Václav Havel Funeral Draws World Leaders and Hundreds of Mourners [No Bushes?]

Guardian (UK) ^ | December 23, 2011

[Steelfish]

Václav Havel Funeral Draws World Leaders and Hundreds of Mourners Cameron, Clinton and Sarkozy at funeral of Czech Republic's first democratically elected president after Velvet Revolution

23 December 2011

Czechs and world leaders have paid an emotional tribute to Václav Havel at a pomp-filled funeral ceremony, ending a week of public grief and nostalgia over the death of the dissident playwright who led the 1989 revolution that ended four decades of communist rule.

Church bells tolled while a wailing siren brought the country to a standstill in a minute of silence for the nation's first democratically elected president after the nonviolent Velvet Revolution.

Havel's wife, Dagmar, family members, friends and leaders from dozens of countries gathered on Friday at the towering, gothic St Vitus Cathedral, which overlooks Prague. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, were among some 1,000 mourners who bowed their heads in front of the coffin draped in the Czech colours.

In a message read at the funeral by the Vatican's former diplomatic representative in Prague, Pope Benedict XVI praised Havel. "Remembering how courageously Mr Havel defended human rights at a time when these were systematically denied to the people of your country, and paying tribute to his visionary leadership in forging a new democratic polity after the fall of the previous regime, I give thanks to God for the freedom that the people of the Czech Republic now enjoy," he said.

At the end of the ceremony, Havel's coffin was to be carried through the cathedral's Golden Gate to Strasnice crematorium for a private family funeral. The urn with Havel's ashes will be buried at his family's plot at the city's Vinohrady cemetery alongside his first wife, Olga, who died in 1996.

[LadyDoc]

It’s interesting that here in Asia, the BBC news broadcast his funeral, but CNN International only mentioned it.

So yes, I’d say it was underreported in the US...

[Think free or die]

1971 was also my first visit to the Czech Republic. My parents fled in 1950, and it was the first time they were permitted to come back on a visa as US citizens. My memories are more of family members I was meeting for the first time and grandparents whom I got to see for the second time in my life. (They were permitted to visit us once they were old and defection was no longer an economic loss to the state). Over the years I made a number of visits. There is simply no comparison between the dreary, oppressive socialist years and those of restored liberty. Before WWII, this was a highly educated and industrialized nation in the heart of Europe. The losses under socialism were great on many levels. Productive enterprises were expropriated or destroyed, families torn apart, historic structures demolished or neglected until they collapsed, young people denied higher education. The list goes on. Unfortunately, many of these injustices cannot be resolved during our earthly lives. I hope justice will be served in the next world.

[Revolting cat!]

Sorry about your unpronounceable last name. (Just kiddin, I got one of those too.)

I love the Czech Republic which I visited several times in the past decade to see my pal who had defected from there in 1968. Unfortunately, he decided to return again to Switzerland, for, he says, political reasons, though I suspect family reasons, and he’s now appearing internationally under a Germanized name, unrelated phonetically to his Czech name. Go figure. The Czechs will recover.

[Think free or die]

No question in my mind that the nation will recover, and to a large extent already has. Some things can’t be fixed though. Families scattered across the planet, people who died waiting for freedom to return . . . such is the course of history. We move on and try to educate those around us to the folly of entrusting our future to powerful central governments.

[Youaskedforit]

Ciao Think free,

Visiting parents, you got to see the real deal, I just went on a school organized trip from Heidelberg, Germany as a tourist.

But shortly after the fall of Communism, I worked in many places in Czech Republic and even lived for a period in Slovakia so I breathed in the spirit of freedom, the happiness and also many of the troubles of the transformation. Both countries hold a special place in my heart.

The Czechs have a delightful figure called Jara Cimrman (the man who invented everything, but invariably showed up 5 minutes late at the patent office). The fictional character was voted their greatest national hero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1ra_Cimrman#Greatest_Czech_contest

And in the same poll, the “worst Czech” was the Communist dictator Klement Gottwald (who like Lenin was put on permanent display after his death, except they botched the embalming and he turned black!)

Merry Christmas

Vessili Vianoce (or something like that)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klement_Gottwald#After_Gottwald

To my mind it shows what sort of crazy and poetic people they are.

[antceecee]

Anyone who lived their lives combating communism and socialism will be ignored by the media in their death. US media = PRAVDA = LIARS.

[EveningStar]

Please check my profile. I’m a guy. :)

[writer33]

LOL! Yes, sir.

[Revolting cat!]

I couldn’t have put it better. The damage has been done. West Germans had plenty of time to recover from WWII. It’ll take another generation for the East Europe (now called Central Europe) to recover from Yalta. I’ve seen the damage with my own eyes.