Vaclav Havel has died:
In 1978 Havel wrote a long essay that would have an extraordinary impact and that should be required reading in Western schools. “The Power of the Powerless” explained on a profound human level why Communist tyranny should be resisted with all one's heart and mind and soul. It wasn't a dry political treatise — it was a work of deep thought and feeling that accomplished the apparently impossible: it enabled many Eastern Europeans to look with fresh eyes at the oppression that they had long taken for granted as the way of the world. And in doing so, it persuaded them to abandon their meek passivity and stand up for their liberties. Only on a very few occasions in history has a writer attained a unique insight into his society and expressed it in words that moved mountains; Havel is one such writer.
And Kim Jong-il:
Mr Kim's death was announced in an emotional statement on national television.
The announcer, wearing black, struggled to keep back the tears as she said he had died of physical and mental over-work.
[. . ..]
Images from inside the secretive state showed people in the streets of Pyongyang weeping at the news of his death.
Ruling party members in one North Korean county were shown by state TV banging tables and crying out loud, the AFP news agency reports.
A wash, wouldn't you say?
Comments
Although we all knew it was coming, I was most moved by the death of Christopher Hitchens, one of the greatest essayists of a generation. Too bad most people simply think "atheist" when they hear about Hitchens. That was a tiny part of his complicated life. And a reason you might want to quit smoking, Tim!