Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-21-Speech-1-114"
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"en.20080421.15.1-114"2
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"Mr President, the 20th century in Europe was the century of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, of Nazism and fascism, of communism and its most terrible offshoot, Stalinism, of various right-wing dictatorships in Spain, Portugal, Greece and other countries. The horrors and crimes that are the legacy of these regimes must never be forgotten: I therefore welcome this discussion on the past. However, this discussion should take place on the basis of strictly non-partisan, objective and scientific criteria. Under no circumstances should it be abused for political purposes; unfortunately, this is often the case.
For example, if we look at many of the new Member States of the European Union, including my own country – the Czech Republic – we see continuous attacks on everything left of centre, on everything leftist. Right-wing politicians, journalists and so-called historians, many of whom used to be members of the former communist regime and obtained the title of doctor or engineer from the communist regime’s educational establishments, constantly attack social democratic parties as if they were some kind of communist or post-communist parties, in spite of the fact that it was in fact social democrats who, both at home and in exile, fought communism for 40 years. Czech social democrats died in communist prisons; they organised the first anti-communist revolt to take place in the entire former Soviet bloc, in Plzeň on 1 June 1953; they were on the front line of the Prague Spring; they formed the opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. I myself had to go into exile, where one of my jobs was as editor of the
. In spite of this, the Social Democratic Party is constantly being denounced as a post-communist party.
Commissioner, I would therefore like to know what the Commission intends to do to ensure that the discussion about the past is not abused for present-day political and ideological goals."@en1
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"Voice of America"1
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