Martin Šimečka on coming to terms with the communist past

After the end of the socialist dictatorships there was hope that Central Europe would be able to contribute new ideas to the Western world of politics, Slovak journalist Martin Šimečka writes. But he concludes in the weekly Dilema Veche that this hope has not been fulfilled: "It seems to me that the past twenty years of debate all point to one thing: that we are still not free. All of us who lived at least part of our adult lives under communism have been marked by the past to the extent that we may never be able to discuss it in the language of a natural, free world. We may be able to distinguish between the courageous from the cowardly and victims from culprits, but not between those who are free and those who are not. The category of a free human being simply did not exist under the communist regime. Defiance, resistance or attempts to live a parallel life outside the system may have represented signs of longing for freedom but they did not represent freedom itself. ... Yet I am convinced that in order to discuss whether central Europe has any specific values to offer the West, we must first find the courage to see what is evident. And what is evident is that we have not used the past twenty years to find that courage."

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