CEDAR RAPIDS – Egypt, Tunisia and other countries undergoing upheaval can, to an extent, look to the Czech Republic and Slovakia as examples in forming democracies.

Martin Butora, former ambassador to the United State from Slovakia, said revolutions in those countries share some similarities.

Butora, 65, of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, will be among participants in a conference at the Cedar Rapids Marriott this week, organized by the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library.Protests against poverty,  unemployment, government corruption and autocratic governance in Tunisia and Egypt are similar to protests in the former Czechoslovakia that led to the overthrow of the communist regime in 1989, he said.

“The (Soviet) regime was not able to meet expectations and requirements,” Butora said, citing chronic shortages of necessities and repression of independent thinking that resulted in political prisoners and other  ongoing conflicts.

“People somehow felt sooner or later that change would come,” he said.

Demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt and the former Czechoslovakia share another similarity.

“The revolutions are not exported,” Butora said. “There is a feeling of ownership. And in both, it really is a question of human dignity.”

Butora, a former journalist, is personally familiar with the 1989 revolution, as a founding member of Public Against Violence, the leading political movement of the Slovakia revolution.

He was the human rights advisor to Vaclav Havel when Havel served as president of Czechoslovakia before the country’s peaceful split.

Butora, ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2003, noted that each country is unique, so there is no blanket answer to how each will fare post-revolution.

Key challenges will be restoring and rebuilding the countries’ economies and forming a democratic government, he said.

Butora commended the museum in Cedar Rapids for organizing this weekend’s “Transition to Democracy” conference.

The event is the sixth and final in the series presented by the museum since 1999, said Jan Stoffer, director of education and visitor services.

Stoffer said past conferences progressed through critical times in the 20^th century, such as World War I and II.

Butora will be one of more than a dozen experts Friday and Saturday to discuss the transition to democracy from 1989 to the present.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic are examples of countries that stood up for human rights and against autocratic rule to become stable, prosperous countries, said Gail Naughton, museum president and CEO.

“This is a story that’s in progress,” she said. “People are marching in the streets of Egypt, just like they were marching in 1989 in Prague and Bratislava.”

FYI

People interested in attending the conference Friday and Saturday at the Cedar Rapids Marriott should call the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library at: (319) 362-8500.

See more information at: www.ncsml.org

Martin Butora