“His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon.”

—Barack Obama on the death of Václav Havel

Long before there was an Arab Spring, there was a Prague Spring. 

Communist Czechoslovakia in 1968 began a series of democratic and economic reforms that ended beneath the tracks of Soviet tanks. These days, many folks under 30 don’t even know what “Soviet” tanks are, much less know about the Prague Spring. But it inspired artists such as Václav Havel, a Prague-born playwright who would spend years in jail for daring to use his pen to expose the soul-killing darkness of communism, but who would eventually—via the Velvet Revolution—become the last president of a Soviet-free Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. 

In a very real sense, Havel’s lovely and famous phrase, “Truth and love will prevail over lies and hate,” helped bring down a once-mighty empire, and Havel, along with other great historical figures who preferred peaceful revolutions over violent ones, will stand as a testimony, hopefully without future rebuttal, that words—yes, words—in the hands of a bold and talented writer have a kind of power that tyrants will never know. 

In our time and in our country, our President is sometimes smeared with language that in a saner world would be confined to real despots, not mere political opponents. We have all heard that language in one form or another. A popular talk radio host refers to the Obama Administration as a “regime.” Placards at rallies portray the President as Hitler or Stalin. 

But Václav Havel wrote of real despotism, of a society controlled by a rigid and devilish ideology, an ideology that can wash away, but not completely, human dignity. Permit me to quote at length a passage from Havel’s famous essay, “The Power of the Powerless,” written in 1978, a passage which illustrates how a man might lose his soul to a genuine dictatorship and how he might recover it: 

The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment’s thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?

I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be… 

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient,” he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction… 

We have seen that the real meaning of the greengrocer’s slogan has nothing to do with what the text of the slogan actually says. Even so, this real meaning is quite clear and generally comprehensible because the code is so familiar: the greengrocer declares his loyalty (and he can do no other if his declaration is to be accepted) in the only way the regime is capable of hearing; that is, by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place… 

Let us now imagine that one day something in our greengrocer snaps and he stops putting up the slogans merely to ingratiate himself. He stops voting in elections he knows are a farce. He begins to say what he really thinks at political meetings. And he even finds the strength in himself to express solidarity with those whom his conscience commands him to support. In this revolt the greengrocer steps out of living within the lie. He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth… 

Václav Havel knew that living “within the truth” was not without its costs, but he was willing to pay them. And it was such willingness that eventually helped rend the Iron Curtain and, as Mr. Obama said, “helped unleash tides of history that led to a united and democratic Europe.”