Insecure Czech democracy
Americans were brought up in the Cold War to believe that the Warsaw Pact countries were so fragile that the truth could cause them to implode. This was why the Communists banned Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and many Western books. Czech TV's 168 hodin told the revealing tale this week of the military-intelligence officer who was in charge of hunting out the soldiers who listened to the U.S. stations, read illegal books or told political jokes. Milan Andres has changed his spots since 1989 and is now a controversial "freedom fighter," and it's Interior Min. Milan Chovanec who is now in charge of internal security. He's approaching the task by founding a Center against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats. One of its objectives is to ferret out foreign disinformation. Has the CR reached full circle? Does it risk implosion because of foreign propaganda from a few websites that hardly anyone reads? Chovanec should consider reactivating Andres and assigning him the national-security priority of hunting out people who watch RT, read Aeronet and trade samizdat copies of Dugin.
Glossary of difficult words
to implode - to collapse or cause to collapse violently inwards;to change one's spots - to reform one's character;
to ferret out - to discover information by means of an assiduous search or investigation;
samizdat - the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, esp. previously in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe.