Václav Havel, Moral Leadership, Iran, and Ron Paul

Last updated on 2013.06.04

Playwright and president—wait. Hear those words together.

Czech playwright and president Václav Havel died last night. Communists—not the bullshit bogeymen some Americans see behind every perceived slight against their selfish desires, but real Communists, the kind with tanks and guns who crushed popular uprisings and killed men and women for daring to dissent—denied young Havel the university humanities education he desired. Havel worked as a stagehand, studied drama by correspondence, and began writing plays. Communists imprisoned Havel for nearly five years in the 1970s and 1980s. He looked through the bars, looked at the guns and Politburo thugs, kept his spirit, and continued his dissent. In 1989, he led the Velvet Revolution and took his country back... without killing anyone.

Unlike Václav Havel, Barack Obama has killed people. Unlike Havel, Obama has won a Nobel Peace Prize. Nonetheless (or perhaps all the more?), President Obama understands why Havel deserves to be remembered as a hero of the 20th century:

Having encountered many setbacks, Havel lived with a spirit of hope, which he defined as "the ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed." His peaceful resistance shook the foundations of an empire, exposed the emptiness of a repressive ideology, and proved that moral leadership is more powerful than any weapon [President Barack Obama, statement on the death of Václav Havel, 2011.12.18].

At peril of sounding disrespectful to Havel and his countrymen, I juxtapose the President's respects with a clip from the GOP presidential candidates' December 15 debate in Sioux City, in which Rep. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Ron Paul debate how to contain the Iranian threat:

Rep. Paul offers the following response to Rep. Bachmann's misinformed warmongering (see 2:56 in the above video):

If [Congresswoman Bachmann] thinks we live in a dangerous world, she ought to think back when I was drafted in the 1962 with nuclear missiles in Cuba. And Kennedy calls Khrushchev and talks to them, and talks them out of this so we don't have a nuclear exchange.

And you're trying to dramatize this, that we have to go and... and treat Iran like we've treated Iraq and kill a million Iraqis, and 8,000-some Americans have died since we've gone to war. You cannot solve these problems with war. You can solve the problems if we follow our constitution and go to war only when we declare the war, win them and get them over with instead of this endless fighting and this endless attitude that we have enemies all around the world [Rep. Ron Paul, GOP debate, Sioux City, Iowa, 2011.12.15].

Ron Paul is not Václav Havel. But it is noteworthy that when Ron Paul says things we might associate with moral leadership, other Republicans say he's nuts.

Also noteworthy: Havel expressed support for a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq in 2002. He elaborated on this support in 2007:

Havel criticizes the war in Iraq, saying that the official reason for invading Iraq "was dumb—that they had, somewhere under the ground, some weapons which are a danger for the United States. It is nonsense, of course."

Yet he also says it was necessary to overthrow Saddam Hussein, arguing that "the international community has the right to intervene when human rights are liquidated in such a brutal way."

That doesn't entitle "some international policemen'' to "do what they want,'' he adds. "It is necessary to think very carefully and very responsibly about every case" [Peter S. Green, "Havel, Sipping Plum Brandy, Writes New Play, Protests Iraq War," Bloomberg.com, 02.12.2007].

None of the Republicans Thursday night talked about human rights in Iran. Rep. Paul at least had the courage to reject Bachmann's bogus claims of weapons in Iran.

Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate.

—Václav Havel, 1989