Politics in the Czech Republic is often entertainingly counter-intuitive. The green party here is (was) in a coalition with a party whose founder, Vaclav Klaus, once called environmentalism as dangerous an ideology as Communism. This election map may be familiar to many readers – the capital city votes for one party, and the surrounding rural areas the other. Except here tradition is reversed, the capital voting for the center-right ODS and the countryside voting for the socialists. And young people here are fanatically opposed to the leader of the Socialists, Jiri Paroubek.
We’ve encountered Pan Paroubek on Outsourced before. Perhaps the most irritating politician imaginable, he exudes sleazy populism unmatched since Diamond Joe Quimby. His most recent sin was to help topple the current ODS-led Czech government during their EU presidency, which has almost entirely destroyed the credibility of post-communist governments in the eyes of the western EU. In a semi-traditional move for czech politicians, he dumped his wife of 28 for a much younger blonde, who disgusted the nation by attesting to the sexiness of her new husband’s brain. Oh, and as Prime Minister a few years ago he broke up a techno music festival with a merry round of police violence, which earned him the initial ire of many druggy youth.
Happily hitting the campaign trail after his stabbing and mutilation of the Czech EU presidency, Pan Paroubek has encountered an interesting phenomenon. Youths have began pelting him with eggs at every campaign event possible. An Anti-Paroubek facebook group called ‘An Egg for Paroubek in Every Town‘ has attracted over 50,000 members. (Other amusing anti-Paroubek groups include ‘Paroubek for President, a Joke‘, ‘Will you find 1 Million people who hate Rath and Paroubek (20,000 members), and ‘Paroubek is a Shitty Piece of Fucking Fuck’, with 11,000 members.)
Paroubek made an appearance in Prague today near Jana’s office. What occured at this farce of an election rally needs to be seen to be believed. CLICK HERE (as I can’t figure out how to embed the video from the czech website).
If I have any political ideology it is as a free-speech fundamentalist, so I am a strong believer in allowing people the freedom to say stupid things. Yet I find it hard to pity this opportunistic, failed mafioso as he is pelted with unfertilized chickens. He fully intends to raise my taxes if he comes to power, which gives me reason enough to to support the egg-projecting youth. Pelting Paroubek with eggs is, at its most basic level, a sign that the youth have embraced Hope and thrown off the Yolk of Apathy.
May 28, 2009 at 8:37 am
I agree with you completely! While freedom of speech is important, the other side that may be brutally affected by Paroubek’s policy has its rights, too.
The egg throwing is an offence, it is a balanced arrangement, and some people take the risk of the significant fines to make it clear that Paroubek is a liar when he says that he speaks on behalf of all the people during his hateful demagogic speeches.
He is not, and if the eggs are necessary to make it clear, then there should be eggs.
I am convinced that Police won’t allow the eggs to become stones. Eggs are friendly tools, after all: Prague has quite some tradition with defenestrations which is much more violent.
On the other hand, Prague has much wider experience with a silent acceptance of non-democratic leaders and their policies, whether they are Stalin, Hitler, Gottwald, or Brezhnev, and a good-spirited semi-physical demonstration of disagreement – and the limits that the socialist plans may face – is refreshing.
After having read what the Facebook members say, I think that they’re pretty peaceful, in some sense more friendly than Paroubek himself, and I wouldn’t endorse stronger harrassment of them without a sufficient reason, and the eggs are not a sufficient reason.
On the other hand, many of those young people are apolitical, just having some fun, or being upset about the techno party that Paroubek stopped in 2005. While Topolanek may enjoy this activity against Paroubek at home, he is completely right when he says that he doesn’t organize, and it is simply shameful for Paroubek to say otherwise.
Such proclamations only strengthen Paroubek’s image as a liar and dirty player who deserves several additional eggs relatively to what he deserved yesterday.
The video on that website can be shared by click at “Sdilet” (share) and then one more middle click that does the embedding code, see my blog for the code.
June 2, 2009 at 5:52 pm
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