Joseph Zvěřina (1913–1990) had every reason to be bitter, every reason to hate. As a Catholic parish priest and an intellectual, he had drawn the attention of the Nazis and spent more than a year in a concentration camp. After World War II, his scholarly career resumed, only to be cut short in 1952 when he was arrested on charges of “espionage and high treason” and sentenced to twenty-two years of hard labor. For thirteen years, he endured brutal conditions, back-breaking labor, and exposure to toxic materials while working in uranium mines and industrial chemical plants. Upon his release, he continued to study theology and to write about his faith and convictions. In 1977 he signed Charter 77, inviting the possibility of re-arrest. And yet, despite his own considerable suffering at the hands of Czech authorities, he defined the charter movement as a “campaign against hate,” as an explicit rejection of division, retaliation, and revenge. As you read his essay entitled “On Not Living in Hatred,” think about the lessons Zvěřina drew from his own experiences. How did he propose to cure the “disease of hate” that had infected his society?

In its diagnosis of our situation, Charter 77 revealed the pathological symptoms of the diseases of power and lying. It is possible that in the midst of tribulations and struggles, the symptoms of another malady to which the Charter pointed indirectly have receded in our awareness: I refer to the disease of hate. By virtue of its creation and survival, as well as its entire meaning and mission, the Charter was an act which indicated a cure for this disease, and by actually having overcome hatred itself, the Charter showed the path to unity. This aspect of the Charter has not been stressed sufficiently. Nevertheless, I believe it to be fundamental, and an indication of how we may identify the deeper roots of our poverty, with a view to transforming ourselves individually and collectively, and providing a remedy to society’s ills. This is a matter which falls outside the scope of the Charter, but is one of humanity’s fundamental problems: the quest for inner unity.

It is because of this character of the Charter that, in accordance with my Christian beliefs, I signed it and why I take the Charter as my launching pad for a campaign against hate. Charter 77 is a statement of belief in humanity which, for a Christian, naturally entails a belief in God. “How does a man who does not love the brother he can see, love God whom he has never seen?” (1 John: 4, 20b). However, the Charter is not, significantly, a compromise between world outlooks, between atheists and believers, between rival political parties, or between inner-party cliques. Nor, for that matter is it the “historical compromise” of which Pope Paul VI and the Italian Communist Party used to speak. The expression “historical compromise” can, after all, have three meanings: a compromise which is a definite historical event; a compromise as a mutual agreement at a given moment in time; or a compromise which is the natural outcome of historical developments. By none of these criteria is Charter 77 a compromise.

It was created in a spirit of partnership and supra-party unity, as the outcome of an incorruptible quest for truth. Thus it goes much further than any compromise, since it expresses what is truly common along the broad spectrum of views represented by the signatories. The very fact that Charter 77 was the child of joint reflection and courage, of a love of freedom, truth and justice — seen as an expression of unity and human community — is an historic event in this fragmented world. Thus, in a sense, the Charter is a sign of the times. But sceptics voice doubts in the form of the “political” question: “What support does it enjoy here and abroad?” And here and abroad both friends and opponents give the same reply: a handful of intellectuals. Regardless of the fact that this is just not so, and recalling that one of our traditional watchwords has been the Hussites’ “The numbers matter naught!,” the greatest support the Charter enjoys is something called Truth. This factor has united an extremely mixed group of signatories with the incalculable numbers of those, i.e., the de facto majority of the nation, who overtly or covertly agree with it and support it.

At the same time, it has received the unwitting support of those who unleashed the infamous campaign against it. They placed at its disposal all the mass media under their absolute control: a facility that the 250 or so signatories would never normally enjoy. They publicized the Charter with the assistance of the entire bureaucracy, something that even the most optimistic signatories never dreamt was possible. Indeed, what the signatories had expected was a deathly silence or silencing by force. By every crude act on their part, the opponents of the Charter helped raise a wave of sympathy both here and abroad. Imprisonment, surveillance and other imaginative expressions of police diligence only served to create new links for us: so intimate that the police will try in vain to detect and destroy them; so lively that they are managing to arouse young people from the lethargy of normalization. In opposition to the Charter, then, there is an “unqualified” majority of the nation. How numerous it is is hard to say. We must include in this “unqualified” majority the timid and careful — their reactions are quite understandable — but also, and above all, the apathetic and indifferent. The latter are a very dangerous and even apocalyptic phenomenon: “because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth” (Rev.: 3,16). . . .

If we are to understand the pathology of hate, which is what I am seeking to do here, it is necessary to trace the genesis of this spiritual malady, identify its forms and symptoms, and search for a “cure.” It is possibly true to say that throughout the course of our history as a small and vulnerable nation, real hatred was never part of our experience in war or in peace. We have known stormy events, anger, passion and fury; until recently, however, we did not fail, I believe, to show respect for human dignity. After all, a love for the truth has tended to dominate our national character, along with a feeling for the underdog, humour in our dealings with the mighty, coupled with generosity towards the vanquished. What we do have, as has been frequently noted, is a tendency towards a mediocrity complex at one extreme and megalomania at the other; either spiritual sloth or shallow fanaticism; either coarseness or a martyr-complex; either slavish, uncritical behaviour or arrogant hyper-criticism.

But until recently, hate in an extreme or pathological form was foreign to us. Until recently, that is. It erupted first of all in the bestial treatment meted out to the Germans, and then to their collaborators. Then the hate was redirected at ideological opponents; then political opponents; then to a fraction of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, and so on. Where did it come from? There was, of course, the terrifying school of Nazism and the cruelty of war. But these cannot be used to excuse all the cruelty, barbarity and hate that followed. The guilt for that lies with everybody — though to varying degrees, of course — and not only with those who actually carried out vile deeds of revenge. The guilt must be shared by those who were then in leading posts in government, the church, the media, the universities and other institutions: they must bear much greater responsibility than those less endowed and worse informed. It could well be that there was a greater proportion of the latter who, in specific cases, opposed the fury.

Unhappily, when the post-war psychosis and passion had died down, hate was once more whipped up and fostered by the socialist governments. It was not of the frenzied variety, but instead was more cold-blooded, premeditated and thorough. Hate became an instrument of political power — particularly after 1948. A whole ideology of hate came into being. This ideology justified everything it required; everything was permitted to achieve its success; it encouraged hatred and even required it on occasions. There can be no worse threat than this to human morality and life. While, unhappily, we find hate in various guises all over the world, hate here has its specific features. The education of people into a single permitted ideology creates a much more extensive basis for such hatred. Hate is thereby “nationalized,” as it were. It assumes the most varied forms at every level: regional, district, local, federal and international. In this way, lies, violence and hate become an indissoluble trinity. Each needs the others. Half-truth hates because it is afraid and, because it is afraid, it employs violence. Violence in turn is a power which serves and coexists with hate — and lies are used to excuse it, and so on.

Is there a cure for this pathological hate? Seeing that skepticism and defeatism are no use at all, we have to find one! Violence is no solution to violence, since it merely breeds hate. The only real and lasting power is “the power of the powerless.” The powerless have no power, either because they have lost it or because their internal “make-up” has never allowed them to serve it. Or there are those who have never striven for it, or never wanted it. But they are strong. Their strength has a different source than power, but it exists in the world. For Christians, this “make-up” is the highest moral “qualification” — Jesus’ beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount: “Happy are the poor in spirit” (Matt.: 5, 3). It is they who have renounced immediate means, preferring a deeper teleology, a broader eschatology and more substantial goals. “Happy are the gentle, for they shall have the earth for their heritage” (Matt.: 5, 5). The gentle will implement the most thoroughgoing, generalized and lasting revolution. They do not conquer the earth, nor dominate it, but instead shall transform it into a heritage for humanity and shall answer for it to God and to the planet’s peoples.

Such a universal, holistic, “planetary” way of thinking, as was implied philosophically by Heidegger and developed here by Patocka, is undoubtedly a therapy for hate. Others have found valuable solutions in other areas. There are philosophical solutions, in the re-evaluation of values; personal ones, such as concern for the spiritual, new ways of thinking, and for the details of everyday life; spiritual/cultural solutions, such as attempts to develop a parallel culture, parallel structures, and a parallel polis; and there are even political solutions, evident in new basic concepts of politics in general, conscious opposition, new types of democracy, and so on. These solutions also serve as remedies to hate because, as we have pointed out, lies, violence and hate are interdependent. But the specific malice of hate, which represents a profound threat to the world, generates concern and the pursuit of a more specific solution. This is because hate represents the most absolute division of people and the most total destruction of unity. Therefore the only way to counter hate is through a patient and earnest quest for unity.

As a citizen of this country, I fully appreciate people’s allergic reaction to this word unity. So it will be necessary for me first to define the term. Basically speaking, it is impossible to accept the sort of outward unity which is no more than the unification and manipulation of people by means of half-truths and lies, in order to create a uniformity of personal and public expression. This is the unity of the mass; uniformity of the herd; the fictive “unity of the Party and the people”; a unity of fanaticism and passion. It is a type of unity that provides all the more reason for rejecting the unity promoted by regimes, under police supervision, with the help of the administrative bureaucracy, emergy powers, the iron curtain, and all the other technical innovations of the Golem monster.

The only acceptable unity is internal unity, the free unity of truth, the unity of the powerless, of the “poor in heart,” who refuse every injustice and lawlessness, and hate in every form. But how does one achieve such unity? It will be necessary to seek an answer for each of these different levels I have so far mentioned.

As far as ideas are concerned, the remedy will undoubtedly be pluralism: serious, responsible pluralism, of course, not the sort that leads to nihilism. The latter has no power to overcome hate, even when it is itself devoid of hatred. It will entail belief in the possibility of truth, freedom and justice combined with the courage to achieve them — under the constant gaze of one’s opponents.

In the field of morality, there will be a need for respecting humanity and people’s unalienable dignity; believing in humankind and the meaning of life; making a virtue of hope, spiritual energy and the eschatological striving for higher good.

Everyday life will require the assertion of tolerance. Pluralism and tolerance are both paths or methods — a unity of means and ends, which could even eventually provide a basis for a new concept of politics.

Lastly, there is the need for a sort of “international conspiracy” against hate and violence. This ought to pervade all our human dealings and thinking. What is required is a universal purge, a radical conversion of hearts. . . .

Truth must be integrated with love; morality is not whole without it. Love is the greatest strength of the powerless. Unity founded on love will never be coercion; power guided by love will never be violence. Love is all-powerful and will even overcome hatred. And only love can do this! The people of the future will be homo dilectionis, “people of love.” Love has always been part of our makeup but, until now, we have never realized it. “My military commanders never understood the meaning of love,” said the “strategist” of the modern spirit, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The highest throne is destined not for “pure reason” but “pure love.”

Scepticism and defeatism will not help us. They are the fifth column of violence, and an internal ally of hate. The fact that I attribute the principle of the new human being to the biblical agape1 should not provoke doubt in others, for this principle is not solely a biblical expression but a universal idea. Those who cannot accept it will have to find another expression; the task and goals are none the less identical. Solzhenitsyn’s “not living a lie” and Havel’s “living in truth,” not to mention “the power of the powerless,” are just as much biblical expressions. Naturally, there are other exponents of agape and powerful opponents of hate. The same terms are employed by the Russian orthodox priest Dudkov in Moscow. Pastor Wurmbrand, the martyr of the Romanian jailors, heroically warns against hating the communists. Then there is Archbishop Helder Camara, a fighter against fascist dictators in Latin America and elsewhere. We need a “crusade against violence” as Prior Roger Schuetz of Taize puts it in other words. And, as Pope John Paul II proclaimed on 1st November, 1979:

By expressing everything in terms of power, group interests and class struggle, as well as in terms of the friend-enemy concept, we pave the way for social exclusiveness, disrespect, hatred and terrorism and their covert or overt supporters. On the other hand, there is readiness to listen and understand, respect for others, consideration which in reality means strength, and trust, all of which flow from hearts which have been won for the greatest good of peace.

The words of these people are substantiated in deeds and blood, so our struggle against hate is not lost. We recall in this connection Maksymilian Kolbe, who willingly laid down his life to save the father of a family. He was just one of the victims of Nazi hate. I add to their names my memory of Father Josef Sterberk who, of his own free will, asked to be shot along with his parishioners at Lidice, as well as the victims of the absurd, anti-religious hate propaganda in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s: the martyred Father Toufar, Bishop Gojdic, the Jesuit Father Kajpr, the priest Antonin Mandl, and many other priests and lay people. Drops in the ocean? That doubt has been answered by that “specialist” of active love and non-bureaucratic aid, Mother Teresa — who has saved thousands of people from dying in India — when she said: “But without that drop, the ocean would not be full.”

Such people are a light in the darkness of hate. Without them, we are lost. With them, we all know what is the right course. There is a need not only for greater or lesser deeds but, above all, for a radical “change of course,” for a new direction. Hate is capable of cruel bravery. We must display still greater courage and still greater love. “Anyone who is afraid has not attained to love in its perfection” (I John: 4, 18).

Source: Václav Havel, et. al., The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1985), pp. 207–208, 211–216. Copyright © 1985 Palach Press. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Books UK.

Questions to Consider