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PARTISAN REVIEW
humble and the example of their punishment is enough
to
intimidate others.
Rhetoric and pathos in politics goes against our grain . We do not want to
appeal to irrational passions . We know too that a humanistic society grows
from native roots; it cannot be imported as a gift. Therefore we do not launch
dramatic appeals for help. On the other hand, we know that just as we were
trampled on from outside, the destructive process may be curbed from
outside.
We should like to think that the world has not forgotten us. We should
like
to
think that young people brought up with pure ideals have included us
in their list ofsmall countries unjustly treated by the great powers . We should
like to think that friends among the intellecruals all over the world are re–
flecting on our fate, for their own sakes as well as ours. The world is mo.rally
indivisible; if injustice is perpetrated at one end of the world, it is an unjust
world. Cultural values are also common to all . Even the cultural legacy of
nations who have perished long ago is regarded as universal , something of
which the whole ofmankind is proud . If a national culture is destroyed , it is a
loss for the whole world .
However, this has not happened yet. Our fate is still in the balance . We
ourselves have some say by continuing to exist unchanged , but our fate will
also be decided by the rest of the world; by its influence on the policy of the
great powers. By deciding our fate, the world is deciding its own fate and
deciding what kind of world we shall live in ; the struggle for goodness and
justice concerns mankind; we are only one of the unhappy countries that bear
the burden of this struggle.
Jiri Muller replies on our behalf to the major question of our time, the
question of conscience ; we too, we citizens of an occupied country, are en–
deavoring to reply to the best of our ability on behalf of the whole world.
Prague, Autumn 1974
"I
t
