Democracy in the Czech Republic

Aspect of democracy in Czech republic: task for 4.4.

Politics

        Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk once said: „Democracy has its mistakes, because the citizens have them." He often stressed the necessity of discussion in democracy. Without discussion and involving more parties and citizens opinions, no democracy can be established.

        Democracy as such, is term very vague, as I noticed in my previous work. It can be perceived as an ideal state form, which is every modern state trying to reach. In reality, no one knows how it should look or work. In every state democracy has different shapes, dependant on the citizens, how was expressed by Masaryk. Anyway, it is possible to find some basic stones, which are the same everywhere.  

        The appearance of Czech political scene was determined by communist regime for a long time. Communism left bigger impact on the society as well. The transition towards democracy, and democratic policy was long-term stated by Václav Havel. Havel was a Czech dissident but above all the respected moral authority. The shift to the western countries and human rights policy was considered as inevitable.

        Shortly after the revolution a lot of right wing parties were successful thanks to this regime. I suppose that communism has left big scars in our society, but no one seems to notify this. Step by step, the gap and differences between right and left wing parties were deepening. In one moment it was so big, that this political cleavage was broke. Of course the traditional parties still exist, but they need to respond more issues than before. But the Czechs have a tendency to leave these traditional parties and support the newly created middle parties. I think that these politicians are gaining a most of the support from citizen disappointment, which came after the 1989. People are voting more for the parties led by strong and seemingly trustworthy personalities (Andrej Babiš ANO, Radek John VV....).

        I am not quite sure if there is one person on the world, who is satisfied with politics and agrees with the party he elected in every issue.   Anyway, in my opinion, as the time goes, the group of angry people, disappointed by politics is getting bigger. Alarmingly, when it gets big enough the mass society is going to emerge, and these masses have always a big inclination to support extremist parties and radical solutions.

Economy

        After the velvet revolution our economy began to recover from the times, when everything was defined by planned economy and non-existence of private sector. Transition towards market economy had a lot of consequences in Czech republic. Everything was happening in the spirit of corruption affairs and doubtful machinations, that could not be understood by common people. Especially in the situation, when completely new regime is being built. Everything is connected and if the economy has problems, people have problem with the politics and firstly it results in the mistrust in politics, followed by the increasing apathy and ignorance and in the end everything results in the political extremism.

         I think that corruption is and will be the big trouble in every democracy. All of the problems come out of advantaging someone or something above someone or something else. However, it is the crucial principle of market economy, which is based on the competition. Someone is more and someone is less advantaged. Significant is from where this advantage comes and for what reason. Certain intrigues are allowed, therefore the it is important to make clear where is the boarder of corruption. The freedom of every person ends there, where the freedom of other people begin.

        I am afraid mostly of the monopolization of economic sector. I think it is the nature consequence of democracy, market economy and the "good corruption". Under certain circumstances, it can perfectly okay. But it must have the limits.

        And beyond the limit is for example a moment, when the minister of finances is a person, who owns more than 200 Czech companies. All of them belong to the huge concern AGROFERT and they cover most of the key industry areas.  They are involved in agriculture, chemistry, media or even food.  The person who is behind everything is a minister of finances- Andrej Babiš. He is charged of subsidy fraud and examined by OLAF.

        On one hand, I do think, that this is eliminating the level of democracy in Czech republic. On the other hand I am aware of the fact, that this is not a unique event.  This is happening in a lot of other European countries for example Poland or Italy.

        However, I think that Czech society is still able to realize and respond these issues and the apathy is not total yet. Despite the fact that the voter turnout is very low, we can clearly see that everything what is happening is somehow resonating. This ensures my hope for believing, that the fate of Czech republic is not yet sealed.

Education

        Czech educational system is in my opinion satisfying. Czech republic does not have so big percentage of uneducated people, but it is caused by demographic characteristics. On contrary Slovakia's typical feature is a huge number of uneducated people.

        Personally I meet a lot of people, who I consider to be "secondary uneducated". By that I mean, that there are a lot of people, who are educated but they forgot it. It bears firstly on the people from small villages and seniors. I think, that they tend to stuck in their world and the do not want to learn anything else. I still hope that it is only a minority

        It could appear that the religion and nationality diversity can cause significant problems, but Czech republic is pretty united. Anyway I suppose that this causes the huge amount of denial and mistrust to other people. The political culture and Czech traditional approach to certain issues affect this as well

         There are a lot of elementary schools with Romany students only. The problem is on both sites. Parents of the white Czech children do not want their children to have a Romany classmates as well as the Romany parents are registering their kids straight to the schools, where they are within the Romany majority collective. A lot of Romany students meet misapprehension in common schools, but most of them are not even attempting.

        The problem is not only in the segregation of Romany children, but also in actual fact, that these children visit special schools for handicapped people even though they are often at the same intelligence level as any other child in a common school.

        The very next point is focused on the children (not Romany), who have special education needs. In Czech environment this term does not meet a lot of understanding. People are able to distinguish only handicapped from normal and there is no place for the children, who just need some other way to obtain information.  Due to that a lot of intelligent children attend the special schools thus their future is decided for them.