Topic: Václav Havel´s Closing Remarks

Václav Havel´s Closing Remarks

Jacques Rupnik
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. It’s been a long day but a very interesting and a very rich day. I reassure you, I will not try to summarise the discussions that went on here. I would perhaps simply say that one way of summarising the issues we have been discussing is to look at the second Prague Declaration which follows from the one adopted in October 2001, which had tried to identify some of the key problems involved with globalization.

Most of them have not improved since. In fact, they got much worse. And this is why some people have felt the need to follow up on that and attempt to draft, as a follow-up, a supplement to the initial Prague Declaration. This is still a work in progress. All the delegates have received it and will have a chance to amend it. It will be put on the website and it will be available tomorrow also to the observes. And I think this is one way in which the Forum will keep a trace of, if not the conclusions, at least of some of the main issues it has tried to address. Well, the issue we have been discussing today is the one of Freedom and Responsibility and of course, speaking in Prague thirty years after the foundation in this country, in this city, of the Charter 77 Human Rights Movement, we see a message there which is perhaps relevant for today. Here were people who were not lecturing the world about what freedom is, but they certainly knew what trying to promote human rights under the conditions of un-freedom meant. And when we reflect on that itinerary with hindsight, we cannot help see the parallels today. Václav Havel was freed from jail in 1989, the very year when Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in her country. And we know what is going on there today. And we clearly see the connection between the attempts to introduce through violent means, the idea of progress of freedom and the feeling of responsibility as the destiny, to use Václav Havel’s phrase.

So, ladies and gentlemen, let me now give the floor to Václav Havel. President Václav Havel, who has, I think, been the inspiration behind the Forum 2000 and will remain so. Václav Havel, the floor is yours.

Václav Havel
Thank you Jacques, for giving me the floor and I'll try to do something which is really difficult to do. I’ll try to summarize the proceedings today. I feel that a characteristic feature of this Forum 2000 is its undestroyability. On the contrary the Forum grows. It is not being held only here in this large hall, but other meetings are going on at other venues, and it is becoming a kind of permanent institution. The discussions here are very meaningful. So, it’s very difficult to summarize them.

Nonetheless, there are certain ideas, certain topics which return periodically, for instance the theme of the search for some kind of moral minimum, that could be shared by people from different cultural spheres, different civilizational spheres, of different political convictions. The idea is to use this minimum as a starting point for our road towards a more purposeful kind of civilization. The theme of this year’s Forum was Freedom and Responsibility, but at the same time it pointed out the double meaning of same basic categories. Freedom can be abused and in the same way responsibility can be abused. Much evil has been committed in the name of some kind of alleged responsibility for the world. What does this mean? This means a necessity to search again and again and to study, to doubt, to verify again and again that both our freedom, which we enjoy, and our responsibility, which we feel, do serve a good thing and not something bad.

So this Forum will soon come to an end, but it does continue in a way tomorrow. It has a very special kind of nature. It has a tendency to transcend itself. We have approved Prague Declaration number 2 which is very general. All of you had an opportunity to comment on it. But I would like to stress one other thing. We heard a lot, not only in this hall, but also in other smaller groups and in the corridors. We have heard a lot about countries in which human rights, human dignity, human liberties are restricted and oppressed. We heard a lot about Cuba. Burma was mentioned. Also a special text was submitted for signing, a text designed by the People in Need organization. We also spoke about Belarus, which certainly should not remain in the shadow of more renowned dictatorships.

A new feature of this Forum is the fact that we heard businessmen who could participate in this debate. I consider this a good thing and something which is very useful, because sometimes it happens that the conflicts of today’s world are seen as something for which the business community is to be blamed. It is not true. Business is a profession like any other, without which we could not exist. But, of course, we have to have the same demands of it as of other professions. Once again responsibility, we need, we demand that they study their own responsibility, execution of their responsibility. Thank you all for coming, thank you for taking part in this debate, thank you for enriching this debate with your ideas. As always, the proceedings will be published, including all the contributions, and it will be available. Thank you very much for your attention.