Symbol of the "Velvet Revolution," from playwright to president
A Czech playwright and dissident who became president. Under Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, he was repeatedly banned and imprisoned for criticizing the regime, yet kept defending conscience and truth with words, writing The Power of the Powerless and calling on people to "live in truth" and refuse to collude with lies. In 1989, as Eastern Europe convulsed, Czechoslovakia peacefully overthrew the old regime in the almost bloodless "Velvet Revolution," and the former prisoner Havel was chosen president. He proved that under the heaviest totalitarianism, a conscience that keeps telling the truth is itself a force that cannot be wholly suppressed.
In The Power of the Powerless, Havel tells of a greengrocer who hangs the sign "Workers of the world, unite!" in his window — not because he believes it, but to conform and stay safe. Totalitarianism, Havel said, is sustained by billions of such small acts of "going along with the lie." And to resist it need not be armed uprising — only for each person to begin "living in truth," refusing to repeat words they do not believe.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.