September 4, 2007
Assistant Professor of Political Science Shannon Mariotti Traveled to the Czech Republic in May 2007
I wanted to visit the Czech Republic because I was interested in seeing first-hand how a former communist country had rapidly, and by most accounts, successfully, transitioned to privatization and capitalism. This is a subject of relevance to my research and teaching as I am a political theorist and study 20th century critical theorists who explore how both orthodox communism and modern capitalism threaten freedoms.
I wanted to see some of the costs and benefits of the transition to capitalism first hand, at an everyday, experiential level. I learned privatization in the Czech Republic is, in some ways, a mixed bag, with some ambiguous freedoms. The same things that some people might praise as liberated progress, others would lament as cultural loss.
A few anecdotes to illustrate: in Prague, McDonald’s, KFC and other Western chain stores and franchises abound. With privatization and globalization has also come a sameness, a driving out of cultural particularity: many people see this as a negative side-effect of the transition. But I also learned that when McDonald’s first appeared in Prague, many Czechs were so excited that the fast-food restaurant became, temporarily, an acceptable venue for business lunches, a hot place to take clients.
Another example: exploring outside of Prague’s city center, I saw an extraordinary amount of graffiti on buildings, bridges and walls. Almost every available surface was covered in colorful pictures or slogans, often very striking and artistic. I later learned that this is a post-communist outpouring of free expression. Graffiti was not tolerated during the soviet era, but this form of communication abounded after the “Velvet Revolution.” While some would view this as vulgar defacement, others would see it as valuable dissident speech that had previously been repressed.
I was also surprised by how the religious imagery has historically been manipulated for political purposes in the Czech Republic. It is a highly secularized country, where many people are skeptical of organized religion and see it as a corrupt power. And yet, one of the most significant Czech cultural heroes, Jan Hus, was a 14th century Catholic reformer who became the most powerful symbol of Czech nationalism and is invoked today in ways unconnected with religion. In a previous era, the symbolic image of Hus was even appropriated by the communists, who emphasized him as a proletarian, anti-bourgeois kind of national hero.
The time I spent in the Czech Republic will help give an added dimension of color and vitality to my classroom discussions of theories of communism and capitalism. I will hopefully be better able to translate the feeling of living under both of these regimes, the experience of everyday life both before and after the “Velvet Revolution.” I will also be able to help my students appreciate the differences between communist theory and practice, and also between capitalism as it practiced in the United States versus how it is practiced in a post-communist country such as the Czech Republic.
I learned about a form of political protest that I had never heard of before: defenestration, or the act of throwing someone out of a window. Prague has a particularly rich history of throwing people out of windows as a form of political dissent: the first defenestration dates back to the 15th century and many others follow.
One of the most long-lasting changes to come from this trip will be the new friendships I formed with my fellow sojourners from Rollins. Fifteen of us went on this trip: people from the admission office, international business, chemistry, music, French, communications, Olin Library, etc. I only knew one person prior to the trip, but I truly enjoyed spending time with everyone and getting to know people on an entirely different level.
- Shannon Mariotti
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