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When Havel resigned the mostly ceremonial office last week, the ground beneath him was shifting. Czechoslovakia may soon split in two -- the Slovaks in the eastern half of the country breaking off to form an independent state, the Bohemians and Moravians in the Czech lands to the west organizing a faster-moving, more entrepreneurial state that might soon integrate with the European Community. In some ways a breakup would be logical. The Slovaks and those in the Czech lands were pieces of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire knit together in 1918, but they have deep differences of background, outlook and economic metabolism. Many Slovaks want to seize the moment to have their own republic, even though independence would cut them off from some $300 million in annual subsidies from the Czechoslovak federal government. Many Czechs react to the prospect of losing the Slovaks by thinking 1) How sad and 2) Why not? A breakup might cause anxieties among the 600,000 ethnic Hungarians who live in Slovakia but would not result in anything like the savage violence in the Balkans. The greatest danger to the Czechs is that a breakup might cause outside investors to pull back some of the billions of dollars now heading through the pipeline toward Czech projects.
Some Czechs believe that Havel is too idealistic for politics. But his resignation may prove to be the shrewdest move in the game. He may now help invent a new Czech constitution and then become the first President of the new Czech state, with powers greater than those he has just abandoned.
In any case, Havel's moral importance transcends Central European politics. His ideas aim toward formation of a kind of global civil society. The breakup of Czechoslovakia might be a sort of rehearsal for the problems involved in larger rearrangements of the world order. Havel asserts values not often advanced in world politics -- courtesy, good taste, intelligence, decency and, above all, responsibility. He asserted them against the Communist regime. , Anyone who thinks Havel's values are charming but useless in the real world must consider that the Communists are now gone.
Q. Are you relieved to have resigned?
A. I am quite relieved, almost happy actually, because always when I accomplish something or make an important decision, spurring others to act rather than reacting only to what is happening around me, it gives me a feeling of inner freedom and self-confirmation. And everyone needs such self- confirmation. It is one of the paradoxes of my life that I am experiencing such a creative feeling at the moment of my resignation.
Q. Some have said the possible breakup of Czechoslovakia would be a tragedy, some say it is inevitable, some say it is a good thing.
A. If we become two stable democratic states, then the fact that we are not a large state is not a tragedy. If the breakup of our common state should lead to inner instability, chaos, poverty and suffering, then it would start to become a tragedy. The fact in itself that two states shall emerge out of one is not a tragedy. I do not feel any sentimental ties to the Czechoslovak state. I do not place the highest value on the state, but rather on man and humanity.
Q. Is there a possibility of ethnic violence?