[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 33 (Tuesday, February 27, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E404]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    IN HONOR OF VACLAV HAVEL AND THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF CHARTER 77

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                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 27, 2007

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, Edmond Burke once said that, 
``all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.'' 
Thirty years ago, good men and women came together, and together, they 
ultimately triumphed over evil.
  In 1987, I traveled to Czechoslovakia with a Helsinki Commission 
delegation led by my good friend, Steny Hoyer, who was then Chairman of 
the Commission. We traveled there just ten years after the Charter 77 
movement had been formed and, amazingly, in spite of persecution and 
imprisonment, they had managed to publish 350 documents during its 
first ten years. And it was clear during my visit to Prague that this 
organization was having an impact, especially when the communist 
authorities went to the trouble of preventing five independent 
activists, including Vaclav Havel, from meeting with us.
  In spite of this, our delegation was able to meet with several other 
Charter 77 signatories and sympathizers: Libuse Silhanova, Josef 
Vohryzek, Father Vaclav Maly, Zdenek Urbanek, and Rita Klimova. Libuse 
Silhanova, then serving as a Charter 77 spokesperson, described her 
fellow Chartists as ``ordinary people who happen to be part of a 
movement.'' For a group of ``ordinary people,'' they certainly 
accomplished extraordinary things.
  One of the most notable of these ``ordinary people'' was the 
playwright Vaclav Havel, who is today the sole surviving member of 
Charter 77's first three spokespersons. At a time when most 
Czechoslovaks preferred to keep their heads low, he held his up. When 
others dared not speak out, he raised up his voice. While others hid 
from communism in their apartments and weekend cottages, he faced it 
down in prison.
  In 1978, Havel wrote a seminal essay entitled, ``The Power of the 
Powerless.'' In it, he proposed a remarkably conspiratorial concept: 
the idea that those repressed by the Communist Lie actually had the 
power to ``live for truth,'' and that by doing so, they could change 
the world in which they live.
  One of the people who read this essay was Zbygniew Bujak, who became 
a leading Solidarity activist in Poland. Bujak described the impact of 
Havel's message:

       This essay reached us in the Ursus factory in 1979 at a 
     point when we felt we were at the end of the road. Inspired 
     by KOR [the Polish Workers' Defense Committee, which preceded 
     Solidarity], we had been speaking on the shop floor, talking 
     to people, participating in public meetings, trying to speak 
     the truth about the factory, the country, and politics. There 
     came a moment when people thought we were crazy. Why were we 
     doing this? Why were we taking such risks? Not seeing any 
     immediate and tangible results, we began to doubt the 
     purposefulness of what we were doing. Shouldn't we be coming 
     up with other methods, other ways?
       Then came the essay by Havel. Reading it gave us the 
     theoretical underpinnings for our activity. It maintained our 
     spirits; we did not give up, and a year later--in August 
     1980--it became clear that the party apparatus and the 
     factory management were afraid of us. We mattered. And the 
     rank and file saw us as leaders of the movement. When I 
     look at the victories of Solidarity, and of Charter 77, I 
     see in them an astonishing fulfillment of the prophecies 
     and knowledge contained in Havel's essay.
  Vaclav Havel's essay was not just the product of clever wordsmithing; 
it was an act of singular heroism. In fact, shortly after writing ``The 
Power of the Powerless,'' Vaclav Havel found himself in prison, again. 
And it should be remembered that others, including philosopher Jan 
Patocka, Havel's close friend, and Pavel Wonka, paid with their lives 
for their opposition to the Czechoslovak communist regime.
  Vaclav Havel is a man who has always been guided by the courage of 
his convictions. Remarkably, his courage did not fade upon his 
assumption of the presidency. Indeed, he is all the more heroic for his 
steadfast commitment to human rights even from the Prague Castle. From 
the beginning, he was a voice of reason, not revenge, as he addressed 
his country's communist and totalitarian past. In 1993, he rightly 
identified the situation of Roma as ``a litmus test for civil 
society.'' And not only has he raised human rights issues in his own 
country but reminds the world of the abuses taking place in Cuba and 
China.
  Throughout his presidency, he pardoned those faced with criminal 
charges under communist-era laws that restrict free speech. In 2001, he 
spoke out against the parliament's regressive religion law, which 
turned the clock back on religious freedom. And he has reminded other 
world leaders of our shared responsibility for the poor and less 
fortunate the world over.
  On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of Charter 
77, I want to join my colleagues from the Helsinki Commission in 
honoring Vaclav Havel and all the men and women who signed the Charter, 
who supported its goals, and who helped bring democracy to 
Czechoslovakia.

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