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stellauk -> On the passing of Vaclav Havel (12/22/2011 11:30:06 PM)
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Vaclav Havel
5 October 1936 - 18 December 2011
Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident, politician and former president.
He was the tenth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and the first president of the Czech Republic (1993-2003).
He wrote over 20 plays and numerous works of non-fiction, and has won the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the freedom medal of the Four Freedoms Award and the Ambassador of Conscience Award.
In the 2005 global poll by Prospect magazine he was voted 4th among the world's 100 top intellectuals.
He rose to fame after the Prague Spring and became internationally known in 1977 through being involved with the human rights manifesto Charter 77 and being the leader of the Czechoslovakian opposition. It was the Velvet Revolution in 1989 which brought him the presidency and he oversaw thirteen years of radical changes in his country.
Among these were the split with Slovakia (which Havel opposed), accession into NATO and the European Union.
Selected quotations
'When a truth is not given complete freedom, freedom is not complete.'
'The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.'
'Work for something because it is good, not because it has a chance to succeed.'
'Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous, and anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.'
'Hope is definitely not the same as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.'
His funeral takes place today 23 December
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16304858
See the Amnesty International video Vaclav Havel an amazing human rights leader
Odpočívej v pokoji - rest in peace
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