November, 1999

Life is lived moment by moment and this moment in Czech society, ten years after the fall of Communism is frozen, stagnated by the past and future.

Coincident with the tenth anniversary, a flurry of past reminiscence found its way to the Czech television, a "reminder" of how things were, something presumed to reignite a sense of progress. Yet there is more stagnation than progress, advancement has failed to arrive as a gift and a sense of "what went wrong?" is in the air. For the average Czech, the euphoria of 1989 is dissolved within the bitterness of 1999. Unemployment is up, wages have not begun to keep up with costs. Families that lived three generations in a flat are still living three generations in a flat.

The Communists are still here, only the names have been changed to protect the guilty, a cruel twist on the familiar opener of expose. Of course in retrospect, how could it be otherwise? With the sweeping political change of '89 who else was there to run the country? The same thin gray smile awaits the applicant for nearly any service, from restaurant to post office to municipal office. Charles University, its funding drastically reduced by the "realities" of other needs, struggles with the same professors teaching all they know---the old ways. The police, unable to deal with a newly arrived mafia, still spend their resources spot checking private automobiles for a missing nut or bolt and pocket the few hundred crowns to allow them on their way. The law, that first of priorities in a newly free society, still creaks under its old ways and contracts, leases and the enforcement of debt payment is virtually non-existent. Dozens of banks go under, victims of unpaid loans to shareholders, a traceable crime in the west but a source of much shrugging and finger-pointing here.

It's not all bleak to the outsider as he strolls the touristed center of Prague, one of Europe's most visited and beautiful cities. Privatized buildings in the Centrum are newly painted and blazing with the light of offices, a dozen McDonalds, a TGI Friday's here and a Planet Hollywood there, all paying sky high rents. The Charles Bridge swarms with tourists and Old Town Square dazzles with the National Christmas Tree. But in the neighborhoods, buildings privatized as well are collapsing with neglect, their new owners unable to repair forty years of Communist neglect on the state controlled rentals.

Vaclav Klaus, the English speaking Minister of Finance or Prime Minister for all but the last year of independence and darling of the West, presided over the clandestine looting of the country. In place of the hard work of a western style legal system, upgrading the National Police and attending to the difficult but necessary details of fiscal policy, he literally gave away the country. The largest Czech savings institution has uncollectible 'insider' debt of two hundred million dollars if one can believe the figures given publicly. A bunch of money anywhere, but a huge burden to a country of fifteen million. The government will support this institution where they've let others fail. Support it with the only source they have---taxpayer money. So the Czech citizenry pays the looted money that's long since left the country. A "mistake" says Klaus and shrugs.

So things here are not so rosy as the West would like to think. Western capital has fled and is unlikely to come back after the thrashing it received at the hands of antiquated courts and the "approval by bribe" system usually associated with third world countries. The Czech Republic is not third world, but it's certainly second world and likely to remain so for a number of years. The Czech on the street isn't eager to go back to the old days, but doesn't see much sunshine in the new ones either. There's food in variety, clothing and gas stations that put goods in his hands and that's pretty nice compared to the old days. Other than that, life goes on, but largely unchanged---remarkably unchanged if you've lived here for a few years.

It will change of course, but not because of Vaclav Klaus or any government on the visual horizon. It will change because the entry fee for EU membership will force the change. It will come by the will of the outside rather than the demand of the inside and Czech history is almost nothing except the will of the outside and its influence. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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