Jan 6, 2012

Remarks by Saad Eddin Ibrahim

at the Vaclav Havel Memorial Tribute
Jan. 6, 2012
Washington, D.C.

In June 2007 Vaclav Havel convened a conference in Prague with the aim of gathering his fellow freedom fighters from Eastern and Central Europe to review the outcome of their struggle against communism some quarter of a century earlier. Havel’s deep sense of solidarity led him to extend invitations to a score of Third World dissidents from Asia, Africa and Latin America. I was one of those fortunate invitees.

I had already known a great deal about Vaclav and his country. In fact the word Spring in association with freedom first came to my attention in 1968 when his predecessors tried to break loose from Soviet totalitarianism. Though that early attempt was brutally crushed by Russian tanks, my generation was deeply moved by the courage of the Czechoslovakian people. When Vaclav Havel, two decades later, resumed the struggle under what came to be labeled the Velvet Revolution, our admiration for him and his people soared. By that time many of us in the Third World had become disillusioned with our post-Independence ruling elites. They confronted their people with a false trade-off: either socio-economic development or political freedom.

Very soon, we would discover that we were getting neither, and our leaders were as bankrupt as their words. Middle-aged by the time of that awakening, some of us had no choice but to wage a struggle against native tyranny. I was 19 when I was first arrested by Egyptian State Security. I had reached 61 years of age when I was rearrested, tried and sentenced to seven years with hard labor by the Mubarak regime. In the darkest of hours in a cramped prison cell, figures like Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, and Aung Sun Su Kyi, provided me with unshakable faith that our struggle for freedom and democracy would ultimately triumph.

Looking back on the year 2011 just ended, I wonder at the power of what masses of people with resolve can achieve. What came to be called the Arab Spring would not have come about without the inspiration and modeling of courage that Vaclav Havel represented for us in the Arab region. I am heartened that he lived long enough to witness the unfolding of the Arab uprisings. May his soul eternally rest in peace.