Vaclav Havel

Václav Havel was a political dissident, prisoner, and playwright before becoming president of Czechoslovakia in 1989. He has devoted his life to fighting against the Communist regime and defending human rights. In the 1970s, Havel was arrested and jailed for his human rights activism. He continued to write plays that he was not allowed sell or produce, and survived by stacking barrels in a brewery. In Summer Meditations (1992) he wrote, "With no embarrassment, no stage fright, no hesitation, I did everything I had to do." As president, Havel reduced his country’s dependence on its arms industry and worked to protect human rights. He also appointed musician Frank Zappa to the Ministry of Culture for a brief time, causing outrage in the conservative community.

In The Quiver of a Shrub in California, Václav Havel writes,
None of us knows how the quiver of a shrub in California affects the mental state of a coal miner in North Bohemia or how his mental state affects the quivering of the shrub. I believe that we have little chance of averting an environmental catastrophe unless we recognize that we are not the masters of Being, but only a part of Being, and it makes little difference that we are the only part of Being known so far that is not only conscious of its own being but is even conscious of the fact that it will one day come to an end.

The essay The Quiver of a Shrub in California appears in the book An Ear to the Ground, an anthology of the works of Václav Havel, Arun Gandhi, Horton Foote, and 75 emerging writers. Click here for more information on An Ear to the Ground
*Also by Václav Havel*
		*Summer Meditations* In a work written while he was president of Czechoslovakia, Havel offers profound reflections upon the nature and practice of politics throughout the world, and extends a stirring call for a moral political system, a responsible free market, and a statecraft that honors human needs. Read about or purchase Summer Meditations