30 years on…

30 years since the end of the Cold War, since the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, is a difficult anniversary to avoid. I know one person, who is not so untypical, who leaves Prague every year at this time because the revolution meant a lot to him (he attended demonstrations in Narodni Trida) but he can’t stand the way it is commemorated. Some people feel it is over-celebrated, others that it is undercelebrated. In that way, it’s a bit like Christmas, which some people love and others hate, but this is not dependent on how religious people are (some religious people don’t like the commercialism of modern Christmas).

This conflicted feeling was also clear in the demonstrations which took…