Introduction:

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall in East Germany collapsed, starting the process of unifying the two Germanys.

Also in November 1989, the people of Czechoslovakia also took to the streets to protest peacefully, without violence, without bloodshed, demanding an end to the communist dictatorship of the Socialist Republic of Tiep Khac- Czechoslovak.

Just 3 weeks after those peaceful popular protests, on November 29, 1989, the Czechoslovak Parliament met, and passed important amendments to the Czechoslovak Constitution:

1- Abolish article 4 of the Czechoslovak Constitution on the leadership role of the Czechoslovak communist party.

2- Delete article 16 on teaching Marxism-Leninism in schools.

3- Delete article 6 regarding the leadership of the Czechoslovak communist party over the National Front, like the Fatherland Front of Vietnam.

So after just 3 weeks of peaceful protests, 41 years of the socialist Czechoslovak police state of poverty and injustice ended its existence.

It’s amazing.

One month later, on December 29, 1989, playwright Vaclav Havel was elected President of the Free Czechoslovak Republic by the Czechoslovak Parliament.

Three days after being elected President of free Czechoslovakia, on New Year’s Day, January 1, 1990, President Vaclav Havel read a New Year’s speech “Ending the era of lies and fear”.

In 1993, Czechoslovakia was divided into two countries, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.

In 1993, President Vaclav Havel ended his first term as President, but in 1998, he was re-elected as President of the Czech Republic for a second term, lasting 5 years, until 2003.

The Czech Republic, after abolishing socialism, has achieved many miraculous developments. GDP per capita when there was socialism was just over 1,000 USD/person per year.

In 2005 it was 6,000 USD, and in 2022 it was more than 21,000 USD/person.

The Czech country’s goal is that by 2030, GDP per capita will reach about $35,000/year.

Below is the full text of the speech “Ending the era of lies and fear” by President of the Czech Republic VacLav Havel – I translated it myself from English to Vietnamese.

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“My dear compatriots.

For these 40 years, you have heard from my predecessors, on this same New Year’s Day, the same theme, but with a different tone, that our country has blossomed like this, how many millions of tons of iron and steel have been produced, how happy our people are, how we have placed our trust in the Government, and that the bright future is expanding before the people.

I suppose that if I didn’t also have people opposing my seat, I would lie the same way.

No, our country has not flourished.

The nation’s spiritual and creative potential has not been used properly.

Entire industries have produced products that are of no use to anyone, while we are lacking all necessary items.

The state that calls itself a workers’ state humiliates and exploits workers.

That economy wastes the little energy we have. The country that once prided itself on its high level of education now spends very little on education, and so now our education system is only ranked 72nd in the world.

We have polluted the land, rivers, and forests that we inherited from our ancestors, and now, we have the most polluted environment in European countries,,,.

But all that is still not the main problem.

The worst thing is that we already live in a corrupt moral environment. We have fallen into moral sickness, because we have become accustomed to saying things that are different from what we think.

We have learned not to believe in anything, learned to ignore others, learned to only care about ourselves.

Concepts like love, friendship, sympathy, humility, forgiveness have lost both depth and breadth, and many of us simply exhibit psychological oddities, they are very similar to the old cliché greetings, and are a bit ridiculous in the age of computers and space rockets.

Only a few of us dare to shout loudly that power should not be absolute power, that special agricultural farms are producing clean, high-quality agricultural products for our own supply, and for leaders, we should provide those products to schools, children, and hospitals.

The previous communist regime – armed with an arrogant and brutal ideology – reduced the value of humans to mere productive forces, and devalued nature to mere labor production tools.

That regime has reduced the value of talented and independent people to mere things screws of a huge, noisy, noisy machine, the meaning of which is not clear to anyone.

When I talk about a corrupt moral atmosphere, I’m not just talking about high-ranking people who eat clean vegetables, sit on airplanes, and never look out the plane window.

I’m talking about all of us.

We have all become accustomed to the totalitarian system, and have accepted it as irreversible, and we have helped it continue to exist.

In other words, all of us—however different in nature we may be—are responsible for making that dictatorial machine work. None of us are just victims: we are also co-authors of that system.

Everyone in the world was truly surprised why the Czechoslovak citizens, who were normally silent, humiliated, full of doubts and cynics, now, in just a few weeks, had may have unlimited powers, but in peaceful and gentle ways, have shaken off that tyrannical yoke from his shoulders.

Let us ask ourselves: where did these young men, who had never known other democratic systems, had a desire for truth, a love of freedom of thought, a desire for freedom of thought? political ideas, and have courage and maturity?

How was it possible that the parents of those young men—a generation that was once considered lost—joined those young men?

How could that happen, when so many people have taken to the streets in recent weeks, they immediately knew what to do, and none of them needed any instructions or advice? any?

Now, there is electoral freedom, and the election campaign is before us.

To conclude, I would like to say that I want to be a President who talks less and does more.

I will be a President unlike my predecessors who only knew how to sit on airplanes and not look out the plane window, but I will, first and foremost, always be a representative in the hearts of the people, and listen to the voice of the people.

You may ask me what kind of republic I dream of?

Let me answer: I dream of an independent, free, and democratic republic, a republic that will flourish economically, and socially, in short, will is a humane republic that will serve the people, and maintain the belief that everyone will also serve the republic.

My predecessors often opened their speeches by quoting the Czech educator Comenius.

Please allow me to open my first speech with my own words:

My people, your Government has returned to you.”///

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Note:

The above speech by President Vaclav Havel mentioned the educator-sage Comenius.

So who was the educator-sage Comenius?

John Amos Comenius was a Moravian philosopher, a land in several European countries today, such as Czechoslovakia,  Poland,,,, born on March 28, 1592, died on November 15, 1670, ago more than 300 years ago in Europe.

He was an educator and theologian considered the father of modern education. He was the last bishop of the Brethren, before becoming a religious refugee and was one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept that was eventually enunciated in his book Didactica Magna.

Comenius introduced a number of educational concepts and innovations including picture textbooks written in native languages instead of Latin, teaching based on gradual progression from simple to more comprehensive concepts, lifelong learning with an emphasis on logical thinking instead of dull memorization, equal opportunities for impoverished children, education for women, and universal and practical instruction.

He also believed greatly in the connection between nature, religion and knowledge, in which he believed that knowledge was born from nature and nature came from God.

In addition to his native Moravia, he lived and worked in other parts of the Holy Roman Empire and other countries: Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, England, the Netherlands and Hungary.

The educator-sage Comenius in the Czech Republic, like the cultural scholar Nguyen Trai in Vietnam, is often quoted by everyone.

Mr. Nguyen Trai lived about 200 years before Mr. Comenius, Mr. Nguyen Trai was born in 1380, died in 1442, Mr. Nguyen Trai’s entire family of more than 300 people, from the small baby cuddled on the arm, to Mr. Nguyen Trai himself with white hair and beard, were all beheaded in a charge of “kill all 3 generations of culprit” in 1442, because he was falsely accused of “plotting to kill the king”.