Interview - 17. 11. 2007*

* 17. 11. 1989 – “Velvet Revolution”, Czechoslovakia
Jiří Ševčík JŠ, Michal Hauser MH, Tomáš Samek TS

The interview was created as a transcription of a video recording.
Recorded by Zbyněk Baladrán.

WAITER

Would you like something to drink?

I have to leave in 10 minutes, so maybe they’ll have... Do you have...? No, it’s silly... Do you
have any dessert? Something nice, sweet, creamy, but with no sugar. A dessert with cream in
it, but no sugar – for diabetics.

WAITER

Something for diabetics?

No. Ok, what’s the lightest dessert you have? Few calories, little sugar... Something that isn’t
totally a sin. Something that wouldn’t be a total tragedy. I’ve got Middle European tastes.
Czech, Austrian, Slovenian. You know, dumplings, sauces, all that really unhealthy food.

TS

Isn’t it a kind of utopia, a new utopia, that we can wage war against...?

Yes, but unfortunately it’s a utopia with a kind of a safe justification inside it. Because if the
utopia fell, if it failed, then... You see, the war isn’t over yet, you know what I mean.

TS

It’s also, in this respect... a purely Stalinist utopia, which can endlessly...

But I agree with you. It has Stalin’s logic in it. You know, Stalin’s greatest contribution
was when he said: the more socialism progresses, the more active its enemies are. So you
constantly need more and more terror, and so on and so on. You don’t understand anything
about war or terror, without taking this endlessness into account. You keep getting terrorists
again, this transition from terror to post- terror again. It’s an endless transition again.

TS