This year everything is different. A year ago, I invited you to festivals, anniversary celebrations, but this year almost all such actions are canceled. In addition, international travelling is very difficult, museums and hotels are closed, restaurants only serve take-away meals. Prague, dressed in all the colours of autumn, encourages you to go for walks, and in fact this is almost the only activity that is left. But make no mistake, go for a walk (all of you who can), it’s beautiful out there! While walking the streets of the Old Town, you can hear your own footsteps on the cobblestones, and in the parks you can enjoy the rustle of fallen leaves …
Today it is an important anniversary for Czechs and Slovaks – we recall the mass student protests of 1939 and the later ones of 1989, which turned into the Velvet Revolution. This, in turn, became the actual end of the rule of the communist regime of Czechoslovakia. On this day, we celebrate the Fighting for Freedom and Democracy Day in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Usually on this day there are marches, rallies, public speeches, concerts and festivities. But in 2020, the celebration had to take a different shape. Most of the celebrations moved to the Internet: you can read or watch numer of speeches, memories, comments on the current situation and discussions on topics related to the pursuit of democracy.
Traditionally, flowers and candles are placed under the plaque commemorating the Velvet Revolution in the National Avenue (Národní třída) in Prague. This year it is no different, the inhabitants of Prague went for a walk here and since morning they leave here their symbols of memory and gratitude. It was possible to come to this special place today, as long as one obbeyed the principles of social distance and wore a face mask. Along the citizens there were also representatives of television and other media, and safety was ensured by the police.
And it is exactly the image of the Czech police today that shows how far the Czech Republic has come in state-citizen relations. Apart from the traditional police units of the security services, smiling (!) patrols of special units of the Anti-Conflict Police strolled along National Avenue and its vicinity. Of course, I talked to them 😊 The officers explained to me with a smile that during various anniversary celebrations, the participants sometimes had extremely different views and antagonistic moods. In such conditions, it is very easy to fight and escalate aggression. And it is precisely to prevent such outbreaks that anti-conflict units come in. They are specially trained policemen and policewomen, dressed in civil clothes, wearing a marked vest on top of them (brighter, more cheerful than those typical vests!), whose task is to mediate between quarrelsome persons, mitigate conflicts, and soothing the atmosphere where people get tensed. Such units have been operating in the country for 12 years already.
I thought to myself – wow, this image of the police is one of the better and more interesting monuments to democracy and civic maturity. It creates a space for expressing one’s views in a dignified manner, while respecting the safety and freedom of other people in the area. The police protect citizens when they exercise their right to assemble, and not fight, threthen or disperse them (which happened on the same alley in 1989). Everyone – the participants of the assembly (informally, despite the state of emergency, a kind of assembly was formed), journalists and the police looked happy with the celebration of democracy, and with a fact of being able to stand together on this avenue, on this day. Bravo Czechs, congratulations on the achievements of democracy! 😊
