But Václav Havel, the poet and absurdist dramatist who was catapulted into the position of President of Czechoslovakia at this incredible time, today declines to hold up the revolution as proof that evil will inevitably rot away.
Despite having lived through a moment in history many still perceive as a near-miracle, he does not encourage oppressed dissidents to hope that things will get better.
For Havel, hope is a very different creature from optimism. It is not about expecting tomorrow to be easier than yesterday, but it is having a confidence that the values you prize are sure and true.
He put it this way: “Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”
If the US State Department and the CIA had tried to identify likely leaders of an overthrow of Soviet rule in Czechoslovakia, I doubt they would have picked a Velvet Underground-loving bohemian working as a stagehand.
But this is the story of Havel. His adventures of the mind put him on a collision course with the totalitarian state.
As President Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright put it, hope is inherently audacious.
Now an elder European statesman, Havel refuses to address present day activists with the “If I can do it so can you” swagger with which a billionaire might lecture infant entrepreneurs.
Instead, this year when meeting a group of human rights activists from China, he told them:
“[One] may never reckon with the situation changing tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or in 10 years. Perhaps it will not. If that is what you are reckoning with, you will not get very far. However, in our experience, not reckoning with that did pay in the end... I think that is important. In a peculiar way, there is both despair and hope in this. On the one hand we do not know how things will end, and on the other, we know they may in fact end well.”In an era of pragmatic politics, this is a reminder we should pursue the goal we are convinced is right and just – not merely the one which seems rich in electoral mileage.
Conventional wisdom now dictates that a miracle is needed to secure a global deal on climate change at the upcoming Copenhagen summit. But according to Havel’s play-book, the absence of optimism is not a good reason to give up hope. Instead, we need dreamers to slog on.
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