When Roger Scruton arrived in Czechoslovakia in 1979, he found himself helping many teachers “who had been forbidden to teach” and “students who had been forbidden to learn”. He was obviously aware he was travelling to a country which under the cover of “people’s democracy” suppressed people’s views and punished any form of dissent. Still, he was amazed by how palpable the lack of freedom actually felt, and the extent to which it “invaded and poisoned relations between people”.
Scruton gave a lecture on Wittgenstein to a private circle of intellectuals. He was quick to notice, however, that “they were far more interested in the fact that I was visiting at all”, rather than deliberations on the rather impenetrable Austrian thinker. The sense of togetherness was, according to the recollection of a Czech dissident, “the most important morale booster for us”.
It wasn’t just intellectuals who were in peril. The country, Scruton discovered, contained a sophisticated network of secret agents and snitches. Denunciation was prolific and social scrutiny omnipresent. No one, including the most inconsequential citizens, could feel safe from the Big Brother of the state and social pressure of their peers. The Czech author and playwright Václav Havel made this atmosphere famous when describing the deliberations of a greengrocer, who had to place a pro-regime slogan on display in his shop to avoid being denounced or judged unfavourably by his neighbours.
It is 2024, and in many ways the positions of Britain and Czechoslovakia (now Czechia) have reversed. It is now in Prague where freedom of speech and thought is tolerated, and it is in Britain where it is under assault – sometimes on the social level, but increasingly on the legal level as the recent legislation in Scotland shows. True, people seldom go to prison for expressing their opinions – like Havel did in Czechoslovakia – but lives have been destroyed nonetheless. Sackings, cancellations and character assassinations have proliferated in the country that was once hailed as the cradle of liberalism.
“I think it is an irony that those who once helped us cannot help themselves now,” says Luděk Bednář, a doyen of Czech journalism and once a visitor of a Scruton lecture. Back in the 1970s, he was optimistic about the proverbial arc of history, and participated in underground classes with the vision of restoring justice to an unjust world. Yet the ascent of ‘wokeism’ has made him sceptical about the West’s future. Particularly in Britain and the U.S., he believes, a social movement has been launched which it will be impossible to stop. “It is exactly like here in the 1950s,” he says, recalling how Leftist intellectuals happily jumped on the wagon of illiberal Communist ideology. Famous writers Milan Kundera and Pavel Kohout are just two of many examples.
Another former dissident, Zbyněk Petráček, disagrees. In 1977 he signed a declaration called Charter 77 which appealed to the Communist regime of Czechoslovakia to respect human rights. Paradoxically, the Government did all it could to suppress it and led an all-out campaign against its signatories. “I’m deeply worried about some tendencies in the West,” says Petráček. “When the progressives attack Elon Musk for his reactivation of some Twitter accounts, it does smell fishy to anyone who lived in a dictatorial regime. However, I will still claim that the situation in the West is different than it was here. Primarily because you still have people such as Elon Musk who allow you to post on Twitter whatever you want. We didn’t have anyone like that.“
What Petráček describes might be seen as the difference between Orwellian dictatorship and the ‘social tyranny’ described by John Stuart Mill. Mill says that when society “executes its own mandates” – refusing to tolerate some opinions – it can launch an assault “more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life”. In other words, it might not be relevant that the American or British Governments generally still uphold freedom of speech under the law. The problem as seen by Mill is the power of public opinion and the way in which perceived heresies – such as ‘all lives matter’ or ‘a trans woman is not a woman’ – can lead to social ostracism.
Historical parallels can only take us so far. It might not be the most important thing whether it was worse to be a free thinker in 1970s Czechoslovakia than it is in 2020s Britain. The bottom line is that the free thinkers of Britain feel increasingly in peril, and although they can – for the time being – publish their opinions on social networks, they still face the danger of being sacked by their employers or having their reputation destroyed by a mob of noisy activists. That, for many, is as daunting as the prospect of being persecuted by the state.
What is needed here is a voice from outside. What Czechs can offer to the British is the extended hand once offered to them by Roger Scruton. There are still places in this world which have not gone astray – and people there still care about the experiences of the persecuted. Also, the Czech experience shows that it sometimes takes a group of freedom loving people, however small, to put their neck on the line. The time for the British has come. What they face now might be best defined as social tyranny but much more ominous threats could be in the making. The case of Scotland has shown the way. It is Roger Scrutons Britain needs now – in the future it might need much more than that.
Štěpán Hobza is opinion columnist at Lidové Noviny.
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”We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended.”
An unapologetic dump to fill the void…This is a good ( 5mins ) look at what happened on St George’s Day in London showing the blatant disparity in policing a celebratory gathering of patriots vs a massive gathering of terrorist supporters who hate Jews;
”Nick Tenconi gives a report from the ground on St George’s Day exposing the aggressive tactics being used by the Met Police to create an atmosphere of intimidation, and to falsely label patriots as aggressive.”
https://twitter.com/TPointUK/status/1783093481369735561
Something nobody’s mentioned yet: Where was the Muslim mayor of London on St George’s Day? Bit strange he was AWOL, surely. In fact, given the fact it was ‘diverse/multi-cultural’ London, there wasn’t a whole lot of diversity on display was there? See what I mean about these ‘moderates’? Much like Khant, I think it’s fairly obvious where their loyalties lie, and it’s not with the country in which they reside;
https://twitter.com/BFirstParty/status/1783451068367589744
“We live in a time when intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended”——-Yes and the stupid people are too stupid to realise you cannot be offended without your own consent.
Anything from the Archbishop, that fake Christian!
As for St George’s Day….I saw a clip from Jeremy Vine earlier today talking about horses, because of those escaped horses in London yesterday. He showed a clip of Police kettling the patriots saying, “look how good horses are at dealing with unruly yobs”, or something along those lines. that cu@t makes my blood boil.
What is the difference between a Jew hater and a Palestinian hater?
Ever since Merkel opened EU’s borders in 2015, European countries have been flooded with immigrants, the majority of whom in my opinion are economic migrants and have no right to abide here unless they bring an economic advantage to the country, i.e. are skilled in work that the country can benefit from.
But the flood of immigrants is clearly desired by our political leaders. So, if the population desires an alternative then they must vote accordingly. And there is clearly no benefit to be expected by voting either Conservative or Labour. And if there is no alternative to those two, then perhaps some of the readers here should think about becoming politically active and perhaps founding a new party! Call it the Sceptics Party!
Czechia has enough to worry about on its own doorstep.
‘Populists and nationalists in Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary were reportedly paid to push pro-Russian narratives with the goal of influencing the upcoming elections and weakening the EU’s support for Ukraine in its defense against Moscow’s aggression and war.
The cash was apparently routed through an anti-establishment website called Voice of Europe (VoE), which is based in the center of the Czech capital, Prague, and owned by Jacek Jakubczyk, a Pole.
Czechs moved quickly against the Russian propaganda platform. The Czechs swiftly shuttered the site and imposed sanctions on pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedcuk and Artem Marchevsky, who had financed and managed the outlet respectively.
The Czech Republic’s Security Information Service (BIS) had reportedly followed Russian couriers travelling from Poland to Prague with suitcases stuffed with cash to fund the operation. Poland has seized large amounts of cash and charged one person with working for the Russian secret services.
Although the names of the politicians on the receiving end of this financial funnel have not been revealed, suspicion centres on those featured on VoE.
“Vladimir Putin can’t put anything into Czech, Slovak or German minds from the Kremlin. He needs local language and local allies……(these local allies) either believe that Russia offers us a better future, or this involves financial transactions or perhaps corruption.”
Russian intelligence has been encouraging a persistently noisy anti-establishment scene in the Czech Republic in recent years in a bid to foment political and social confusion.
In early April it emerged that Cyril Svoboda of the Christian Democratic Party (KDU-CSL) — which is part of the ruling coalition — had been interviewed by VoE. Svoboda was not only former leader of the party but also a former Czech foreign minister.
A fierce fight has since erupted inside the party amid calls for the expulsion of Svoboda, who also had his photo taken dining with Putin in 2015’
Tim Gosling, DW
The Czech Republic’s Security Information Service (BIS) have been briefing other European security agencies for the last few weeks so, if any of you have VoE cash stuffed into your mattresses, you may be getting a visit from a not very nice man shortly……
On the new “hate Speech” nonsense here in Scotland a friend of mine seemed to support it when he said. “What is wrong with it, you cannot go about calling people fat” ——I replied “You have got to be kidding me, do you seriously think it is the job of government to interfere in what everyone is saying to each other and don’t you realise that once they have that power they will use to silence you on everything”? The SNP are the archetypal “Omnipotent Busybodies” as written about by CS Lewis. ——–Not forgetting that while government are concerned at what people say even in their own house, proper criminals are running amok because police are too busy being the morality squad.
I heard the SMP leader on the radio this morning. Part of his speech he said, ‘we want Scotland to be a place where everybody is accepted’. Does he include white people in that!
“Everyone is accepted” that agrees with Net Zero, Gender Ideology, seeks Independence and wants to rejoin the EU. ——–If you disagree with any of that then you are a climate denier, a transphobe, and a racist and you will NOT be accepted in Scotland is what he means.
Well they are forever taking steps to close down free speech and criticism of the Globalist project. Does anyone on here believe the closing down of TIK-TOK was anything to do with China?
I now use “vulnerable” as a pejorative. They can’t do you for that. If a vulnerable shows mental deficiency I simply suggest they would benefit from training. Hence I’m seen as sensitive and bring positive solutions.
German tourists arrested for Hitler salute & visiting his birthplace. I know these laws have been there for a while but…..Who really are the fascists!
Germans arrested in Austria for neo-Nazi salute at Hitler’s birthplace (msn.com)
A friend who lives in CZ says: ‘If you dare tell the truth about the war in Ukraine, you can easily go to prison here. Dozens of people have been put in prison for recognising Russia’s version of events. It therefore doesn’t feel very free here.’
Here’s a link: https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/01/jail-time-for-czechs-agreeing-with-russian-intervention/
So they may be behind us on trans stuff but they’re ahead of the game on freedom!!