A dilemma
“What
was it like to adjust from communism?” Kathryn asked one of the women in the Czech church in Zlin. The tall, graceful woman furrowed her brow and thought for a while. She answered that it
was very complicated. In 1989, when the Velvet Revolution overturned communism
in Czechoslovakia, she was a teenager living in Slavačin, a small village in
Moravia, the eastern region of Czechoslovakia. She said that before the
Revolution, people were afraid to speak about politics. The state controlled
all information, using the threat of jail to intimidate teachers, singers,
film-makers, and others in the public eye. Because the national borders were
closed, the people were “protected” from anything in the outside world, good or
bad. You could only buy bananas on the week before Christmas, and even then it
was only the state-mandated amount per family. When she was young, she had only
one doll. But she loved and cared for this doll, keeping it clean and safe even
until she was an adult.
When
communism ended, the world around her changed drastically. Today, her
children have twenty dolls, and these are scattered in various conditions all
around the house. She says that the children don’t play with their toys, and
that if one breaks, they can just buy a new one at the store. Suddenly,
everything is instantly available- both material and information, both good and
bad. She said that you could never find pornography in communist Czechoslovakia.
Now, it is everywhere.
She
said that people have freedom now and that is a good thing. But people do not
choose to use that freedom wisely. Under communism, there was no fear of God
but there was an intense fear of the government. Now, in a modern, increasingly
Westernized society, there is nothing left- no fear of God and no moral
repercussions. She said that most Czechs do not believe that there is any kind
of God and so freedom for them becomes a different kind of oppression.
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