Slovo, Monday 30th June, 1997:

PRAGUE - The most important task today is to improve political culture, said Czech president Vaclav Havel in his regular Sunday radio talk to the nation on 29th June, 1997.

Politicians and journalists should behave in a more civilised manner. Their relationship should also be improved.

Politicians should realise that their public squabbling produces alienation and disillusionment among citizens. Opinion polls show that the Czechs now feel increasing revulsion towards the whole democratic system. This is due to the fact that Czech politics, as practised now, is of inferior quality.

Journalists should realise that they must act responsibly. Czech politicians and most Czech journalists lack magnanimity, sophistication, courage and the ability to look at problems from a long-term perspective.

President Havel said he was surprised at the current growth of hatred in Czech society. Bad news and bad features of people's characters are being emphasised at all cost. Everybody now says that Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus is arrogant. However, Czech pro-democracy journalists praised Vaclav Klaus uncritically for a number of years, shouting down anyone who held a different view. Thus they did Premier Klaus real harm. "Yet these people have now jumped on the bandwagon of condemning Vaclav Klaus," said Havel. He added that criticism was desirable, but it should be polite and the critic should be objective.

"Why did not these current critics voice their criticims a long time ago? Why did they attack me for voicing these criticisms?" said Havel. "Had Czech journalists been more objective in the past, maybe they would have been able to prevent a number of bad things from happening. They failed to do so because they were sycophantic towards the government. Now, with great energy, they are suddenly discovering America."

The role of newspapers is to inform the public about what is going on in politics, day in, day out. Havel criticised selective journalism. He said it was wrong for journalists selectively to publish scandalous news "which make the headlines" in order to increase the printrun of their newspaper.

(Jan Culik - Glasgow University)