January 17, 2021
41 minutes of fear: A video timeline from inside the Capitol siege. This video is powerful. Unthinkable. Yet a siege of the U.S. Capitol took place on January 6th. I just can’t get my head around it. How can anyone in their right mind, let alone a sitting president, incite a mob to take such violent action? It is shameful. It is darkness. It is, to me, obscene. It shows a lack of understanding of the need for morality and civility in our society. This is not to be celebrated anywhere, by anyone. If you see it as something good, then question yourself deeply. Question your morality. Question your ability to live in a civil society.
The mob insurrection that overtook the U.S. Capitol threatening and taking lives is worse than the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on our country because it was born of hatred that springs from within. It is not justice. It is hatred and malicious madness. It is a national cancer, of sorts, spreading throughout the organism called “America” that is so dear to all of us who call ourselves Americans. So dear, in fact, that people are willing to form a mob and bust into one of our most cherished national spaces to destroy property and threaten the lives of our democratically-elected political leaders. There’s something to be learned here. It is this: no matter how you feel about the political climate of the country, violence is never the right answer to create change.
The actions taken by the mob of Donald Trump’s followers is unbearably heartbreaking. All our elected officials must now work to heal a broken, punctured, weeping nation. Restoring justice with compassion and calmness is the only way to win back hearts and minds. It’s a shame our politicians will now have to spend their time on re-defining and re-imagining America and its values, but, perhaps, the silver lining is that America is now awake to the need to redefine itself and the values it holds dear. If Trump’s mob members feel this outcome is success, then so be it. I’d have preferred a less violent approach.
No people, no democratically elected officials, no nation should ever have to be subjected to fear or suffer the extreme loss of national pride, of human spirit, of human life. Who or what gives anyone the right to further batter an already struggling nation in the grip of a global pandemic? Only the worst bully in need of an ego boost strikes at his own people in darkness — a sucker punch with a wry smile. Who in their right mind could foment such an event, or encourage mob violence at the national level — or at any level? Was this just another bad publicity ploy, a power trip, maybe both? A madman’s final jab at the throat of a nation for a taste of glory in his waning days in political power? Whatever it may have been, it went terribly awry, terribly off the rails. A beautiful train wrecked. I watched this video and, for America, I wept. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/494c074a-8427-4145-9297-4558a1166e5e
I caught sight of a photo (pictured at top) of the bust of a prominent politician in our Capitol’s National Statuary Hall wearing a red MAGA baseball cap. I laughed at first, then wondered what the man whose bust it was might have thought. The man is Václav Havel, now deceased, and the first president of then-Czechoslovakia just emerging from Communist rule, soon to become the democratic Czech Republic. Havel gave up his freedoms to fight for human rights, to expose communism, and to champion truth through words and actions that never condoned violence or hatred. He was jailed for his beliefs. He was ridiculed by the government and treated as an outcast. I suspect he would have had a hearty laugh at the irony of his bust wearing a MAGA hat on a day when violence reigned in the U.S. Capitol. But he would have condemned the violence, and the mob, and the man who incited the mob’s hatred of others throughout his four years as president of the United States.
There’s a great deal we can learn from Václav Havel. His bust is in our National Statuary Hall as one of just four non-Americans to inhabit such a vaunted space. He was admired by Republicans and Democrats alike for his capacity to use the truth to overcome Communism and his desire to pursue freedom and human rights. He was a thoughtful and articulate advocate of personal liberty and government reform. He understood the urgent need for resistance against the ruling Communist elite, yet he never used hatred, violence, or the threat of violence to free his country. I can extol Havel’s virtues as a leader, in stark contrast to Donald Trump whose rhetoric is filled with anger to incite people to violence and who preys on their inner fears by suggesting there is no truth but his own. Havel used the truth as a tool for humanizing otherwise inhumane governance. He did not sow doubt. He did not harvest fear. He chose to pursue morality and civility in the face of dire times and the bleakest of prospects for his country’s future. People were out of work. Food lines were long and money was scarce in Havel’s time. It would have been easy to incite people to violence and insurrection, but he chose a different path as a leader, a human rights activist, and a politician of international acclaim. Havel believed in the good people held within them, and he nurtured it. I’ll let his words speak for him below…
“... it is my responsibility to emphasize, again and again, the moral origin of all genuine politics, to stress the significance of moral values and standards in all spheres of social life, including economics, and to explain that if we don’t try, within ourselves, to discover or rediscover or cultivate what I call “higher responsibility,” things will turn out very badly indeed for our country.” from Politics, Morality & Civility by Václav Havel, 1992, as translated by Paul Wilson, 1993.
The “higher responsibility” to which Havel refers is to return a society that was morally unhinged back to one that chooses freedom over greed or anarchy. Havel denounced the human vices he saw springing up after Communism’s fall. He could easily have benefitted personally, but he took another path. He spoke out against “hatred among nationalities, suspicion, racism, even signs of Fascism; politicking, an unrestrained, unheeded struggle for purely particular interests, unadulterated ambition, fanaticism of every conceivable kind, new and unprecedented varieties of robbery, the rise of different mafias; and a prevailing lack of tolerance, understanding, taste, moderation, and reason.” He also knew that the political atmosphere lacked civility, offering a disturbing reflection of a much larger crisis of society that lacked civility as a whole.
Further, Havel recognized, “a nation gets the politicians it deserves.” But he also knew there was “a huge slumbering of goodwill” within his society. He believed politicians had the duty to awaken that goodwill and harness it by directing it, by giving it room to grow, or at least, to hope. These were some of Havel’s tenets and beliefs that made him the first democratically-elected president of the Czech Republic. And these are also beliefs held dear by American society over the years. Havel loved America, right down to our rock music. And he loved a good party.
What would he say to us today? Probably something like, “leave the hat on my bust as a reminder of just how bad things can get when the wrong leader, the leader who pursues personal gain and promotes violent behavior, sways the national spirit toward darkness. And get down to work America. To the hard work that will keep you free. Towards morality and civility, and human rights for all people regardless of their background, gender, social status, race, nationality, or political affiliation.” He would likely add, “C’mon America, get on with the chase. Chase human dignity with resolve and determination. Pursue morality even in the face of madness. And overcome madness with truth and peace, modesty and persistent patience.” Was Havel a dissident? Absolutely. But he resisted with words of morality, not with pitchforks, anger, violence, or hatred of others.
Havel also knew that it is disreputable people who make politics a disreputable business. He chose to rise above his own personal interests and put the interests of his countrymen and his nation ahead of his own. He did this without fomenting fear and misunderstanding. He did not try to fool people, or use subtle tactics to make them believe the worst in others. He preached the possibility of morality, never straying from his own responsible, compassionate, and passionate moral compass.
Today, America needs its own Havel. Take a look around. Who will that be?
Dave Celone writes from Sharon, VT. He believes steadfastly in the virtues of civility, morality, democracy, freedom, and justice for all. He’s also translated some of Václav Havel’s early poetry, one of which can be found in his essay for Numero Cinq magazine at: http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2013/09/15/vaclav-havels-little-owl-the-poetics-of-dissidence-david-celone/ Dave attended the Havel bust dedication ceremony at the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall on November 19, 2014.