Jackie Danicki

…The Velvet Revolution began in Eastern Europe. My friend Adriana, born into the hell of communism, remembers this year with music and images. I cannot help but refer you to her backstory:

I was then a teenager, with a twist - I knew that I had no control over my future and that I faced two choices only. In order to blend in, accept the evil around me in exchange for a semblance of a ‘normal’ life. Or follow in my parents’ footsteps and forsake all that is considered good and rewarding in a healthy society, such as higher education, travel, even family and potentially freedom. I may have been very young but, alas, not young enough to be blind to the full horrors of such life. After all I had seen those around me living with similar decisions. As it happens, that choice was not real - having been part of the dissident movement, I was weighted, marked and tagged as the enemy of the state. I belonged to the dark forces undermining the society - a phrase so beloved of the communist media.

I remember the nervous elation of the ‘now or never’ moment, as we walked to the main square to meet thousands of others who felt the same. It was a powerful sensation to be surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people knowing that they are there for the same reason - an experience unprecedented in a fractured and diseased society under communism.

…I find that my memories lack the nostalgia compulsory for any survivor of such social and political upheavals. My life has certainly changed beyond recognition as a result of the 1989 events, nevertheless I find it very hard to get dewy-eyed about my ‘revolutionary credentials’. I do treasure the experience of seeing thousands upon thousands of individuals come together in a collective action that has changed the world around them. That was genuine no matter whether it was sparked off by manipulation or whether what followed in the aftermath was far less heroic.

Just to make this ALL ABOUT ME: I have a hard time thinking about all this without getting unusually upset. (Believe it or not, I do not cry easily.) Antoine, who first met Adriana in Eastern Europe after the revolution, and I travelled with her to Bratislava two years ago this month. As soon as we walked off the plane and into the airport there, my eyes were full of tears that I did not allow to fall until we were in the backseat of the car that was taking us to the town center. (The details of who was driving that car are perhaps not mine to reveal, but suffice to say that our surprise chauffeur was staying true to past form by performing yet another act of kindness and generosity.)

As we drove on the motorway, past the new Tesco superstore and the billboards advertising election candidates, I buried my face in Antoine’s shoulder and sobbed silently. (I don’t think I had ever done that before, or ever have since.) “Honey,” he said, “don’t cry. We won.” All I could think about was my friend growing up in the dreary, utterly hopeless communist hellhole, about all the hopes and dreams her parents sacrificed, all the lives decimated in the name of the “common good”.

Which is why I go a little crazy when I encounter people who have no idea whatsoever what the real implications of collectivism, socialism, and communism actually are. I used to get really angry about it; now I get angry and sad, because I know it’s just ignorance, but it’s an ignorance I find inexcusable. This shit went down IN OUR LIFETIME. And yet I can walk through a crowd in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA in 2007 and overhear some otherwise (presumably) intelligent adult making fantastically well-received comments about “the benefits of socialism” (true story, btw).

So I think Adriana does a great service to remember a private horror so publicly. I’m so glad she escaped.

Filed under: Life