He points to a recent TV poll showing that many young people have no idea what happened in August 1968 when the Russian invasion of Georgia inadmissible - Czech ForMin ...
PM claims win in Macedonian poll ... Warsaw Pact troops crossed the Czechoslovak border to crush the Communist-led reform movement. However, it is difficult to criticise young Czechs in the situation where the government, too, has suffered from an acute loss of historical memory, Verner notes. The Czech government has neglected historical circumstances in connection with the situation in Georgia, which it has consistently assessed by NATO standards, Verner says. He compares the situation in Georgia with Kosovo the independence of which the Czech Republic recognised recently. To recognise Kosovo and at the same time speak about "the territorial integrity" of Georgia is just an expression of the Czech representatives' hypocritical policy, Verner writes in Pravo. Czechs should make sure whether they feel safe rightfully, being protected by NATO, Martin Weiss writes in Lidove noviny (LN) today. According to polls, a crushing majority of Czechs feel relatively safe with regard to the international situation.
This feeling is well-grounded to a certain extent as the Czech Republic has never before had such good relations will all neighbours. Moreover, it has joined the EU and NATO, Weiss writes. He, however, recalls that Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg told foreign press in March that he was not sure that NATO's security guarantees were sufficient. Yet his statement faded away almost unnoticed. Weiss writes that when Czechs are arguing about who is to blame for the situation in Georgia, how Russia would react and what NATO should do in the conflict, they always ensue from the premise that NATO is protecting them. "We may look at this unquestionable matter that we take for granted again and then do all the calculations again," Weiss concludes in LN. The alleged "Slavonic brotherhood" to which President Vaclav Klaus refers from time to time is nothing but a "myth," which the Czech historical experience can refute easily, Vladimir Kucera writes in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) today. He recalls that Klaus has been accused of being a conservative Slavophile over his statements criticising Georgia for having caused the conflict with Russia. Klaus also recently stated that Russia poses no threat. Kucera adds that Pan-Slavism an Slavophilism have their roots in the 19th century Romanticism. "It is hard to believe that a civilised man that our president definitively is can believe in the myth of the 'bond of blood' between people with a Slavonic soul," Kucera says. Czechs and Slovak could witness that Slavonic solidarity, in which their ancestors believed, was nothing but a legend during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 when the armies of "their Slavonic brothers" - Russians, Poles and Bulgarians, along with Eastern Germans and Hungarians, invaded their country, Kucera points out. "Slavophilism is nonsense, which Vaclav Klaus knowns very well," Kucera writes.
(Ceske Noviny)
more info >>
<< Back