[Yugoslavia Memory of a disaster] 1990, Vaclav Havel: the path of “collective hatred” (Quote)
(B2) In a speech given in Oslo on August 28, 1990, Vaclav Havel, then President of Czechoslovakia, explains the path that leads to collective hatred. A few sentences, concise, precise, which foreshadow a lot...
“The peoples of Western Europe (…) have the justified impression of having suffered historical harm. The hypertrophied feeling of having been wronged, characteristic of hatred, therefore logically finds favorable ground there. The totalitarian system, which reigned for a long time in these countries, tended to standardize everything, to make everything identical and, as a result, for decades he suppressed any expression of autonomy or, one might say, any "particularism" of the nations subjected (…) How can we be surprised that, at the time of their liberation, these peoples perceived their respective differences in an acute way?And how can we not be surprised by this difference, invisible for years, never experienced and never mentally assimilated? Rid of our uniform and our masks, we look each other in the eye for the first time; And this kind of shock of our "difference" which occurs, can encourage the appearance of a collective rejection, capable of to turn, without certain conditions, into collective hatred."
(NGV)
("Love and truth must triumph over hatred and lies", Vaclav Havel, Dawn editions, 2007, p. 69).