Human rights at the time of Charter 77 and today: the experience of Czechoslovak dissent in a global perspective
We would like to invite you to a screening and discussion evening on the topic Human rights at the time of Charter 77 and today: the experience of Czechoslovak dissent in a global perspective. The event will take place on 9 October 2024 at 4:00 pm at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University (Jan Palach Square 1/2), room P200.
Panel discussion: Pavel Barša, Barbara J. Falk, Steven Jensen and Olga Lomová, moderated by Michal Kopeček.
Screening of an excerpt from Haruna Honcoop’s forthcoming documentary The Island of Freedom (working title) in the current geopolitical situation from the point of view of international human rights activists based in Taiwan.
The aim of the discussion is to reflect on the legacy of Charter 77 and the democratic opposition and human rights dissent in East Central Europe in the perspective of today’s struggle for democracy. We are on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act and the beginning of the so-called Helsinki Process, which has unexpectedly transformed the nature of international politics in Europe and the world. But we are also at a turning point in time, where the democratic regimes that emerged after the fall of the communist dictatorships in Europe and the end of the Cold War are now often fighting a mortal struggle with a new wave of authoritarianism and illiberal governance that violates basic human rights. The legacy of the struggle for human rights and legal resistance that Charter 77 embodies at home and abroad seems to be taking on new meanings and turns.
A few years ago it might have seemed that the Charter’s legacy was crusting into the bronze commemorative pedestal of Czech democracy, today it is clear that its story and historical experience needs to be reconsidered and recast in the heat of the challenges we are facing in our time. It was already clear to the Charter 77 founding figures in the mid-1970s that the struggle for democracy and a free, open society was a glocal struggle, whose domestic component was as important as the transnational one. Our modest aim is to try to revive these essential dimensions of one of the fundamental historical chapters of the struggle for democracy and human rights in this part of Europe.
The event will be in English.
The event is supported by the Strategy AV21, programme Identities in the World of Wars and Crises.