As the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution approaches, NYU Prague took the opportunity to bring together academics, politicians, journalists, diplomats and students to reflect on the friendship between the Czech Republic and America. Gathered in a stunning Baroque Hall that is part of the Dominican Monastery in Prague’s Old Town, speakers were nostalgic, hopeful, and also trepidatious.
The conference was organized in cooperation with the Charles University Department of North American Studies and the nonprofit organization that Vaclav Havel founded, Forum 2000. It was spearheaded by NYU Prague professor Tomáš Klvaňa, a specialist in North American politics who has written several books about America, including The Trump Phenomenon.
The conference opened with a keynote speech by Jeffrey Gedmin who lived in Prague in the 1990s as the CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He hearkened back to even earlier, when he was a “left-leaning student of the 80s” who travelled to the Soviet block looking for evidence of the ideals of a Communist society. “I found tyranny, secret police, environmental devastation, economic depression and suffering.” He warned about the American tendency to “not learn history,” noting that today, it is becoming mainstream on the left to say that it’s time to give Marxism a chance… and on the right to revisit the models of Pinochet and Franco to restore family values. “We have self-inflicted wounds in the USA. … Russia is in decline, but there are Russian experts interested in finding these wounds and dropping poison in them. “
This was followed by discussions involving fourteen Czech and American presenters who spoke on two panels: Coming Back Together: An Evaluation of Three Decades and Drifting Apart. The Looming Challenges in Transatlantic Relations.
It’s hard to imagine a more qualified group for this topic. Speakers included former Czech Ambassadors to the USA, leaders of NATO talks, the former Czech Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs, the economic and political advisers to President Havel, career US diplomats, a correspondent from the Voice of America, and more. A wide array of topics were brought up, but a recurring theme was the importance of allies, not just partnerships that are about transactions. Today, many allyships seem to be under threat in tandem with an isolationist trend sweeping countries around the world.
Of course there was quite a lot of nostalgia when remembering the ups and downs of the transitional years. Several speakers – both on the panel and in the audience (which included Czechs who have worked for American nonprofits and at the US Embassy) – thanked Americans for the values they brought. “The USA was instrumental in helping erode the Communist system by supporting civil society – funding nonprofits and educational initiatives. The USA didn’t have to choose to do this,” noted NYU Prague director Jiri Pehe. Alexandr Vondra, a former Czech Ambassador to the USA who was crucial in the effort to garner support for NATO, emphasized the ongoing importance of the military alliance between the two countries, while former Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic Mary Thompson-Jones focused on cultural exchange and how she believes the two countries understand each other thanks to their “mocking view of authority.” According to Michael Žantovský, also a former Czech Ambassador to the USA and the current head of the Vaclav Havel Library, the friendship between the two countries has been developing for much, much longer than 30 years: supposedly George Washington’s first girlfriend was Czech, but her father refused to let her marry a poor soldier.
The conference took place during the NYU Prague fall break, but some students decided to come back to Prague early so they could attend. One of them was Eli Lenner, a sophomore in Stern. “Learning about the relationship between the two countries from a Czech perspective … developed my understanding of where relations were in the nineties, where they are now, and where they might be in the future.”
As we saw thirty years ago, the future is hard to predict. “Things can change so quickly – think about how we were thirty years ago, how we were six years ago,” said Jeffrey Gedmin as he wrapped up his keynote speech. “And imagine where we can be in six years.”
Photo credits Kristýna Sluková