VACLAV HAVELFIRST CZECH PRESIDENT, PLAYWRIGHT

    It is a big mistake to expect that persecuted dissidents, who have suddenly become presidents, will change the world at once. As we have gone through this evil in the totalitarian regime, we had to immediately feel danger of the first signs of apathy to evil. Sometimes I think that I have become a mistake of the history to a certain extent. I have appeared to be in the position and role, which I, possibly, did not deserve at all and which have become a consequence of infinite number of accidents.
    If there is something like national interest, then it must be protection of language. Language used by mass media and politicians is almost horrible. I dont say that I speak better, but at least I pay attention to it.
    I drink beer in the morning as medicine and before bed as sleeping pill, but I prefer wine with food in the afternoon.
    I often think about the oncoming death and what will happen after it. I do not only think, but also feel with my skin that I must be somehow ready to it. I dont know exactly why, but I do not want to die.
    The play must be wiser, than its author.
    President Putins era has brought new type of dictatorship, which is dangerous, because of its unnoticeable form. The worst features of communism and capitalism are surprisingly combined in it. Better to say a gang of KGB agents and Mafia has come to power. In addition, these people have been taught by the recent past and that is why they do not do a lot as openly, as they did during Brezhnev.
    There is no use to refuse of dinner with President Putin, but one needs to take an occasion to ask him some unpleasant questions.
    In non-democratic conditions word has more power, than the whole army of electors or soldiers. But we never know if the word, which influences reality, is true.
    Theory of the least evil does not refute the fact that the least evil is also evil.
    I am a rather depressive person, but, probably, I have a strong will-power not to show that. I do not like conflicts and confrontation and dream about harmony.
    About 40 years people need me to encourage and instill hope in them. But where from should I derive strength?
    In 1975 I had a feeling that I am just an object of events and I just waited what the government will decide to do to me. Will they sentence me or continue persecuting me? I have decided that I must do something to force them to think what to do to me. In such a psychological state I have written a letter to Gustav Husak (open letter, which Havel wrote to general secretary of Czech Communist Party in 1975).
    I hate to see the empty page, I have a fear of any beginning and I try to put it off and evade it using any methods. In this aspect presidency was a good school for me. During weekends I always had to write my speeches whether I liked it or not and nobody asked me, if I have any inspiration.
    I do not deny the civil role, but I do not closely watch politics any more. Sometimes politics rather entertains me, because I see it as a series of semi-tabloid sensations.
    Following euphoria of iron curtain fall, when people were ready to sacrifice and admired democracy, there came a reverse wave, as if gates were opened for dark feelings and instincts of the society.
    I would like to be an ally of all reasonable people, who care about universal good, people, who are not possessed by any concrete ideological doctrine and do not falsify the reality for it to fit the doctrine best.
    I think I will not like to die with the feeling that I left mess after myself and there is chaos in my archive. This is a somewhat bureaucratic approach to death.