Buhvi, Benazir, Buhvi

I, like you, have been silently lamenting the passing of a truly extraordinary, attractive stateswoman.

Here's how I found out -- I was passing through an airport arrivals lounge after a very long cross-continental flight waiting for my baggage at the carousel, the likes of which had been excessively delayed due to a frozen plane cargo door -- I'll spare you the sob story.

But then I glanced up at the television screens arrayed around the baggage area, and there was the ominous CNN headline: "BHUTTO ASSASSINATED." I nearly gagged on my Juicy Fruit.

For about as long as I've been a senior political analyst, I've adored the Bhutto family dearly. In a region of the world, hers, known for its most "unglobalized" behaviour and for its deep disconnect from the rest of the planet, the politics practiced by the Bhutto clan was a ray of hope in a region consistently in despair.

Here's a thought for you, readers...have you ever considered why the Indian Muslim population -- the second largest Muslim community on the planet, after Indonesia, at 150 million souls -- has integrated so well into Indian democracy and politics (the former president of India was a Muslim, by the way, Dr. Abdul Kalam, India's "Missile Man")?

Well, that's because the tangible gains to be made from globalization and outsourcing -- just two of the many economic trends that have catapulted India onto the "developed economy" fast track -- have trickled down to all members of Indian society. Now, that's not to say Hindus and Muslims aren't ever at each others' throats on the Subcontinent. That's plainly not true. Ayodhya was a prime example of that.

What I'm merely suggesting here is that when a minority culture isn't humiliated and made to feel downtrodden, as well as being asked to play a constructive role in the economic affairs of state and governance, there's abundantly less time for them to contemplate how best to destroy the dominant culture. They can see the gains from playing an active role in the prosperity of their country, and the writing is clearly written on the wall: rock the boat, and you'll be destroying your country's economic gains for decades, hammering it back to the Stone Age.

Let's compare India and Pakistan.

In India, if a Muslim man sees a more successful Hindu in business or on the streets, he turns to his fellow and says, "I will one day be more successful than this man." In Pakistan, a Muslim man will look towards at the hill where a wealthier neighbour resides and instead exclaim to his fellow, "I will one day destroy this man."

These are precisely the miserable conditions in which the late Benazir Bhutto mingled with the massive crowds on Pakistan's teeming streets. Eight years after her self-imposed exile, she demonstrated the utmost in lion-hearted courage by returning to the land which snuffed out her father's -- Zulfikar's -- life at the end of a hangman's noose.

How does this relate to us in Central and Eastern Europe? Why should we Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Ukrainians care about what is going on in the Fertile Crescent and beyond? What does this got to do with the price of svickova, you ask?

In the opinion of many experts, it is distinctly we members of the (almost fully) developed world who must be utterly dismayed by this latest total meltdown in Pakistan.

Bhutto, for us, represented the epitome in moderate Islam. The kind of Islam that thousands of Muslims the world over practice daily, and the sort of Islam which millions across the planet had come to know and cherish in the decades prior to murderous 9/11. The Islam of Andalusian Spain, that of the Moors and the Turkish Caliphate, the Islam of algebra (an Arabic word, in fact), algorithms, benevolent rule, and respect for minority cultures.

Bhutto -- were she to have been elected -- would have been a boon to us here in the post-Communist world, gracing us with a privileged window into the sort of Islam which we here in the rising economies of the Centre and East of Europe desperately need to learn about. A kind of Islam which would transcend the false stereotypes. A kind of Muslim practice which would shock we locals out of our skins, educating us in a way which goes beyond the burqa, the hijab, the abaya, and draconian doctrinaire Koranic justice.

She could have been our distinguished guest, dining at the Castle with our president, discussing the affairs of the world and things like, um...climate change. She could have acted as a bridge between regions of the planet which formerly had very little to do with each other, except for the days when our Russian overlords decreed that it must be so (eg. Gaddafi's visits of our Czechoslovak past).

She could have taught us the very best in what Pakistan represents. She could have been our guide into the Islamic universe.

All this as a Muslim, from a dangerous part of the world.

Then there were her platitudes as a female politician. A Muslim woman being (re)elected to lead her nation into the bright 21st-century. An almost unthinkable accomplishment in the post-9/11 world, but this was the promise that the charismatic Benazir Bhutto had in spades.

The world weeps, but perhaps it is we here in the Czech lands who should be weeping more. If the loss for the world is a tragic one, then the loss for Central and Eastern Europe is devastating.

And, to think, the magnificent inter-cultural progress we were making up until now...que lastima, as the Spanish say, que lastima...

Ooga ooga booga!

What the hell does that mean, you ask?

I haven't the foggiest clue either.

By the looks of it, it's just a bunch of barbaric gibberish. A concatenation of various grunts and syllables, all coalescing into a unified sentence conveying some sort of mysterious idea or demand. Ooga booga booga! Hear me roar!

You know, I have a lot of respect for my conversational opposites in this country, Cesko. I am constantly enlightened by the unique left-brained ingenuity which is the trademark of the Czech nation, dare I say race. I'm also endlessly floored by the innovative never-say-die attitudes of the various technical people I've worked with over the time I've been here, and I admit that I haven't got anything on these various women and men.

In a dark room with just a screwdriver and a few bolts, many of my colleagues are skilled enough to build positively fantastic plastic machines. Time machines, even.

But then you have the neanderthal types.

You know the profile of the males I'm talking about, those who continue to spend too much time at mommy's side, getting her to fight life's various battles. Mommy's sundry services include anything from washing your clothes, cooking your dinner, tidying up your bathroom, stroking your fragile ego, to choosing out your ideal partner. She also criticizes you for any potential novel idea you might have, and nips a lot of your otherwise influential entrepreneurial spirit in the bud.

Mommy has dibs on this sort of treatment all the way until you're about 40 years old.

Like I said, you know who you are...

Regrettably, one of the side effects of this sort of maternal overprotectionism is an occasional lack of conversational tact. Since Mommy isn't exactly overly particular in the manner and means by which she address you (and perhaps your father), you've taken in her technique by osmosis (not your fault, in other words!) and you employ a similar approach once you step outside the family apartment's door.

You address people you don't agree with as "fool," "imbecile," or "idiot."

When you dislike the treatment you receive at the Tax Office or at the Municipal Court, for instance, you refer to these hapless men and women who innocently serve your various needs as "Bolsheviks," "Ruskies," or "Commies."

People who are too service-oriented are either "American" or "Western."

People who smile too much are either "freaks" or "calculating."

Czech and Slovak women who date or marry non-Czech men are "traitors," "mistresses," or "money-grubbers."

You see what I'm building up to here?

When are we going to learn to speak properly? When are we going to learn to have respect for our conversational opposites? Are we going to carry on "stoning" people because we don't like the things we say?

How long is it going to take those talented-beyond-their-wildest-dreams young people of this city -- you know, the ones who can still change for the better, not the hopeless ones of the Former Era -- to adapt the expressions and phrases in their lexicon to reflect more civilized banter?

If you're anything like me, you walk away from interactions like any of the above scratching your head and wondering what brought all of this on?

Worse, you'll never have anyone frontally attack you with such statments.

Like a great colleague of mine from California (and one of the hottest salesmen at www.AAAAuto.cz, by the way) always tells me: head-to-head, Czechs will always "out-subtle" Americans.

I, rather, avoid such euphemistic niceties and call the thing what it is: passive-aggression.

A word to the wise: there will be plenty of people whose opinions will rub you the wrong way in the future, dear friends. The more closely-aligned we become with the mysterious ways of the Western world as we continue to open up our markets, and when the time comes for us to take on the EU Presidency at the beginning of 2009, calling our various disagreeing European interlocutors and confreres "fools," "cretins," or "pathetic idiots" just ain't going to cut the mustard, you see.

We have such a capacity for adapting and change.

Let's start learning that lesson today...

The Czech, the Indian & the Chinaman

"Finish your dinner! There are people in India and China who don't have what to eat."

That's what parents used to tell their food-wasting kids around the North American (i.e. US and Canadian) supper table.

Today, this is what they instead say:

"Finish your homework! There are people in India and China who don't have any problem taking away your job."

Which, I suppose, brings me to the reason for this post's perplexing title.

Here's some good advice: how about we take these latter days of double-oh seven to think about what our government's doing to safeguard our economy from its eventual shift towards Asia, other than its fanatic rush to cut, slash, and disintegrate our annual deficit into nothingness.

No jo jasne, ja vim...Hyundai's splurging a cool 1 billion euros in Nosovice to supplement its auto manufacturing activities in neighouring ZIlina, Slovakia. That's significant, you'll tell me, that's a good sign, isn't it?

So what. It's confirmed, aren't you happy? We've become a goddamn Emerging European Motor City; as if we needed the additional pollution and the even greater proliferation of vehicles on Prague's already insane roads. (Like we weren't already in enough mortal pedestrian danger just crossing the Vaclavak, vole).

Another pertinent question: have CzechInvest and their Mala Stana bureaucratic handlers been thinking about what happens when it's no longer cost-effective for the Koreans, the French, and the Japanese to build gas guzzlers and petrol usurpers in this corner of the globe?

Unlikely...

How many useful years have our Korean friends actually projected for the Nosovice plant? Three, four -- half a decade at best?

Let's be generous...a grand total of five years before the cost of producing a car rapidly approaches the cost of selling that same car. When profit margins become so anorexic that the time must come to shift its production to our Eastern European neighbours, hungry for a slice of the yummy pie?

Then, when it becomes cost-ineffective to produce metal coffins near Kyiv, production will likely shift to Western China -- a deft move on the part of Beijing to quell its disgruntled Uighur citizens in its Far Western territory. Or maybe the plant might be moved -- lock, stock, and barrel -- to some Southern Indian town, complete with port services and easy access to the world's markets by sea?

Do you see what I'm building up to here, ctenari?

Young Czechs are educationally-intoxicated with the executive MBA. They aspire to diligently serve at the foot of the Western expatriate boss. Gleaning from his/her wisdom and learning "how to win friends and influence people" in the process.

Much like other issues surrounding politics in this country, the capable intelligent future leaders of our Czech nation -- and there are many, believe me -- are swallowing the corporatist message hook, line, and sinker. They're hardly thinking about what tomorrow may bring (or not bring, more correctly), so busy are they to get their meat hooks on the interest-bearing lucre.

Is anyone thinking about what happens when the money runs out?

Is anyone thinking what we're going to make or do for hard currency in this country once real estate is no longer our major cash cow?

How good will your expensive MBA help you when the Indians and the Chinese -- the wellspring of 21st-century brainpower and ambition -- are laughing all the way to the bank?

Let's have ourselves a think about that, my friends, while we're out spending our December's pay packet this coming Saint Sylvester.

Enta' da Contenda'

Good on Jan "The Contenda'" Svejnar and his CSSD paladins for seeking to draw the incumbent Czech President into the debating hotseat.

Hardly an ambush -- and way contrary to Vaclav Klaus' handlers' comprehension of it all -- a proper, full-on televised contretemps between the latter and The Contenda' would not only allow the President to show off his reputed debating chops, it'd also go towards removing the word "nascent" from Cesko's budding lil' democracy.

Lookit punters, it's high time we learn how to act as Western as we honestly believe ourselves to be.

Time we put that ol' money where our mouths are...instead of passively taking massive injections of foreign direct investment up our collective keysters and living in denial about it like we're some kind of isolated Central European Switzerland.

And it doesn't take 100 watts of brainpower to grasp what's currently playing out in the Czech political scene.

Klaus' evasive manoevres against debating the Heir Apparent are nothing short of shameless. That a large segment of the (totally deceived) Czech population -- anywhere between 60-70%, according to the latest STEM opinion polls -- supports Klaus' autocratic tomfoolery is entirely unacceptable in a so-called "democracy."

For goodness sake, we are the leading economy of the post-Communist universe!

In military terms that's equivalent to the rank of admiral, and it's high time we at least start acting the part. If Mala Strana can't get its blimmin' act together to (secretly, privately, manipulatively) vote appropriately for a head of state befitting the hallowed position, we better start faking it 'til we make it. Because I don't know about you, but another five years of Santa Klaus is too painful to even consider. Europe's been digging our grave, and they're already three feet deep (i.e. half way there).

By the way, are you dreading January 1, 2009, too?

That's D-Day for Cesko's ascendancy to the rotating EU presidency, and for those who don't know, we de facto become Europe for the better part of six months. If a random journalist from some far-flung location -- say The Federated States of Micronesia -- wishes to find out more about the European Union between January to June 2009, Brussels' website automatically defaults to the our EU Presidential URL.

And say -- heaven forfend -- Sir Klaus is re-elected. Then we might have the following 2009 doomsday scenario playing out at the inaugural EU Presidency press conference:


Hypothetical Journalist's Question (HJC): "What is the EU presently doing to curb fossil fuel emissions in line with 2007's Bali Declaration?"
Czech EU Presidency: "We can only speak for nations west of the Elbe (Labe), because the Czech Republic and its various weak-kneed post-Communist confreres don't believe that fossil fuel emissions are the direct cause of global warming."
HJC: "Um...but in the opinion of more than eighty-eight percent of--"
Czech EU Presidency: "--next question please!"


My friends, I'm sure my usual detractors will strongly disagree, but this is classic old style Czech(oslovak) thinking.

Disagree with me, says Klaus? To nevadi! I, King Klaus, don't have to debate you because I, King Klaus, hold the keys to the Castle. Didn't you know that the security of the nation rests in my hands? Well, didn't you?! Huh?!

::: as he continues :::

I'm a Doctor of Economics, for crying out loud! Why should I be forced to repeat the achievements of my questionable rule for the benefit of the nation?! Czech People, you don't elect me anyways! 200 deputies and 81 senators do. My stellar reputation speaks for itself as far as they're concerned, rozumite?

And it doesn't matter that you pay my salary, nor does it matter that the EU is calling for more transparency on the part of the EU-10 and -2, of which we are due members, because I am like your Heavenly Father. Jezismarja, so what if 4 out of ten of you nationwide don't like my straight-talking shoot-from-the-hip babbling commentary, or my constant badgering of the bona fides of Mr. Svejnar because, well...L'Etat, C'est Moi!

During the Bad Old Days, I stayed behind. I looked the Big Red Machine dead in the face and attempted to change it from the inside.

You, Mr. Svejnar?!

You were comfortably ensconced in your US idyll, teaching capitalist economics to the bourgeois devil enemy.

So why don't you listen to Mr. (Vojetch) Filip. Confess and give up your US citizenship, Jan, and join me, so together we can rule the Dark Side...

~~~~

Blech!

The Czech Presidential election is turning into a street fight, folks, and may the right man win (not the "best" man, because Mr. Klaus seems to hog that title all for his lonesome).

It's high time WE get to vote for our head of state, friends.

Otherwise, Klaus and his coterie should start learning to cool their rhetorical heels to leave governing to the ones we -- the Czech people -- entrust the job to, by virtue of the greatest invention ever since Dr. Wichterle's soft contact lens -- the Czech Republic's electoral ballot.

Where's the courage, oh brave inheritors of the Hussite legacy? Where is that old fight in ya, oh protesting battlers of the Prague Spring? Where is the balls-to-the-wall passion under truncheon blows that drove the enemies from our gates and returned the governing glory to we, the Czech people?

Where is it...?

So Santa (Klaus), a quick parting shot for you: it's time you took lessons in humility from a real class act. Her name is Her Excellency The Right Honourable, Michaelle Jean. And she's Canada's Governor-General.

A true Head of State for you, Big Boy...

Go get 'im, Contenda'. We're all rooting for you here in your corner.

ADM out.

The "real" Minister of Education

Tomas Bouska, student head of prominent Czech NGO Ano Pro Evropu, recently spoke on Ceska Televize's Pred Pulnoci, "Before Midnight."

With due respect for Ondrej Liska, I can't tell you how much I think this kid totally has the world in the palm of his hand. Watch the associated clip above for a few minutes before carrying on, just so that we're on the same page.

::: you're watching the clip, aren't you? :::

This isn't any regular sort of paean to the Man Known As Tomas. No siree. Allow me to break down the reasons why I think this dude is going places in Cesko's Crater:

Professionally media trained, par excellence:

Did you notice how well Bouska responds to the interviewer's questions? Just stellar! His voice modulation is perfect, his poise and demeanour are like a tranquil sea, and his responses are comprehensive, minus an ounce of hesitation. You can almost see the wheels spinning in his noodle as he seeks the optimal means of replying to the madame's questions -- sorting and stacking his copious thoughts for maximum oomph.


Professional "no-nonsense" appearance:

I don't think it's a stretch to say outright that Bouska is tremendously sartorial and extremely well-groomed for televised appearances. Not to mention the fact he totally fits the "Slavic profile," a must-have for the local electorate who don't seem to take to electing outsiders (yet). If I had the right to cast a ballot for him, I sure would.

You know, I've put the question to many Czech voters and bureaucrats over the past year, which some of you readers might consider to be a snipe-y dig. Well, here it is, for the record:

"Would you vote for a non-Czech Czech candidate for the Czech Republic's Chamber of Deputies? A Barack Obama-type of Czech person, not necessarily Caucasian -- of which there is an increasing amount in the Czech Republic (did you know?) -- yet speaks the vernacular impeccably well and carries all necessary qualifications?"

While it may be unfair to ask Czech voters such a question in a nascent democracy, the responses to are indeed revealing of their deeply-held personal beliefs, and oftentimes are rather frightening.

In my opinion, a Barack Obama-type, or even an Ayan Hirsi Ali-type (sans the lying on her immigration application for EU admittance, nor the resultant fallout from being affiliated with the late Theo Van Gogh), in the Czech Republic is just what this nation needs!

Someone to sweep away all the fiercely-held negative stereotypes and the dirty language which permeates these cobbled Czech streets.

Utterances like the politically-incorrect "Cernoch," or "Negr," or "African," epithets which I'm hearing increasingly frequently these days in public conversation and in the more touristy coffee houses. Note to all the Czech player-haters: Your so called fellow citizen "Africans" hail from specific nation-states! How would you like it if people abroad kept referring to you as a citizen of Czechoslovakia? Chances are you'd lynch them, so please be careful how you refer to people.


Young, vibrant, full of fresh energy:

Bouska's too young, you say? He needs his doktorat before qualifying for the post, the Czech version of "being educated."

Stoprocentne ne! I beg to differ!

If the Green Fox is old enough to be sitting in a Commie-era board room. negotiating 2008's (and beyond's) revised labour contracts or curriculum standards with 50- and 60-something Hammer & Sickle types, who boast about their Gorbachev posters hanging in their living rooms, then Bouska is more than up to task for Liska's job (or even for MInister Without Portfolio).

Just listen to Bouska...

His spoken Czech is professorial, even erudite. He doesn't speak "Prague." He doesn't slur syllables. And, moreover, he doesn't "ej" when he should be "y"-ing, doesn't "iho" when he should be "eho"-ing, and doesn't "ama" when he is supposed to be "ami"-ing. He also doesn't speak with a Western Bohemian accent, and that's usually the curtest, no umbrage intended (people from my home province of Ontario have the dreaded "Tim Horton's" accent, even viler-sounding!). Bouska enunciates each and every syllable, enough to make Palacky and Jungmann proud (and me). His diction is crystal-clear. Even North American Czechophiles like myself can grasp nearly everything he's saying, for which I am eminently grateful.

What's more, the fact that Bouska doesn't carry the taint of our almost 42-year past, or that he isn't affiliated (yet) with any political party which could negatively drag him into the ceaseless "machinations game" is a fortunate occurrence indeed.

In fact, if I am ever to run his election campaign, I'd strongly advise him to remain staunchly independent, just as he is now.

~~~~

In summary, Tomas Bouska is in a class all his own.

He reminds me of several young up-and-coming colleagues I'd had the due privilege of collaborating with during what turned out to be a very prosperous 2007 career year.

Young Turks like Hana Valentova, PR Director at the Forum2000, or the incomparable Vojtech Muller, or even Miss Jana Neupauerova, HR Manager Extraordinaire over that same Forum2000 -- the brilliant organization headed by the delightful Dr. Oldrich Cerny.

So, readers, time for me to share my "Czech and Slovak" dream: to spend every day from 9am-5pm with Mssrs. Bouska and Muller, together with Ms. Valentova and Ms. Neupauerova, about the proverbial Round Table. We'd outline an honourable direction for our new nation, we'd take the bull by the horns, and we'd continue to marshall in even more radical -- yet exciting -- changes our amazing nation so dearly requires.

Out with the old, and in with the new, as they say.

And, oh yeah: Ondrej Liska for Prime Minister.

His Excellency Jan Svejnar: our "exile" president

I, like you, have met many former "exiles" in this fantastic small town.

People, who due to circumstances beyond their immediate control, were compelled to hit the high road on 'outta here -- the former Czechoslovakia, that is -- getting the hell out of Dodge.

At best, many carried just the rucksacks slung over their shoulders. If they flew out of here, it was often with just a single suitcase stuffed to bursting with only the most cherished of keepsakes.

Some even left with just the clothing on their backs, stuffed, as they were, into the cramped trunks/boots of cars as they sped across the Austrian or German border away from the oncoming Soviet-lead invaders and their KSC hardliner cronies.

You've heard all the stories, too, so I'm not telling you anything new. About people who got the heck out of here just in the nick of time, ahead of the cavalry charge, before the People's Republic hermetically sealed its borders.

Exiles, such as the ones described above, are constantly heckled for their so-called abandonment of their brethren.

I've sat gobsmacked over steaming cups of Illy coffee or iced Becherovka, listening to the sordid tales of just-in-the-nick-of-time flight from the razor-sharp jaws of oppression by several former exiles. Then, of their eventual return to these blessed Czech lands -- now conveniently referred to as the "Czech Republic" -- and how they were branded from all sides as traitors. Traitors for leaving their fellow Czech (and Slovak) brothers and sisters to contend with the bewildered occupation forces. Benedict Arnolds for avoiding the harsh "normalization" period that quickly followed, a mainstay of 1970s Ceskoslovensko. How they were dishonest for refusing to tolerate the invasion nor accept as their destiny the past horrors of the Protectorate or White Mountain. Occasions, both, where local Praguers and Czechoslovaks were emasculated into insignificance.

History will judge the treatment these returnees were subjected to (a short 15 years ago, in some cases). That is hardly for me to judge, for I am nothing but a non-Czech Czech, citizen in name, though not in blood.

And blood, folks, is what counts around these parts. That, too, is clear.

In the tornado of ink spilled and efforts wasted in pointing the accusing finger at these former exiles, has anyone ever paused to consider what these emigrants had to face on the receiving end of their flight? What life was like for them in the host countries of the West, nations like the US, Canada, West Germany, France, the UK, and Australia? It was hardly ideal. Books have even been written by the more famous in this group.

Let's take the example of a young twenty year-old girl. Born in a small town just outside of the capital, with zero English, French, nor German language skills.

During the sit-ins on the Vaclavak during the '68 Spring, she sat awed sitting on one of the nearby kerbs, watching how tens of clueless East German and Bulgarian soldiers fired their Kalashnikovs aimlessly -- on direct orders from Moscow -- into the gathering protesting throngs in the Square. Blood spattered her clothing and her face, shellshocking her.

Right then and there, she decides she must leave this villainous place. Her mother and grandmother have been reassuring her of same for a while now from their little Central Bohemian village, entreating her to find a way out of the rapidly-devolving hellhole which was the then former Czechoslovakia.

She encounters a group of Italian socialists in the crowd, who notice her blood-stained clothing and they hustle her away from the tanks and the action in the square. They beg her in rapidfire Italian mixed with broken Czech that she needs to leave this place, as the mighty roar of Antonov transport planes meld into the chaos of tank treads clickety-clacking on the saintly Prague cobbles.

They offer to secret her out of the country in the trunk of their little Fiat, demonstrating how they've jerry-rigged a small porthole in the boot so that the boot's occupant can breathe normally. They tell her that if she has any hope of getting out of Czechoslovakia, she has to leave now.

Without hesitation, she agrees...

FADE TO BLACK.

CUT TO:

A month later, she finds herself on the West Coast of Canada, in Vancouver.

The Pacific Coastal city is caught up in the heady '60s, as Age of Aquarius bearded hippies roam the mountainous streets. She doesn't speak a coherent sentence of English, but makes her wishes known through a variety English phrases she's learned, mixed with several smiles and some handy gesticulations.

She finds a job working in a classy diner, wiping the crud off of dirty dishes, as she spills their luxurious half-eaten contents into an awaiting bin. To the customers in her restaurant, Czechoslovakia is somewhere in the middle of "Russia," just like all the other nations under the Warsaw Pact umbrella.

It takes her a couple more years to make any headway, but by Year Two she finally manages to speak English well.

She begins to contemplate making a life for herself in this cold, yet strange, adoptive nation...

~~~~

Living in exile was not always pretty. In fact, in many cases like the one described above, it was downright harrowing.

Nearly every single one of the English-language press agencies in the Czech Republic is has been referring to 2008 presidential hopeful Jan Svejnar as the "former exile."

Why?

References to Mr. Svejnar's pedigree is nothing short of a low political blow. Reading qualifiers next to his name about something which was clearly a personal choice for Mr. Svejnar is 100% unacceptable in a democratic society.

I'd expect this kind of skullduggery from the mainstream, petty Czech press. As its "special" way of discrediting Mr. Svejnar's professional capabilities and aspirations. You know, those daily newspapers who are in the back pockets of the fat cats over in Mala Strana, those which brand Svejnar with the heavy "exile" moniker (as if the man's got some kind of communicable disease like HIV, a virus still regarded in this country as some kind of Western-inspired fabrication against pure Czech hedonism).

Why are "former exiles" still treated like misanthropes in this country?

Nearly four years after joining the EU and eighteen years following our non-violent Revolution (an example for the world), we are still tarring those who sought freedom and happiness in adoptive lands with the same sickly brush.

Is Mr. Svejnar and those like him to be blamed for wanting the best for themselves and their families? Would you not have done the same had you the chance to leave? The Czech people may have had a martyr's past, but they certainly do not have a martyr's destiny.

Regardless of whether Mr. Svejnar is a dyed-in-the-wool economic Friedmanite, or from the less disaster capitalist Keynesian school of same, this must be entirely unrelated to his past political choices.

If anything, the incumbent Czech president is the true neo-con, as evidenced by his much-publicized pronouncements. So much for the accusations levelled against Pan Svejnar for being some sort of US stooge...

All this "exile" rubbish reminds me of 1952's Slansky (show) Trial. The falsely-accused fourteen defendants of the day were not only indicted with the most outlandish roll call of cooked-up crimes against their State, but were also -- in 11 of these 14 cases -- branded as being "of Jewish origin." For those who have studied the era well, this was the epitome of journalistic skullduggery.

I still see this kind of rubbish in the Czech press when referring to patriots like Jan Kaplicky ("London-based, but of Czech origin") or Pani Navratilova, "of Czech origin" (and perhaps this is her choice).

This serves no useful purpose.

It's high time we begin to realize that those returnees who spent sizable portions time abroad have enriched our society in ways far beyond the wildest theorizing of even the savviest of game theorists.

These various exiles are some our most fortunate accidents.

May more of them run for Parliament, and may more of them get elected. Maybe we can finally get a jump on the 50 years TGM said we'd need to understand true Czechoslovak democracy.

Macho men need not apply

Um...how exactly do I put this delicately, dear ctenari?

Perhaps I'll just come out with it, straight-from-the-gut style -- why the hell is there such a vast shortage of good male teachers under 30 years of age in the Czech school system?

Anyone have an answer?

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure we've all got our grab bag of Top Ten reasons. How about this...I'll list my Top Three for you in case you're curious:

1) lousy pay.
2) lousy image.
3) lousy upward career potentials.

A veritable lousy trifecta.

Allow me to deconstruct these for you, one-by-one:


Lousy pay:

No secret here, but life in the Big Bad Golden Town don't cost what it used to, kiddies. By the looks of the upward price levels in this here metropole, and with rates set to skyrocket by 2009 -- guaranteed -- it's not exactly a Stromovka picnic living on a paltry 15,000 crown monthly salary, gross.

With pay like that, it's likely our sweet educating Mr./Miss/Mrs. Novak(ova) is living at home with an elderly parent, in some socialist-era rent-controlled apartment or in a panelak. Or maybe they're the inheritor of said rent-controlled apartment or panelak.

Yes, like you I'm thanking our lucky stars that Prague isn't quite Bucharest...yet. Accommodation and property prices in the "Manhattan of the Wild East" are on Big Apple levels over there, if you haven't heard, and even a nice 70-90 sq. metre job here in the Czech capital likely gobbles up anywhere between 33-75% of a person's salary.

But carrying on with our example of the ascerbic Mr. Novak, who continues to live with his doting old single mom somewhere down in Opatov, the latter who still hasn't learned to operate a broadband internet connection (a Czech mobile phone doesn't count!).

When Novak tells his mother that he's got a great idea for a business, or that he's ready to innovate the stodgy primary and secondary educational sectors of the CR with a wonderful new-fangled idea he's recently read about on the 'net or in Fast Company, she sniggers, "okay Mr. Big Shot...why don't you pass me two lumps sugar and a tea bag while you're dreaming up your big shot American-style ideas, kid. Harrumph!"

Novak likely loses his cool, storms out of the flat, dashes to the nearby hospoda to quell his shaken nerves with a few pulls of Absolut and a Pilsnicka chaser, then comes home in a stupor. He returns to school the next day to take out his mother's indifference on his poor hapless students, who crave nothing more than to be educated.

Ho-hum.

Worse, the only solace our Mr. Novak likely receives is from his (mostly female) colleagues at school. All his own childhood friends have likely gone onto bigger and badder projects; or worse, they've moved abroad to the "West."

Novak ends up feeling like a lump. He likely feels undervalued and wholly unappreciated, professionally. Educational levels in his classroom continue to suffer as he sinks ever-deeper into an endless spiral of indifference and animosity, with no end in the sight to the darkness.

When's the last time Czech teachers received a raise? Sorry to tell you, but even Ondrej "the Very Wiley Fox" Liska -- all Western-educated, young, and media-trained -- can't pull a rabbit out of a hat on this one. Czech teachers will continue to earn bupkes. Mark my words.


Lousy image:

I'm not making headlines here when I tell you that Prague isn't India.

Teachers are not revered in the Czech Crater like they are on the Subcontinent; the latter's contributions to society more worthwhile than the proverbial golden fleece. Students kiss the ground Indian educators walk on. They address them respectfully as "Sir" or "Madam" and raise their hands respectfully when desiring to answer a question. They wish to emulate them.

What's more, it isn't a shame to reveal to your colleagues and society at large that you teach. In fact, it's a kudo of the highest order! To admit that you teach...hot damn, what a calling!

Let's take Prague as our comparative example, and our friendly down-on-his-luck Pan Novak.

Novak: "'zdar Jirko, lousy day at school today."
Jiri: "Jezismarja, Honzo, when are you going to find a real job?! Why don't you work for one of those Austrian freight-forwarding companies over at Ruzyne, or maybe one of those high-flying call centres in Prague 4?"
Novak: "But I do have a real job! I help kids develop into sensible, law-abiding, upstanding Czech citizens. What greater calling in life is there than that?"
Jiri: "You, Honzo? A real job? Give me a break. Kamos, you're a goddamn teacher. You earn 15,000 crowns a month, a real Rothchild, you are. What are you going to do with a sum like that, fill my Range Rover's gas tank?"

Et cetera, et cetera...

Novak leaves the meeting in a sulk. No matter how finely he slices it for Jiri, his friend rebukes him at every turn. The man can't get an ounce of respect. In fact, Jiri likely considers him less than a "real male."

So what's the net result?

Novak returns to his classroom the following day and continues not giving a right damn whether his expectant students learn those critical soft skills vitally necessary to survive in our new cutthroat Western-dominated workforce.

When students pose engaging, incisive questions during his lectures, Novak gets uppity. He doesn't suffer fools gladly, and Czech education continues to spiral downward.


Lousy upward career potentials:

Honestly now. Considering how many former dyed-in-the-wool Hammer and Sickle types there are teaching our youngsters in the secondary and tertiary educational systems -- poisoning their minds with all manner of Old World thinking, constant criticism, and blasting them with twisted messages that they can be absolutely nothing they dream of being -- do you really think a thirtysomething teacher can expect to rise in the employment ranks before he's 45?

Highly doubtful...

Why should a young teacher give her/his all when there's no pot of gold waiting for them at the end of the Bohemian rainbow?

Moreover, how is a male educator -- say, our loveable Mr. Novak -- to stack up against his high-flying corporate-clone beer-guzzling male colleagues? You know who I'm talking about, here's the profile:

** drives very fast in his shiny German car, regardless of whether there are people or tourists in his immediate path.
** is god's gift to the female race: "What do you mean you don't want to go out with me tomorrow night? You a lesbian or something?"
** could care little about his personal health. Drinks like a fish, smokes like a chimney, eats like a swine, and carries around at least twenty extra kilos of weight like a sack of potatoes, and to hell with all that. "We have socialized medicine in the CR, they can always fix me if something goes wrong, no?"

I can go on...

So as a blog-y bonus for you today, loyal ctenari, here's my Top Three List of Male Czech Educators, for the record:

** Jiri Pehe, New York University in Prague (UNYP): You know, I wish all Czech educators had Mr. Pehe's noggin. Not only is the man completely bilingual, but he knows the inner-workings of the Czech geopolitical scene like the back of his hand, and can cite and quote at will. If you've never heard him in action, pop by UNYP sometime and see it for yourself. It's no secret he's the go-to man for most Western news agencies.
** Jan Urban, New York University in Prague (UNYP): Investigative journalist and educator par excellence. Never have the courage to accept merely the surface details with this man, my friends. Never. Urban's analysis of the radar base issue is just stellar.
** Rob Cameron, Radio Prague, BBC, Deutsche Welle: Rob is not your typical non-Czech Czech. He cares about his students very much. He wants to equip them with the very best in critical thinking skills, and the results speak for themselves. I know.

Just one problem with all of these three...the Czech educational system could never afford to pay what these men are truly worth.

And they're worth their weight in gold. Believe me.

How do we convince the Fox, though, that their Czech counterparts deserve to earn more than presently?

Hey, you got any ideas?

Haven't you had enough of us yet?

Dear Czech Blogosphere, I'm writing to you from a place that makes me want to vomit.

Yes, that's right...hurl!

Allow me to describe to you where I'm located. I'm surrounded by boundless consumerism, advertising a-plenty, and people who are so inundated by infinite choice that they don't know where their head begins and their tail ends; and -- ahem -- that's putting it midly.

So sad, oh so very sad.

How does a garden variety Golden City Denizen regulate the 1000-channel universe, the endless array of clothing stores, the confusing mobile phone plans -- so detailed and deceptive that it afflicts you with a permanent case of vertigo -- and the eventual 3 euro bus fare?

And no, posluchaci, in case you're guessing, I ain't in Hong Kong.

There was a point to all of this, I think...

Oh yeah -- I ask the question: once we let the cat out of the bag, can we stuff it back in?

Once we open up our markets to unfettered trade, seventy-five brands of breakfast cereal and twenty-eight varieties of cleansing cream, is there an end in sight? Has anyone even considered this? Mr. Topolanek, have you? Holy ODS gurus? President Klaus and his Kissing RepubIican cousins?

Well I certainly have...

I think I speak for plenty of expats in Prague who came to this City of Fear and Fantasy for an ironclad purpose.

Some came for love, others for passionate conquest of other kind. Some came because they were running away from free enterprise run amok. I even know some who sought solace from the war games Dubyah's "administration" seems to enjoy playing.

Still others still found themselves here accidentally...passing through, in other words, and finally deciding that this was a swell place where they could hang their hat and call home.

Like we say back where I come from -- thirty-one flavours, baby. Thirty-one flavours.

Prague's so gorgeous, she sometimes makes me want to gnash my knuckles, nail my hands to a piece of wood, and bear the elements screaming to the high heavens in rapture (there's an image there, fer ya, hey?), but lately she's been getting too sickly sweet. Lately, I've been getting a major case of cavities.

My dear friends, denizens of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia...I fear for you, for me, for us.

First you.

Yes I'm talking about you, Fellow Citizens. You, like the very best in Mexican lightweights, who have been so quintessentially capable of slipping the twin punches of tyranny and oppression. Bobbing and weaving your way through the ravages of European history for the past five centuries and then some, passively accepting the sorry fate of occupation, letting the invaders unfurl their dastardly plans, ultimately for naught -- vubec -- because ultimately we -- we Czechs, Slovaks, and Czechoslovaks -- are at the end of the day stronger than they. The blood of a man named John and his merry band of Hussite zealots trumps imperialist evil any day of the week.

But this present round of squatting seems as though it's here to stay.

The Money Huns are once again at the gates, scrambling like chickens without their heads through our city, spreading their vile influence all over the show, and once again we're powerless to resist them. Try as we might, the more stridently we resist them, the mightier they become.

They've been feeding us those consumerist carrots like manna, and we've been gobbling them up like kids at Tuzex. Somehow we can't seem to get enough of the booty, that goose that lays them golden eggs.

Then me.

Part of what I dig about Prague, the Czech Republic, and even scrappy little Slovakia is the innocence which their metropolitan areas still retain. Prague -- that city straddling the Vltava, beloved apple of my eye, warm centre of my love, my heart -- is the consummate "small town playing big," and that's exactly the way I/we expats like it. I think I speak for plenty of non-Czech Czechs who turned tail on all that shallow crap from back across the Pond. Crap like what happened to me here today when I waltzed into an electronics shop in the mall.

I needed an adapter. The clerk lead me to the wall of accessories, then tried to put the retail hustle 'n flow on me. "Did you need anything else? Is there anything else I can get for you?"

Me: "No, thank you. I think this [pointing to the adapter] is fine."
Clerk: "Are you sure? You wouldn't be interested in this [pointing to a more expensive adapter that I really didn't need], would you?"
Me: "No thanks."
Clerk: "Wait, but this particular one doesn't convert the current as well as--"
Me: "Hey man, can I just pay for this and go?"

Do you see where I'm heading with this?

This isn't happening yet in Prague, but we're on a damn fine roll. Do you think ten million consumers can dictate the pace of economic progress in Europe? Do you think we can live in our glorious bubble of splendid isolation like we seem to be doing these days, oblivious to the pace of change which is overwhelming the rest of the planet's financial meccas?

Nah. I doubt it.

Me? I just hope when the juggernaut rolls all over us here (if it hasn't already), that we don't lose those quaint little things we non-Czech Czechs had once come to know and majorly dig about this sweet little bull's-eye of a nation-state at the heart of Europe.

And lastly, there's us.

I worry about us because I've been seeing the signs.

I think I speak for plenty of expatriates who don't want you to become anything like us. We don't want you to lose that wonderful thing which makes you so endearing to us. That part of your personality which isn't suspicious and loathing and which questions every single motive of someone you may meet on the street or who might approach you in a shop. Who doesn't have a problem with personal space, and who is so "liberated" and "free" that they don't know where all of this tomfoolery began.

It's that beautiful innocence we don't want you to misplace in your mad stampede to adopt the best of what the First World is foisting off on you. In that exuberance to obliterate every last trace of the Bad Old Days where you only had one brand of milk, one holiday option (beach vacations in Varna, Bulgaria), and one option on the old ballot card.

So now my plaintive request: PLEASE don't become like us!

Whatever you do, avoid it at all costs. Go to a 12-step program. Overdose on Britney Spears YouTube videos. Stare at yourself in the mirror and repeat "Have a nice day!" a thousand times until you, too, hurl.

But -- by Jove -- do not become like us.

You're too good to waste.

Hail, Hail, the "Non-Czechs" Are Here!

Yep, you've seen those crazies before. Those loud and proud types. How they move about our fair Golden City in those disgustingly large packs, all happy and satisfied and stuff. Don't you just hate how they carry their heads so high and constantly make eye contact.

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