"The Courage of Ivan Martin Jirous" is an article about the Czech poet printed in the Washington Post on March 31, 1989.
Summary[]
Ivan Martin Jirous, 2007
Most individuals noticed internationally as mistreated by their own governments have won or are potential Nobel Prize candidates, such as Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Tutu, and Czech writer Vaclav Havel, then in prison. Such "[s]uperstars" are useful to human rights activists, since most people would otherwise not care, but it also produces the idea that human rights are only for recognized great artists, scientists, and religious leaders while numerous others also suffer. A less visible political prisoner is another Czech, the poet, journalist, and art critic Ivan Martin Jirous, whose primary crime is to attempt to live as a free person in an "apparently stupid Stalinist police state."
His recent offense was an open letter to the Ministry of Justice critical of state violence, leading to a 16 month prison sentence, having already spent eight of the previous 15 years incarcerated. He called for the release of prisoners of conscience, punishment for acts of state terrorism, and penal code reform with prison inspections by Amnesty International. Vonnegut says "God bless" Jirous and "all others like him in South Africa and Chile and Indonesia and Turkey and both Koreas" and ends with a comment he once heard in Prague: "Socialism in actual practice would be even worse."[1]
See Also[]
- "Can Prague Even Leave Jazz Alone?" on a crackdown against members of the Executive Committee of the Jazz Section of the Czech Musician's Union
- ↑ "The Courage of Ivan Martin Jirous," Washington Post, March 31, 1989.