Quote of the day: On Václav Havel

“Ten years ago,” Černý told me, Havel “would probably immediately give them a pardon. But that asshole in the Castle won’t.” 

That was the final sentence in this short piece on protest art in the Czech Republic.  The "conservative Czech President Václav Klaus" is the one referred to by that anatomical metaphor, in contrast to the liberal intellectual Havel, who died a few months ago.  Yes, Klaus the pen stealer :)

Until I read the essay, I had no idea about this:

In April 2007, Czech artist David Hons replaced the human silhouettes in 48 Prague crosswalk signals with figures engaged in decidedly less pedestrian activities. One signal depicted a man urinating; another had a bottle raised to his mouth. A man squatted to defecate; another appeared to be falling down drunk. “I wanted to show people, they don’t have to walk or stand when the system says so,” Hons wrote on his website.

That is bloody creative, and what a wonderful way to convey that idea.

What was even more exciting was when I read the following:

In May 2010, as the country was preparing for a nationwide election, Roman Smetana, a 29-year-old bus driver from the city of Olomouc, defaced some 30 campaign posters, scrawling, “Liars,” “Idiots,” “Corruptioneers,” and “Prostitutes” across them in Magic Marker. After the election, the victorious center-right Civic Democrats took legal action. Smetana was found guilty of vandalizing private property, fined $800, and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service. He complied with the fine (to avoid debt collectors) but resisted the second half of the punishment. His graffiti, he told the court, “was the free expression of opinion by a citizen who, unlike political parties, does not have huge funds for publicity at his disposal.” For refusing the community service, he was sentenced to 100 days in jail. Yet this month, Smetana refused to show up at the prison to begin his sentence; he could now spend three years behind bars for defying the court’s orders.

Not only is the protest format itself neat, I even know this place, Olomouc; it was where I visited my old friend almost fourteen years ago :)