He adds, nevertheless, that the fight continues with popular revolts' victories in Ukraine and Georgia, and more sedate gains in Central Europe. "As the young generation grows up, society needs to rid itself of the power of the people deformed by communism, people who had succeeded in quickly establishing themselves in the new regimes and in occupying various powerful positions," the daily quotes Havel as saying. The interview is published in the daily's Coffee in the FT column, which presents guests' ideas as part of the interviewer's article about them, not as the questions-and-answers format. Havel does not hide U.S.
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Havel's wife not to play in his new drama ... his disappointment at ex-communist societies following the west in embracing globalisation and rampant consumerism, the interviewer, Stefan Wagstyl, writes. "It is a two-faced trend: on the one hand it brings people thousands of advantages and joys and pleasures; on the other, it is endangering the human race," he quotes Havel as saying. Pointing to a mobile phone he says: "Fifty years ago, I wouldn't have imagined this little device could be used to make calls all over the world, to make video recordings, and to send images. If someone had told me about this then, I would have thought the future world would be a wonderful one when people would have these things and would be able to communicate better. But that didn't happen. The world today is worse, and it is full of more traps and contradictions than it was 50 years ago." In reaction to Wagstyl's objection that at least in post-communist Central Europe the world is incomparably better than 50 years ago, Havel admits that it is good that the Iron Curtain has fallen and that Communism has ended. "But that still doesn't mean that the world is a better place," he points out. "The big differences between the developed world and the developing world are deeper than ever. The unifying forces of globalisation incite various forms of chauvinism or nationalism. Terrorists almost have the capacity to fire nuclear missiles. The world is full of various dangers, including ecological ones in the form of climate change, and so on," Havel says. "I'd say that it is a good thing that the world is no longer divided in two, but new superpowers are emerging, and who knows what this will bring? China today is more powerful than Russia. Russia is witnessing the rise of a strange, special sort of dictatorship with strong imperialist demands, albeit dressed more elegantly than before," Havel continues. Wagstyl also points to Havel's view of his fellow citizens as "little Czechs" of whom "bitter provincialism" is typical. "Although Havel does not say so," writes Wagstyl, "a prime exponent of 'little Czech' politics is the Eurosceptic Vaclav Klaus, his rival and successor as Czech president. Havel describes in one of his books how the Thatcherite Klaus made an uneasy political companion for Havel and other mainstream liberals who led 1989's "Velvet Revolution". When Havel became president and Klaus prime minister, Klaus's well-known arrogance caused repeated conflicts even over the most trivial incidents, writes Wagstyl. Havel, nevertheless, tells him that he is "very much opposed to reducing the last 20 years of our history to personal tiffs between myself and Vaclav Klaus. And I don't like it when people get the impression that I did nothing but fight with him. I don't like that, and it doesn't reflect reality." Unlike Klaus, Havel is "a passionate pro-European, keen that the European Union's constitutional treaty should be kept alive despite its rejection in the recent Irish referendum," Wagstyl continues. He writes that Havel is convinced the EU will muddle through, and, ignoring President Klaus's misgivings, says the Czech Republic should press on with ratification. Only then, Havel believes, should the EU consider a simpler treaty: "It would be best now to quietly select some three or four people who could create a beautiful, simple constitution that children could learn about at school," he told Financial Times. Havel, 71, a former leading dissident, was the first post-communist Czechoslovak president in 1989-1992 and the first president of the independent Czech Republic in 1993-2003.
(Ceske Noviny)
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