when Robby was going to be in Prague. But yesterday, when we were walking home from dinner, we ran into Pete. Neither knew the other was in Prague, and we were as far from Pete’s hostel as possible. But somehow, fate stepped in and we were in the same back street at the exact time. If we would have spent an extra minute on Charles’ Bridge or eating dinner, we would have never seen him. Somehow, we ran into each other on the streets of Prague. Is stuff like this pure chance? Or does our shared background have something to do with where we are walking and at what time or what we visit. Or is there some sort of outside force that creates these coincidences? With such a gigantic world, how can we run into people that we know?

Museum of Communism and Harry Potter

Our Political Science class went to the Museum of Communism on Thursday, and it was interesting to look at Communism in a country that had suffered under an oppressive regime. This gave it a very personal aspect, but at the same time, it had a great bias against Communism in general. I could understand why they looked at their experiment with Communism as a failure, but it spoke of nothing about the positive social aspects of the political system. One of the least objective parts was the mini-biography about Marx. After describing his theories, it ended with “as a result of his work, 100,000 people have died”. They blamed his theory on the death of thousands, but such a link is not historical in the least. It is quite unfair to blame deaths on a theory that was corrupted; the regime was not Marxist, but Marxist-Leninist and definitely had its faults. It was a shock to look at this museum with its corrupted facts when compared to the amazing museums we saw in Terezin. It really made me desire a more objective view on the history of communism in the Czech Republic.
Besides the museum, my weekend wasn’t the most interesting. We did visit Vjsherad and climb Petrin Hill, but a lot of my weekend was focused on reading Harry Potter 7. What was especially weird was that Rob Monson was here visiting for the weekend, I wasn’t the greatest host what with not being able to put the book down. We did randomly ran into his brother in Prague (they didn’t know that they were both here at the same time, it was an amazing coincidence). It’s like I’m at home, and am just living a normal life, reading Harry Potter and hanging out with the Monsons, and now watching Ratattoie with my friends. At the same time, I look out my window and I have this great view of the famous Prague red roofs and my lifestyle already feels more European. Giving Rob a tour of the city also reinforced the fact that I’m not at home during this summer, but studying here in Prague and immersing myself in the Czech culture. Even though there are similarities, I'm not in Kansas anymore.

A Soft Kind of Power

Sometimes, obviously, the United States can piss me off. It’s a great country, don’t get me wrong, but it makes mistakes. One of its biggest fallacies is its desire to transform states into democracies. The Democratic Peace Theory states that democracies do not go to war with each other. If every state was a liberal democracy, war could be abolished and, ideally, peace would reign. Of course, there are many factors that try to define if a state is a democracy, if other states perceive it as democratic, and what exactly the definition of war is. Nevertheless, empirical evidence has shown that liberal democracies tend to live peacefully. (Unless, of course, you count World War II, in which Hitler was elected democratically, but it can be argued that immediately afterwards, it’s liberal values were completely demolished)
That was a little off topic, but what I’m trying to get at is that in order to promote peace, the United States supports liberal values, especially free markets. In order to create such democracies in typically non-democratic regimes, however, the United States has had to use force at times. If you look at the War in Iraq (I’ll try to be objective) the US has used force to stop Saddam Hussein’s regime and establish a democracy within a previous dictatorship. Regardless of the horrors that Hussein committed, and the fact that we originally lied about our intent, it needs to be questioned whether or not it was a democratic to try and enforce democracy. The force that was used to establish a pseudo-democracy in Iraq was hard power, and though it had its benefits, mainly quick action, it also involves the death of US soldiers and innocent Iraqis. Furthermore, the war continues with no end in sight.
Soft power is a lot more appealing to me. It gives people the resources and the information to choose their own destiny. Rather than directly interfering with the affairs of a foreign state, you can provide information and education, which may end in peaceful regime changes from the bottom up. RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty, or RFE/RL, is one such organization that uses soft power to give societies the ability to embrace liberal values. RFE originally was established during the Cold War to provide states within the Soviet Bloc objective information about not only domestic affairs, but also international news. Broadcasting from Germany, it acted as a way to allow individuals who would like to hear equal and fair news the ability to find information that they could trust was not being filtered by the government. Although success of such soft power is hard to determine, it could have had an effect on the dissolution of the Soviet Bloc.
After 1989 and the transition to democracy in the ex-Soviet countries, RFE needed to find a new purpose; funded by the United States, some Senators wanted to use tax dollars elsewhere while others looked to extend its purpose to other arenas. RadioLiberty was created, and it continues to be broadcast in states that suffer from totalitarian regimes. To save money, the station was moved to Prague, and we were lucky to tour the site on Tuesday. The organization completely fascinates me. I’ve always had somewhat distrust in enforcing one’s ideologies upon another, but providing factual information, particularly domestic news, can create a bottom up change in repressive institutions. Of course, it has its difficulties. It can be hard to get a radio signal into a country whose dictator does not necessarily want such information being broadcasted. It does seem to have some success. I know I sound kind of like a poster boy, but if you want to read more about the organization, its website is www.rferl.org. Maybe I can get an internship there...

Altering Truth

Terezin, a small fortress north of Prague, is a chilling place. It was converted from a 19th century prison into a Jewish ghetto in 1941, and houses museums that chronicle its history through the horrors of the holocaust. These museums are all spectacular, and put this historical scar in perspective.
Though not as deadly as the infamous Auschwitz, Terezin effectively destroyed the lives of both Jews and those, however remotely, of Jewish descent. There were no gas chambers at Terezin, but rather it acted as a half-way point between free life and extermination. At its peak, some 50,000 Jews were crammed into buildings that were supposed to house 3,000 soldiers. Thousands died from infectious diseases, while others died of sheer exhaustion and the great despair that was created in the concentration camp. The worst of it was the condition of the children; like the others, they were forced to work, had little food, and lived in cramped conditions. About 15,000 children passed through Terezin, but there are only 132 known survivors. In one of the museums, there is a section of art created by these young victims of the holocaust, and it is incredibly touching. Friedl Dicker-Brandeisova was able to create an atmosphere that gave these children an opportunity to embrace at least one aspect of childhood. One can see, however, that these paintings are hardly childish. Instead, themes of escape, their early life, and the desire to escape to a life of fantasy are prevalent: they have lost their childhood, and are no longer adults. The holocaust destroyed an integral part of their being. They never had a chance to experience all the joys of life, but only its sorrows. I think Michael Flack, a young artist who died before he could ever reach his potential, was able to best sum up the impact on the children in Terezin.
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That bit of filth in dirty walls,
And all around barbed wire,
And thirty-thousand souls who sleep
Who once will wake
And once will see
Their own blood spilled.

I was once a little child,
Three years ago.
That child who longed for other worlds.
But now I am no more a child
For I have learned to hate.
I am a grown-up person now,
I have known fear.

Bloody words and a dead day then,
That's something different than boogie men!

But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today,
That I'll wake up, a child again,
and start to laugh and play.
I'll go back to childhood sweet like a briar rose,
Like a bell which wakes us from a dream,
Like a mother with an ailing child
Loves him with aching woman's love.
How tragic then, is youth which lives
With enemies, with gallows ropes,
How tragic, then, for children on your lap
To say: this for the good, that for the bad.

Somewhere, far away out there, childhood sweetly sleeps,
Along that path among the trees,
There o'er that house
Which was once my pride and joy.
There my mother gave me birth into this world
So I could weep...

In the flame of candles by my bed, I sleep
And once perhaps I'll understand
That I was such a little thing,
As little as this song.

These thirty-thousand souls who sleep
Among the trees will wake,
Open an eye
And because they see
A lot

They'll fall asleep again...
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This was written in 1944, when Michael was still a young teenager, and had already suffered so much pain. Fortunately, this and many other works of art were saved, either smuggled out of the camp or found hidden within Terezin. Music, books, paintings, and diaries have been discovered, which were used to piece back together what exactly happened in Terezin. The horror of the site reduces most people to solemnity if not tears. It’s a warning light to the world that reminds us of the horrors of totalitarian regimes and the senselessness of genocides. It must not be forgotten.
But such a horror makes us ask questions. Why was it not stopped? How could the world have continued turning when such violations of human rights were being breached? The problem is truth. The world did not know what was truly occurring. In 1944, the Germans allowed the Red Cross to visit Terezin to dispel rumors that the Nazis were exterminating Jews on a mass scale. They used Terezin as a sort of model; they created a facade of a beautiful city with happy citizens living prosperous lives. It couldn’t have been farther from the truth, but the Nazis tricked the Red Cross into believing, through this process of ‘beautification’, that the concentration camps were a positive aspect of society. Children even performed the opera Brundibar. This propaganda distorted reality, and further destroyed the possibility to save the imprisoned Jews from liberation. It is understandable why the Jews could not fight back. They were physically weak from lack of nutrition and strenuous labor. Furthermore, their psyche had been greatly destroyed, and it seemed safer to collaborate with the Nazis rather than fight against oppression.
But their were a few who tried to escape, if only mentally, from the horrors of Terezin. Brundibar, for example, was performed since its composer, Hans Krasa, was also imprisoned in the camp. Countless paintings with common motifs against the Third Reich were created and distributed. The people were able to create a false reality for themselves to cope with the horrors they faced and fight against what the Nazi’s termed the “Final Solution”.
140,000 men, women and children were deported to Terezin from its establishment to 1945. A quarter of them died within the camp. The rest ended up in at either Auschwitz or other death camps. An estimated 4,000 survived these horrors. These numbers demonstrate the need to know the real truth. If the truth of the camps had been known, perhaps more people could have been saved. When people talk about the fabrication of the Holocaust and insist that it never occurred, it is imperative that there lie is countered with the truth, and that this stain on our history is not forgotten. Hopefully, it can be a lesson for future generations, including ours, as a warning against unchecked genocide.

Delays Throughout Moravia

Prague is made up of two former regions- Moravia and Bohemia. Last short trip, we visited southern Bohemia and we just got back from a trip to Southern Moravia. From the trip descriptions, it seemed that this trip was going to be incredibly more fun; we had wine tasting, touring various cities, a trip through a cave by boat on an underground river as well as tour the old capital Brno. Our actual journey differed greatly from what was expected.
We started out early in the morning, and at first we were worried that there would not be any breakfast. We were a little upset, because we did pay for our breakfast as part of tuition, and I think they noticed that we were being little snots and needed to eat, because right before we left at 8, they brought out our daily breakfast. Breakfast in Prague is pretty decent, although completely different than what you find in the States. I usually get houska, (a type of bread that is typical in the CR) cheese, ham, cereal, and lots of coffee. There never is any hot food, but it is filling and I would guess a little healthier than the usual fare in the US, and it is fun to try a new breakfast lifestyle.
Anyways, after we all tried to shove as much food in our mouths as possible before the bus left, we started to head out to our first destination, Telc. We drove, played some bus games, and chatted. But all of a sudden, something was wrong. The bus stopped on the side of the road, and our bus driver got out and was talking on the phone. I thought he had stopped to talk on his cell, and I thought it was a little rude, but we soon learned that the bus had broken down. Apparently, it had overheated, and it could no longer start. We managed to make it another 2 kilometers, before pulling over in a truck stop.
We were told that backups would arrive in 2 hours. We waited. We were told another 20 minutes. We waited. Finally, a backup bus arrived when we had been sitting at a rest stop, in the burning sun, in the middle of nowhere, without food, for a good 3 and a half hours. Needless to say, a lot of the people on the trip were in a pretty tired mood. But Cara, a new friend, and I decided to embrace it and before the bus came, we wandered around and discovered some interesting bill boards, met a guy with a flat tire (who couldn’t speak a word of English), and explored a beautiful field next to a forest with a brilliant blue sky. Maybe I can get a hold of that picture...
My point is as long as we continued to have a good attitude, we could enjoy other new experiences that we missed. The three and a half hour delay, however, really through off the rest of the schedule. We missed the wine-tasting that was scheduled, and had to sprint through Telc, just grabbing a bite to eat and listening to Petr Bilek, our tour guide, who described every building’s architecture. Obviously, we were all really disappointed; wine-tasting is always very fun. After Telc, we headed to Mikulov, which would have been a fun city to explore. But we could blame missing these sites that on the bus breaking down, and we realized it was noone’s fault and we could look forward to the caves in the morning. We enjoyed walking around the city for the rest of the night, and the view was great. Mikulov lies right next to Austria and Slovakia and from the top of the hill next to the Chateau we could see the two neighboring countries. Of course, it was great just to be with my new friends in this new place.
After a nice ending to the mix ups on Saturday, we started out fresh on Sunday. But once again, things did not quite line up. We were told to meet at the bus at 9, and we were all on the bus at 9:10, but for some reason the bus didn’t leave until 20 after. And then we got lost. It took forever, and Petr Bilek blamed it on us staying an extra 5 minutes at the gas station. I don’t quite understand his logic, but we once again missed one of the scheduled events. We were supposed to go on a boat on an underground river through a cave, but we were 20 minutes late, and we missed the launch. The culture here is completely different than in the United States. If there was group of thirty tourists in the United States, things would be changed if they were a little late. The boat would have waited for an extra five minutes before setting off, and the business would have preferred to make more money than launch the boat on time. In the Czech Republic, it seems like timeliness is more important, and the mind-set is less focused on making money. Perhaps this is a remnant left over from the Communist regime; it can be annoying. If we get off schedule, which seemed to happen a lot this weekend, we are screwed. In short, we missed our boat trip, and instead just toured one of the caves after taking a gondola and a little train. This was still a blast, but not quite the same.
After caves, we went to Brno, and once again had to sprint through, just grabbing food and listening to Petr rasp away. I wanted to explore the city, but we didn’t have enough time because the caves took longer than we thought and we had to leave right away. It seemed that we were in transit more often than sight seeing.
The trip to Moravia was scheduled to be amazing. Things changed around, and there were a lot of disappointments. But we still had a great time, and it is amazing that we had these opportunities to see a unique part of the Czech Republic. So, all in all, it was worth the eighty hours of bus ride.