Sisyphus's fate: Vaclav Havel's legacy | Das Schicksal des Sisyphos: Václav Havels Vermächtnis

Abstract

Vaclav Havel's life seems full of contradictions. As a civil rights activist, he embodied the "power of the powerless" in word and deed; as president, he advocated the market economy, enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the military interventions in Kosovo and Iraq. As a dissident, Havel steadfastly resisted the communist regime; as a politician, he recognized the necessity of compromise. But these positions are consistent: the Archimedean point of his political thought was the principle of individual responsibility.