8 de febrero de 2012
6 de febrero de 2012
Estancia Santa Florentina - Flores
Estancia Santa Florentina - Flores
1780 -El gobierno español dona a Miguel Ignacio de la Cuadra una superficie grande al Norte de lo que ahora es Trinidad. Al morir este se la deja a su esposa Ines Duran . Cuando muere Ines Duran pasan a propiedad de su hermano Ventura Duran
1855 –Fallece Ventura Duran y los campos pasan a su esposa Matilde Duran y esta se los deja a su hija Gregoria Gomez y Duran , casada con Bottini
1870 –Gregoria Gomez y Duran vende a Giacondo Bonamino, párroco de Trinidad
1872 –Agustin Medero Gutierrez (1830 -’1905) casado con Florentina Cabrera compra a Bonamino
1905 - Inocencio Medero Cabrera
Constancio Medero Cabrera (1881 - ) casado con Sofia Luisa Tourreilles Goyeneix
Maria Esther Medero Tourreilles (1912-1989) casada con Luis Maria Esteban Bosch del Marco
1989 - Maria Esther Bosch Medero (1939 - )
El aljibe que esta en el patio de la estancia tiene la fecha de 1887 pero Constancio Medero el menor de los hermanos, nacio en la estancia en 1881 lo que permite suponer que la fecha del aljibe sea la de la finalización de la casa. En las construcciones de la casas se notan dos etapas bien definidas: un ala orientada Norte Sur es de paredes gruesas, de piedra con techo de chapa de zinc y tejuelas por dentro y una altura de 4 metros. La otra ala formando angulo recto y orientada Este Oeste, es de paredes mas delgadas de ladrillo, con techo de azotea con bovedillas y de una altura cercana a los 6 metros. Por ser este un tipo de construcción mas cara se puede inferir que fue una segunda etapa, probablemente finalizada con una fecha cercana a la del aljibe. De mas esta pensar que el aljibe se hizo junto con la primera etapa como única fuente de agua. En el patio de la estancia hay 4 canteros de flores hechos con las llantas de hierro de las carretas que uso Agustin Medero cuando hizo la estancia.
1780 -El gobierno español dona a Miguel Ignacio de la Cuadra una superficie grande al Norte de lo que ahora es Trinidad. Al morir este se la deja a su esposa Ines Duran . Cuando muere Ines Duran pasan a propiedad de su hermano Ventura Duran
1855 –Fallece Ventura Duran y los campos pasan a su esposa Matilde Duran y esta se los deja a su hija Gregoria Gomez y Duran , casada con Bottini
1870 –Gregoria Gomez y Duran vende a Giacondo Bonamino, párroco de Trinidad
1872 –Agustin Medero Gutierrez (1830 -’1905) casado con Florentina Cabrera compra a Bonamino
1905 - Inocencio Medero Cabrera
Constancio Medero Cabrera (1881 - ) casado con Sofia Luisa Tourreilles Goyeneix
Maria Esther Medero Tourreilles (1912-1989) casada con Luis Maria Esteban Bosch del Marco
1989 - Maria Esther Bosch Medero (1939 - )
El aljibe que esta en el patio de la estancia tiene la fecha de 1887 pero Constancio Medero el menor de los hermanos, nacio en la estancia en 1881 lo que permite suponer que la fecha del aljibe sea la de la finalización de la casa. En las construcciones de la casas se notan dos etapas bien definidas: un ala orientada Norte Sur es de paredes gruesas, de piedra con techo de chapa de zinc y tejuelas por dentro y una altura de 4 metros. La otra ala formando angulo recto y orientada Este Oeste, es de paredes mas delgadas de ladrillo, con techo de azotea con bovedillas y de una altura cercana a los 6 metros. Por ser este un tipo de construcción mas cara se puede inferir que fue una segunda etapa, probablemente finalizada con una fecha cercana a la del aljibe. De mas esta pensar que el aljibe se hizo junto con la primera etapa como única fuente de agua. En el patio de la estancia hay 4 canteros de flores hechos con las llantas de hierro de las carretas que uso Agustin Medero cuando hizo la estancia.
29 de enero de 2012
18 de enero de 2012
arancel cero a autopartes y autos usados brasileros
La nueva ley de patentes penaliza a los autos y camionetas nuevos
Con este dato de la realidad eliminar los aranceles a las autopartes y autos y camionetas usadas brasileros tendria un fuerte impacto positivo en la economia Uruguaya
Con este dato de la realidad eliminar los aranceles a las autopartes y autos y camionetas usadas brasileros tendria un fuerte impacto positivo en la economia Uruguaya
- baja el costo de mantenimiento de los autos usados
- baja el costo pais de todas las empresas chicas y los servicios
- produce un boom economico y de empleo en todos los talleres chicos del pais
- da una fuerte senal al gobierno brasilero de apertura uruguaya y por lo tanto la posibilidad de recipocidad en por ejemplo autos chinos armados en uruguay
13 de enero de 2012
integridad
íntegro, gra.
integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulnessor accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,[1] in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.
la lucha por dignidad - FRANCIS FUKUYAMA
The Drive for Dignity
It's hard power that often makes the headlines. But never underestimate the strength of the simple desire for respect.
BY FRANCIS FUKUYAMA | JANUARY 12, 2012
The legend now has it that the Arab Spring was kicked off in early 2011 when a Tunisian vegetable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, had his fruit cart confiscated by the police. Slapped and insulted by a policewoman, he went to complain but was repeatedly ignored. His despairing response -- to set himself on fire -- struck anenormous chord across the Arab world.
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What was it about this act that provoked such a response? The basic issue was one of dignity, or the lack thereof, the feeling of worth or self-esteem that all of us seek. But dignity is not felt unless it is recognized by other people; it is an inherently social and, indeed, political phenomenon. The Tunisian police were treating Bouazizi as a nonperson, someone not worthy of the basic courtesy of a reply or explanation when the government took away his modest means of livelihood. It was what Ralph Ellison described as the situation of a black man in early 20th-century America, an Invisible Man not seen as a full human being by white people.
Authoritarian regimes have many failings. Like those in the Arab world now under siege, they can be corrupt, manipulative, and economically stagnant. All of these are causes for popular complaint. But their greatest weakness is moral: They do not recognize the basic dignity of their citizens and therefore can and do treat ordinary people with at best indifference and at worst with contempt. The Chinese government has been successful in giving its people jobs and security, but officials there no less than in the Arab world fail to respect people's basic dignity. Every passing week sees land confiscated from villages by a corrupt developer in cahoots with a local party official, and no one can do anything but lash out through violent protest.
In the Anglo-Saxon world, there is a tendency to see politics as a contest of economic interests and to define rights in utilitarian terms. But dignity is the basis for politics everywhere: Equal pay for equal work, one of the great banners of feminism, is less about incomes and more about income as a marker for the respect that society pays for one's labor. There are no interests that gays could not protect through civil unions, but same-sex marriage has become an issue in American politics because it signifies recognition of the equal dignity of gay and heterosexual unions.
One can understand the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, as well as those in the basic laws of other liberal democracies, as mechanisms for formally recognizing the rights, and therefore the dignity, of the citizens to whom they are granted. Whatever one might ultimately think of the sexual-assault charges brought against Dominique Strauss-Kahn by Nafissatou Diallo, the New York City police were not free to ignore them just because he was a high-status IMF director and French presidential candidate, and she a humble hotel maid from Guinea. Many of the big political fights in American history have centered on dignity issues, i.e., who lives outside that charmed circle of human beings deserving to have their rights recognized, whether propertyless males, women, or racial minorities.
German philosopher Georg W.F. Hegel argued that the whole of human history can be seen as a prolonged "struggle for recognition" and that the modern liberal democratic order represents the triumph of the principle of equal recognition over the relationship of lordship and bondage. The problem of contemporary politics is that people often do not seek recognition simply for their dignity as abstract and equal human beings; they also seek recognition for the groups of which they are members, as Ukrainians or Kurds or gays or Native Americans. Identity politics is the politics of recognition, whether rooted in religion, gender, race, or ethnicity.
So too with the Arab Spring. It was not just abstract human dignity that authoritarian Arab regimes insulted; they also denigrated the rights of Muslims to have their religious identity recognized by the political system. Many Egyptian Islamists bear great resentments against liberal elites in their own societies who look down on them as uneducated and superstitious. The desire for recognition does not simply work to overthrow tyranny in the name of universal liberal rights; it can power assertions of a dominant identity, something I once labeledmegalothymia.
The desire for recognition is thus a two-edged sword. It underlies the anger that powers social mobilization and revolt against abusive government, but it often becomes attached to ascriptive identities that undermine the universality of rights. Now that three dictatorships have fallen in the Arab world, with a fourth and fifth possibly on their way, this is the struggle that will play itself out.
27 de diciembre de 2011
Midlife Crisis Economics
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Midlife Crisis Economics
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: December 26, 2011
The members of the Obama administration have many fine talents, but making adept historical analogies may not be among them.
Josh Haner/The New York Times
David Brooks
David Brooks’s Blog
The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.
Readers’ Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
When the administration came to office in the depths of the financial crisis, many of its leading figures concluded that the moment was analogous to the Great Depression. They read books about the New Deal and sought to learn from F.D.R.
But, in the 1930s, people genuinely looked to government to ease their fears and restore their confidence. Today, Americans are more likely to fear government than be reassured by it.
According to a Gallup survey, 64 percent of Americans polled said they believed that big government is the biggest threat to the country. Only 26 percent believed that big business is the biggest threat. As a result, the public has reacted to Obama’s activism with fear and anxiety. The Democrats lost 63 House seats in the 2010 elections.
Members of the administration have now dropped the New Deal parallels. But they have started making analogies between this era and the progressive era around the turn of the 20th century.
Again, there are superficial similarities. Then, as now, we are seeing great concentrations of wealth, especially at the top. Then, as now, the professional class of lawyers, teachers and journalists seems to feel as if it has the upper hand in its status war against the business class of executives and financiers.
But these superficial similarities are outweighed by vast differences.
First, the underlying economic situations are very different. A century ago, the American economy was a vibrant jobs machine. Industrialization was volatile and cruel, but it produced millions of new jobs, sucking labor in from the countryside and from overseas.
Today’s economy is not a jobs machine and lacks that bursting vibrancy. The rate of new business start-ups was declining even before the 2008 financial crisis. Companies are finding that they can get by with fewer workers. As President Obama has observed, factories that used to employ 1,000 workers can now be even more productive with less than 100.
Moreover, the information economy widens inequality for deep and varied reasons that were unknown a century ago. Inequality is growing in nearly every developed country. According to a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, over the past 30 years, inequality in Sweden, Germany, Israel, Finland and New Zealand has grown as fast or faster than inequality in the United States, even though these countries have very different welfare systems.
In the progressive era, the economy was in its adolescence and the task was to control it. Today the economy is middle-aged; the task is to rejuvenate it.
Second, the governmental challenge is very different today than it was in the progressive era. Back then, government was small and there were few worker safety regulations. The problem was a lack of institutions. Today, government is large, and there is a thicket of regulations, torts and legal encumbrances. The problem is not a lack of institutions; it’s a lack of institutional effectiveness.
The United States spends far more on education than any other nation, with paltry results. It spends far more on health care, again, with paltry results. It spends so much on poverty programs that if we just took that money and handed poor people checks, we would virtually eliminate poverty overnight. In the progressive era, the task was to build programs; today the task is to reform existing ones.
Third, the moral culture of the nation is very different. The progressive era still had a Victorian culture, with its rectitude and restrictions. Back then, there was a moral horror at the thought of debt. No matter how bad the economic problems became, progressive-era politicians did not impose huge debt burdens on their children. That ethos is clearly gone.
In the progressive era, there was an understanding that men who impregnated women should marry them. It didn’t always work in practice, but that was the strong social norm. Today, that norm has dissolved. Forty percent of American children are born out of wedlock. This sentences the U.S. to another generation of widening inequality and slower human capital development.
One hundred years ago, we had libertarian economics but conservative values. Today we have oligarchic economics and libertarian moral values — a bad combination.
In sum, in the progressive era, the country was young and vibrant. The job was to impose economic order. Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis.
The progressive era is not a model; it is a foil. It provides a contrast and shows us what we really need to do.
23 de diciembre de 2011
Vaclav Havel - un gigante moral entre pigmeos
Remembering Vaclav Havel
A Moral Giant among Pygmies
By Erich Follath
AFP
A look at his friends is enough to show that Vaclav Havel was not your typical politician. A man who discusses God and the world with playwright Tom Stoppard and the Dalai Lama and can talk shop with cult musicians like Frank Zappa and rock idol Mick Jagger is anything but a run-of-the-mill career politician straight out of the political machine, someone who thinks merely in terms of power constellations and coalitions.
Havel's image of res publica was probably closest to Plato's concept of the philosopher-king. After all, as a writer, moralist and his country's president, Havel was precisely that. However, the Greek idea of the perfect state assumed that all citizens had the same understanding of what is good -- and it left no place for dissidents.
And herein lies the root of the minor dilemma this great man found himself in: Havel was never easily pigeonholed. Perhaps this explains why he had such a pleasant and yet thoroughly difficult character. Havel was a creature of light who dazzled many, especially those who didn't even cast a shadow themselves.
I recall visiting Vaclav Havel at his humble vacation home in the village of Vlčice, in eastern Bohemia, in July 1989. His mustache was an icy gray, his ruggedly masculine Belmondo-esque face was folded by wrinkles, and his hand trembled, forever holding a cigarette. I wondered whether he had just spent another night in a cell for one of those 12-hour interrogations that the authorities picked him up for with alarming regularity.
No, he replied. He had been up until the early hours talking with his friends from Solidarnosc, the Polish trade union. "The Poles are further along than we are," he grumbled, hungover but wide awake. An envelope lying on the kitchen table amid vodka bottles was labeled "To be given to Z. if I'm locked up again." The envelope contained a rough draft of the speech Havel planned to give in Frankfurt, where he was to be presented with the Peace Prize of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. As he rightly suspected, the regime of then-Czechoslovakian President Gustav Husak would refuse to let him out of the country to attend the award ceremony.
Five months later, on Dec. 29, 1989, the "Velvet Revolution" had swept the communists from power in Czechoslovakia, and Havel, the leader of the dissident Civic Forum, found himself on a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square in Prague, having been named head of state by the newly elected parliament. And the entire nation was celebrating. The poet-president drew red hearts on hundreds of outstretched hands. Later, he pedaled impetuously through the corridors of Prague Castle, the venerable seat of government, on a child's scooter.
The Path to Dissident Writer
In contrast to many other Eastern European dissidents, the man who helped bury communism in Czechoslovakia never flirted with the powerbrokers of the former regime, partly because of his upper middle-class background. Havel's bourgeois upbringing was both a burden and a privilege. It shaped his development significantly, honing his senses and judgment.
Vaclav Havel was born in 1936, the son of a wealthy architect and landowner. His uncle was one of the most important producers of Czech movies. In 1948, when the communists confiscated the family's property, those carefree days were over. To make ends meet, his father had to get a job as an office assistant, and his mother worked as a tour guide. Barred from entering higher education, Vaclav began an apprenticeship in a chemistry lab, but he also secretly attended evening classes, where he attained his high school diploma and was able to enroll in a transport engineering program at the Czech Technical University in Prague, for which only one place was available. His application to study at the Academy of Musical Arts was turned down because of his alleged political untrustworthiness. Havel was also a passionate theatergoer, so he worked as a stage-lighter and scene-shifter and began a correspondence course in directing.
Havel started writing in his spare time. Inspired by Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco, and especially by the surreal reality of the socialist system around him, Havel penned satirical comedies such as "The Garden Party," which earned him acclaim abroad and ostracism at home. Havel also became famous for his essays in defense of the individual in the face of totalitarianism, and he eventually joined the editorial board of Tvár (The Face), a cultural political monthly. A speech he gave against censorship at a writer's conference in 1967 played a significant role in paving the way for the Prague Spring a year later. But when Soviet tanks brutally suppressed the reform movement, Havel was banned from publishing his work.
Bringing Down the Regime
Vaclav Havel spent a total of 50 months in prison. During his incarceration in a cold, damp cell, he wrote his moving "Letters to Olga," the fellow student who became his first wife in 1964 (after her death in 1996, he married actress Dagmar Veskrnova).
When the civil-rights activist wasn't in prison, secret policemen monitored his movements around the clock, even while he worked in a brewery. Sometimes he took pity on his minders, provocatively inviting them to join him for a drink at a local bar. When it was foggy and he was annoyed at being followed in his car, he would try to lose his pursuers with daring maneuvers on country roads. Havel drew on these bizarre situations, writing absurd plays and clever mental experiments as well as various other takes on the theme of finding oneself within a depressing police state.
Charter 77, a civic initiative he co-founded, catapulted Havel to the forefront of the civil rights movement. A relentless opponent of both moral cowardice and the form of extreme passivity the Czechs call "svejkism" (a term derived from the classic World War I Czech novel "The Good Soldier Svejk"), Havel repeatedly tried to convince his friends in the West that "freedom" meant nothing unless it was imbued with life. And he pitied those who avoided him out of fear that "the inevitable nature of our contact" would irritate the government in Prague unnecessarily and therefore "threaten the fragile foundations of a budding easing of tension." After all, he argued, "It was they, not I, who voluntarily sacrificed their freedom."
Havel was never a committed Catholic, but he always had ties to people with firm religious beliefs, people like Vaclav Maly, a dissident priest and fellow Charter 77 signatory. Harassment by President Gustav Husak's Communist Party fused Havel and Maly together, lending them a resolve Havel would later call "a direction, a purpose," a sense that good could come of bad.
In 1989, Maly was one of the organizers of the rallies that eventually toppled the communist regime, and he would later stand alongside his friend on the balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square.
The Tribulations of the Poet-President
Havel made phenomenal achievements in his first years in office. He negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, gained rapturous applause for his pro-European views in the European Parliament, signed a peace treaty with Germany and apologized for what he termed the "morally reprehensible" expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Sudetenland after World War II -- a generous gesture that wasn't exactly popular in his native country.
But even the poet-president was not immune from setbacks in everyday political matters. He made mistakes precisely because he focused too little on the details. A series of errors suggested he was growing tired and felt trapped by his position, blunders including an amateurish comment about the constitutional system of communist Czechoslovakia and the fact that the otherwise modest Havel signed into law (albeit reluctantly) an amendment outlawing "slandering the head of state." Over time, the schizoid nature of the twin roles of president and artist, political realist and moralist, became painfully clear.
Although he was unable to prevent the breakup of Czechoslovakia, Havel remained the president of the Czech Republic for another 10 years, even leading his former Warsaw Pact country into NATO. But his decision-making powers were gradually eroded, and, as he complained in an interview with SPIEGEL in 1999, it became "difficult to live within the truth when nearly everyone else has settled into their house of lies."
Havel also shared a heartfelt animosity with Vaclav Klaus, his successor in Prague Castle. A diehard admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Klaus derided Havel as an unworldly "clown," even though Havel had been farsighted in his condemnation of what he called "mafia capitalism."
Havel left the political stage in 2003, a chastened rather than bitter president. "They turned me into a mythical creature," he said, "and people enjoy shattering myths." After his departure, Havel's unquestionable moral authority continued to secure him much attention, even though he was seen as more of a prophet abroad than back at home.
At our last meeting, a year ago, the clearly gaunt former president told me that "the Angel of Death has crept around (his) bed" time and time again. And, time and again, he was able to chase it away.
In early December, Havel wanted to see the Dalai Lama one last time. But it was a meeting that wasn't to be. Vaclav Havel died in his sleep last Sunday at the age of 75, a political and moral giant in an era of pygmies.
And herein lies the root of the minor dilemma this great man found himself in: Havel was never easily pigeonholed. Perhaps this explains why he had such a pleasant and yet thoroughly difficult character. Havel was a creature of light who dazzled many, especially those who didn't even cast a shadow themselves.
I recall visiting Vaclav Havel at his humble vacation home in the village of Vlčice, in eastern Bohemia, in July 1989. His mustache was an icy gray, his ruggedly masculine Belmondo-esque face was folded by wrinkles, and his hand trembled, forever holding a cigarette. I wondered whether he had just spent another night in a cell for one of those 12-hour interrogations that the authorities picked him up for with alarming regularity.
No, he replied. He had been up until the early hours talking with his friends from Solidarnosc, the Polish trade union. "The Poles are further along than we are," he grumbled, hungover but wide awake. An envelope lying on the kitchen table amid vodka bottles was labeled "To be given to Z. if I'm locked up again." The envelope contained a rough draft of the speech Havel planned to give in Frankfurt, where he was to be presented with the Peace Prize of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. As he rightly suspected, the regime of then-Czechoslovakian President Gustav Husak would refuse to let him out of the country to attend the award ceremony.
Five months later, on Dec. 29, 1989, the "Velvet Revolution" had swept the communists from power in Czechoslovakia, and Havel, the leader of the dissident Civic Forum, found himself on a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square in Prague, having been named head of state by the newly elected parliament. And the entire nation was celebrating. The poet-president drew red hearts on hundreds of outstretched hands. Later, he pedaled impetuously through the corridors of Prague Castle, the venerable seat of government, on a child's scooter.
The Path to Dissident Writer
In contrast to many other Eastern European dissidents, the man who helped bury communism in Czechoslovakia never flirted with the powerbrokers of the former regime, partly because of his upper middle-class background. Havel's bourgeois upbringing was both a burden and a privilege. It shaped his development significantly, honing his senses and judgment.
Vaclav Havel was born in 1936, the son of a wealthy architect and landowner. His uncle was one of the most important producers of Czech movies. In 1948, when the communists confiscated the family's property, those carefree days were over. To make ends meet, his father had to get a job as an office assistant, and his mother worked as a tour guide. Barred from entering higher education, Vaclav began an apprenticeship in a chemistry lab, but he also secretly attended evening classes, where he attained his high school diploma and was able to enroll in a transport engineering program at the Czech Technical University in Prague, for which only one place was available. His application to study at the Academy of Musical Arts was turned down because of his alleged political untrustworthiness. Havel was also a passionate theatergoer, so he worked as a stage-lighter and scene-shifter and began a correspondence course in directing.
Havel started writing in his spare time. Inspired by Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco, and especially by the surreal reality of the socialist system around him, Havel penned satirical comedies such as "The Garden Party," which earned him acclaim abroad and ostracism at home. Havel also became famous for his essays in defense of the individual in the face of totalitarianism, and he eventually joined the editorial board of Tvár (The Face), a cultural political monthly. A speech he gave against censorship at a writer's conference in 1967 played a significant role in paving the way for the Prague Spring a year later. But when Soviet tanks brutally suppressed the reform movement, Havel was banned from publishing his work.
Bringing Down the Regime
Vaclav Havel spent a total of 50 months in prison. During his incarceration in a cold, damp cell, he wrote his moving "Letters to Olga," the fellow student who became his first wife in 1964 (after her death in 1996, he married actress Dagmar Veskrnova).
When the civil-rights activist wasn't in prison, secret policemen monitored his movements around the clock, even while he worked in a brewery. Sometimes he took pity on his minders, provocatively inviting them to join him for a drink at a local bar. When it was foggy and he was annoyed at being followed in his car, he would try to lose his pursuers with daring maneuvers on country roads. Havel drew on these bizarre situations, writing absurd plays and clever mental experiments as well as various other takes on the theme of finding oneself within a depressing police state.
Charter 77, a civic initiative he co-founded, catapulted Havel to the forefront of the civil rights movement. A relentless opponent of both moral cowardice and the form of extreme passivity the Czechs call "svejkism" (a term derived from the classic World War I Czech novel "The Good Soldier Svejk"), Havel repeatedly tried to convince his friends in the West that "freedom" meant nothing unless it was imbued with life. And he pitied those who avoided him out of fear that "the inevitable nature of our contact" would irritate the government in Prague unnecessarily and therefore "threaten the fragile foundations of a budding easing of tension." After all, he argued, "It was they, not I, who voluntarily sacrificed their freedom."
Havel was never a committed Catholic, but he always had ties to people with firm religious beliefs, people like Vaclav Maly, a dissident priest and fellow Charter 77 signatory. Harassment by President Gustav Husak's Communist Party fused Havel and Maly together, lending them a resolve Havel would later call "a direction, a purpose," a sense that good could come of bad.
In 1989, Maly was one of the organizers of the rallies that eventually toppled the communist regime, and he would later stand alongside his friend on the balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square.
The Tribulations of the Poet-President
Havel made phenomenal achievements in his first years in office. He negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, gained rapturous applause for his pro-European views in the European Parliament, signed a peace treaty with Germany and apologized for what he termed the "morally reprehensible" expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Sudetenland after World War II -- a generous gesture that wasn't exactly popular in his native country.
But even the poet-president was not immune from setbacks in everyday political matters. He made mistakes precisely because he focused too little on the details. A series of errors suggested he was growing tired and felt trapped by his position, blunders including an amateurish comment about the constitutional system of communist Czechoslovakia and the fact that the otherwise modest Havel signed into law (albeit reluctantly) an amendment outlawing "slandering the head of state." Over time, the schizoid nature of the twin roles of president and artist, political realist and moralist, became painfully clear.
Although he was unable to prevent the breakup of Czechoslovakia, Havel remained the president of the Czech Republic for another 10 years, even leading his former Warsaw Pact country into NATO. But his decision-making powers were gradually eroded, and, as he complained in an interview with SPIEGEL in 1999, it became "difficult to live within the truth when nearly everyone else has settled into their house of lies."
Havel also shared a heartfelt animosity with Vaclav Klaus, his successor in Prague Castle. A diehard admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Klaus derided Havel as an unworldly "clown," even though Havel had been farsighted in his condemnation of what he called "mafia capitalism."
At our last meeting, a year ago, the clearly gaunt former president told me that "the Angel of Death has crept around (his) bed" time and time again. And, time and again, he was able to chase it away.
In early December, Havel wanted to see the Dalai Lama one last time. But it was a meeting that wasn't to be. Vaclav Havel died in his sleep last Sunday at the age of 75, a political and moral giant in an era of pygmies.
Translated from the German by Jan Liebelt
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