The Prague Post Online: Opinion: Off base

September 8th, 2008

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Off base

An inside account from the ranks of the Jan. 31 protest against a proposed U.S. radar base
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February 7th, 2007 issue

By Vincent Farnsworth

Don’t tell people they can’t go out and protest. It will bring them out in droves.

That’s the lesson Prague City Hall learned tonight, as Czechs gathered in one of the largest demonstrations in recent memory to protest the government’s consideration of plans for a U.S. anti-missile radar base on Czech soil. By my estimate, on this cold night of uncertain weather more than 2,000 gathered on Wenceslas Square at one point — though press estimates put it at 500 and it’s difficult to tell how many were onlookers. In any case, a significant number in a country that just doesn’t do this kind of thing at the drop of a hat. In all, quite a major mass of people to parade through the historic center of Prague.

City Hall’s move against the demo wasn’t just clumsy (the city office claimed possible traffic problems, despite the fact that the march route was the traditional one), it was absurd on its face. There is no law mandating approval before staging a political demonstration; organizers of public events formally announce their plans, but that’s it. Despite this, the local media dutifully reported from City Hall that the demonstration was “banned” (zakázan), which is legally impossible. Although officials can require route changes, since 1990 the city has had no powers to ban peaceful assemblies, a change in rules from the old regime that was important to those who participated in the 1989 revolution. Maybe that’s why there was no sign tonight of any enforcement of the “ban” — in fact, the police were there to control traffic for the march, just as they usually do.

It’s just starting time, 6 p.m., when my wife and I show up, and the crowd keeps growing during the next hour as various speakers stand on the steps of the statue of St. Wenceslas at the top of the square named after him, speaking through a cheap wireless microphone and a small amp being held on the shoulders of two volunteers. (It doesn’t get more DIY than that.)

I notice there aren’t any communist flags, large groups of obvious anarchists or other distractions that have marred previous demonstrations about other issues. As the crowd listens and yells replies back to the speakers, organizers from the “No to Bases” coalition collect signatures on a petition calling for a referendum.

And a referendum is all this demonstration is about. Amazing to think that all protesters are demonstrating for is the simple right to vote on the issue, a request the government is avoiding at all costs, due to a likely rejection.

This anti-radar base sentiment has multiple roots.

Czechs have had a history of foreign military presence on their soil, and the demonstrators are making it clear that they don’t want it again, whether Russian, German or American. The Czech Republic is already fully complying with its NATO obligations by hosting a NATO radar base, so why now this separate U.S. military one? Also, the radar base is part of a weapons system connected to the proposed interceptor missile base in Poland, and opponents say that nonproliferation treaties and economic cooperation are the keys to security, not more weapon systems.

Then there is the communist position. One of the conundrums of local progressive politics is that the communists are still a major opposition party and often support a cause just because it suggests anti-Americanism or solidarity with Russia. And this one does both. The organizers of the “No to Bases” coalition, comprising dozens of groups, successfully kept the communists from hijacking the rally.

Czech skepticism is bolstered by the fact that arguments for the base are confusing and weak. The infamous Star Wars program, from which this radar base proposal originates, has been one long, costly boondoggle. This particular system is so far from operational that it only managed to pass its first major test late last year. The test was so carefully manipulated to ensure success that Philip Coyle, former director of the Pentagon’s independent weapons testing office, called it “the simplest flight intercept test ever” because of the lack of decoys, which the anti-missile system would have to face. And it’s not hard to imagine better ways to spend the almost $100 million (2.2 billion Kč) set aside for the base and missiles. In terms of its necessity, the best rationale that supporters can come up with is the need to someday respond to possible threats from potential developments of long-range missile capabilities by “rogue states.”

These maybe-missiles from who knows where are the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) of the radar-base argument. Saddam’s supposed WMDs may have been just a dubious ruse for American expansionism that were never found, but these WMDs are even more well-hidden — in the future.

Lessons from the past were an obvious motivation for tonight’s demonstration. Many signs read “1989: Go home Ivan. 2007: Go home John.” And that isn’t the only comparison made between the United States and the U.S.S.R.

Significantly, the crowd lets loose with some potent symbols that I believe have not been used since the Velvet Revolution. As they did in the 1989 demonstrations, Czechs hold their keys aloft and jingle them like bells in the charming yet moving way they did when telling their communist rulers to pack up and leave.

Also like in those days, the crowd chants “resign” as it passes by government buildings. As an American, it is a strange feeling to have the country of my birth compared to the Soviet Union, even if the comparisons at this point are more valuable as a forewarning than anything else.

One of the speakers, Petr Uhl, a former Charter 77 dissident who has kept a consistent focus on human rights and democracy, makes it clear how the Czech political system is failing the citizens.

The crowd gets loud when he points out that not a single political party addressed this issue in the last election. When another speaker says the Green Party, a supporter of the radar base, should change its name, the crowd laughs in agreement.

Uhl also notes the depressing reality of the state we are in now, compared to those heady Velvet Revolution days, a subject unfortunately represented by the decline of Václav Havel’s moral authority. Back then, Havel was as against a NATO presence here as he was against the Warsaw Pact and he also wanted no foreign military bases of any kind. The talk then was of a new world and a new way. Now, on the subject of the radar base, he isn’t even in favor of letting the people vote in a referendum because they supposedly have a political system that represents them. “If only” seems to be the message of the crowd.

Then the march starts, and the long mass of signs and people winds its way over to Town Hall near Old Town Square, whistling and shouting in derision, and then makes its way across Charles Bridge to the U.S. Embassy. For the first time, the shouts sound angry, chants like “Ami go home,” using the Czech slang for Americans.

Since we are tired and cold (if exhilarated), we decide to take them up on it and head for our apartment. So we don’t see what happens next, but I don’t hear any sirens and the local Internet news is reporting the demonstration just about as we experienced it.

On the way home, it occurs to me that the 21st century is becoming an era of dysfunctional democracy, and not just in the Czech Republic. In the United States, once the flagship for the democratic process, people have used every means at their disposal to say no to the war in Iraq. From mass demonstrations to voting for a change in congressional leadership to strong anti-war sentiments and all-time low presidential approval ratings in opinion polls, U.S. citizens have made it clear they want out.

In an out-of-left-field response, President Bush has announced the military will be doing just the opposite to escalate the war further, a move opposed by just about every commentator not residing on the fringe.

Elsewhere, on the subject of Russia, no one even seems to expect steps toward democracy, which was the hope after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The similar disconnect here is why these demonstrators came out and what they are fighting against.

Another protest follows a week later in the village where the base is likely to be built. The keys are jingled once again, in defiance of a usurping foreign superpower and an unresponsive, compromised government.

It shows Czechs haven’t given up on their sputtering democracy, on the spirit of ’89 — and if the political system starts to reflect the will of the people like it’s supposed to, a U.S. radar base will never come to the hill next to the village of Jince.
— The author is a writer, musician and longtime resident of Prague.

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