For myself.
"Now we've got what we wanted.", sings one of the building songs (We Build, 1946). By the way, the author of this text, set to music by Vaclav Dobiáš, is one of the distinctive, controversial, but nevertheless respected poets František Halas. Apparently, we really have what is due to us, what corresponds to our attitudes towards public space and our activity in general affairs. It seems that about a third of the population is not at all interested in political developments in our country, and of the rest, a good half form their opinions on the basis of simple mental constructions, relying more or less on shared impressions, media shortcuts and bulges hanging on their noses. There is certainly nothing unusual about this. Many countries that have historically gone through several totalitarianisms have a similar electorate. It's just that some of us expected to do better, to avoid this catharsis. That our society would simply not make strategic mistakes because it has made enough of them. Clearly, the opposite is true. Those who make mistakes will repeat them in the future. And that is simply because he knows how to make mistakes, he has learned to do so, he is not afraid of them, and he is actually used to them. We, expressed by the non-existent coefficient of civic consciousness, do not mind that a former active nomenklatura policeman - a thug - is in a leading position in one of the important parliamentary committees, that ethics and fair play are not only not worn in Czech politics, but nobody even talks about them, that fascist tendencies are becoming domesticated in our country, and that the appeal to morality comes from hard-core communists, hand in hand with nationalists. Karel Kryl is turning in his grave.
Frantisek Halas gives us timeless advice on how to approach this, "...the republic of work is, to him is honor, who does not idle, he is its hope." Later in the text he adds: "...today we work for ourselves". This seems like an ancient version of contemporary Babiš proclamations, but it is actually true. What we are doing, we are really doing for ourselves, and the results correspond to that. A bit of pathos can't hurt, since we have to undergo training in the form of repeated "bon mots" coming from the Castle anyway.
František Halas, Czech poet, is pictured.
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