Quotes of the Day

When he was elected president in December 1989, Vaclav Havel was better known to most of his countrymen for his samizdat political essays than for his theatrical plays. People looked up to him, admired the power and clarity of his writing and respected him for his bravery and sense of duty. In 1979, after the communist regime had sentenced him to four-and-a-half years in prison for subversion, Havel was given the option to emigrate. He chose imprisonment, because he was convinced that his place was at home, where he could do the most to carry out his mission. As he prepares to step down this week as President of the Czech Republic, Havel can consider that mission — to foster the growth of democracy in Central Europe and to return the Czech Republic to its rightful place in the international community — largely accomplished.

Havel's 1990 New Year's speech was typical of his political honesty and vision. "My dear fellow citizens," he began, "for 40 years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many millions of tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright prospects were unfolding in front of us. I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you. Our country is not flourishing ... The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension ..."

I quote from his first speech not only because it shocked most listeners, but because in it Havel laid out his prescription to cure this moral illness and restore a healthy democracy. He emphasized the importance of a strong civil society and warned against the excessive power of political parties, what he termed the "dictatorship of partisanship," an affliction from which his country still suffers. Havel was anti-ideological. He rejected terms like socialism and capitalism, right-wing and left-wing, as misleading oversimplifications. But when corruption mushroomed in the mid-'90s, depriving the country of billions of crowns, Havel warned against the dangers of Mafia capitalism. In foreign policy, Havel promoted reconciliation with Germany — which was symbolized by the Czech-German Declaration, a 1997 document that aimed to defuse tensions between the two countries stemming from World War II and its aftermath — and lobbied hard for the Czech Republic's entry into nato, a dream that was realized in 1999, and the European Union, a dream that will be realized in 2004.

Perhaps Havel's greatest defeat was the 1992 breakup of Czechoslovakia, something that he passionately argued against. Seeing that he was unable to prevent the split, he abdicated as Czechoslovakia's President. Though he maintains that the breakup should have been agreed by a referendum, he accepts it as inevitable and as something that improved Czech-Slovak relations.

In recent years, Havel became the target of frequent smear campaigns by the tabloid media and the object of increasingly hostile criticism by the communists. This has often led people to believe that Havel was more popular abroad than at home. But the contrary is true. As a democrat, a politician who put a great emphasis on morals, and someone who led the way during the downfall of communism, Havel could hardly have endeared himself to the tabloids or the communists. He's always been among the most popular Czech politicians, not least because of the way he persevered with his duties in the face of serious illness.

For most citizens at home, as well as for most politicians abroad, Havel's presence in Prague Castle guaranteed that democracy would endure. His presidency also ensured that the spiritual and moral values he espoused would never be supplanted by purely material interests or political opportunism. Above all, Havel followed the example of Tomas Masaryk, founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, by trying to define a mission that would give his small nation a higher purpose. Today, both the President's supporters and critics agree that Vaclav Havel returned to the Czech presidency its dignity, and that whoever becomes his successor will have a tough act to follow.

• IVAN KLIMA
• Has departing President Havel ensured his country's transition to democracy?