Dear Mr. Joseph G., during our ‘phone chat, conducted in the Slovakian language (officially the most difficult language in the world!) you called me a renegade (“odrodilec” in Slovakian). As my feel for the language is not as sharp as it used to be I had to seek the meaning of it in dictionaries:
RENEGADE
-
a person who has changed their feelings of support and duty from one political, religious, national, etc. group to a new one:
- apostate: turncoat: of or like a renegade; traitorous
None of the meaning seems to be entirely flattering, but from you, my childhood friend, I take it as a mere turn of phrase.
We (my wife, myself and our 1.5 year old son) left Czechoslovakia with valid Czechoslovakian Passports (valid for 5
years, I think) in 1968. Two years after leaving we were both, my wife and
myself, sentenced in Czechoslovakia, in our absence, to 22 months in jail, and
our Czechoslovak citizenship was cancelled. A year later we received
Citizenship in one of the English-speaking countries, and we have been keeping
it for some 50 years now. At home for the last at least 40 years English is
spoken exclusively, including among all our children and grandchildren. Except
for myself and my wife only the oldest son can speak Slovak on a primary school
level. You put a question to me, whether I feel to be a Slovakian. Having been
born as a Czechoslovakian, with a Czech mother and a Slovakian father, the
answer to that question is not easy. I answered your question honestly, that
after some 52 years immersed in the English language, immersed in the English
culture, customs and habits, I feel more English/Australian/American/Canadian/South
African/New Zealandians, etc. than anything else, and I feel no need for
apology, nor any degree of shame.
I have never harmed Czechoslovakia, the country I was born in! Quite contrary, Czechoslovakia inflicted a considerable harm on me!!!
A couple of years after I was born it surrendered half of my country to the Germans (& for 6 years I lost the Czech side of my family, grandparents, even a great-grandfather, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.). Immediately after that half of the remaining half has been given to Hungary (and for the same 6 years I lost the Hungarian side of my family). After the second WW eastern part of Czechoslovakia was unceremoniously incorporated into Russia and a few years later the entire Czechoslovakia was put into the unfriendly embrace of the same Russians, for some 40 years altogether. Three betrayals within a short few years of my life...
If all of that was not enough, Czechoslovakia:
1. Sentenced (by decree, not legally!) my father from his job as a
taxation clerk to a job in a chemical factory, to shovel poisonous salts,
indefinitely, with no recourse;
2. A number of people I knew personally were robbed of all their
property, they were sent (by decree, again!) to do the lowliest paid manual jobs,
many of them to uranium or other poisonous mines (see my blog called Socialism for
details);
3. If you read my blogs. you’ll learn what I have done for the State
that was treating me, my family and my fellow citizens in the above manner.
Among other, I conceived the idea of the world Aerobatic Championship, and
pestered the authorities until it came to fruition, at the aeroclub Vajnory in
1960; I conceived the idea of building two radar centres in the
mountains above Bratislava (ref. my blog Air Traffic Control), and managed
to organize a great deal of necessary infrastructure; I was – unsuccessfully! –
trying to persuade the management of the Transport university in Zilina of the
need for an Aviation faculty (it has taken a good 20 years for it to
materialise); I was teaching flying at Vajnory, both theory and the actual
flying, for free, of course; I was lecturing in courses for air traffic controllers, again, for free.
What was my reward for all of that? Constant ridicule, admonishment,
harassment by the secret police, threats of jail, denial of promotions at work,
etc., etc.
And if all of that
was not enough, my State…
4. …brought against me, in 1968, a foreign army that summarily accused
me of taking part in an insurrection, and nearly shot me dead on my way to work
(ref. my blog Childhood in Czechoslovakia)…
5. While living abroad, between 1968 and 1992, all personal contact between my wife, myself, and our children, and our respective families in Czechoslovakia, were denied under a threat of lengthy prison sentence. Postal and telephone contacts were monitored, mail opened and occasionally confiscated.
If you wish to find any "renegadery" in all that, it was my country that was doing it, not me!
As the proverbial cherry on the cake, some 10 years ago members of my remaining family in Czechoslovakia publicly denounced me for being a thief, denied me any portion of inheritance I was entitled to after my parents and various close relatives have died, and, finally, desecrated and destroyed grave of my grandparents (and my wife’s father) in Bratislava, and the grave of my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents in Humpolec (ref. my blog Childhood in Czechoslovakia).
I am quite remote from, and ignorant of, your current civic affairs and politics, and I do not feel part of them in any sense of the word (except for the language, which is impossible to forget, and which I still use to keep in touch with those very few people that I like and keep in high esteem, like yourself).
One detail, by way of comparison.
On arrival in an English spoken country, I applied immediately for admission into my old professions in aviation (primarily as an Air Traffic Controller), underwent various tests and had to wait for about a year for the results. In the meantime, I worked as a telephone technician (at Ericsson), and later washed airplanes and workshop machinery at the TAA airline's base at Essendon Airport. When my application for a job in aviation became unsuccessful (= "application for citizenship still pending") I applied for a job as a draftsman at GM-H. Soon I became a design draftsman, an engineer after a few years, and in that capacity, I worked ‘till retirement in 2007.
As a design draftsman and an engineer, everything useful created by me was accepted with thanks, I was promoted to higher positions nearly every year, and my salary was rising accordingly. As an engineer I started my own private company in the field of electrical design, we were continuously busy and at various times we were employing between 3 and 25 people.
Compared with the country of my birth I have never been harassed or even
visited by secret police, no foreign power has ever tried to steal any part of
my country, nobody was interested in the political allegiance of myself or my
ancestors, nobody asked to see proofs of my formal qualifications (I had none!). All
that despite of me being absolutely unknown at the beginning, without
relatives, without friends, and for the first few months without any money.
All that I have ever been asked for was “Can you do what we need? Come if you do!” That was all, absolutely!!!
One more detail.
In Czechoslovakia I have lived all my life with my parents or my grandparents. When I was 30 years-old I got married, our first child came soon and I was trying to find a rented accommodation in Bratislava where I was born, living and working – absolutely without success.
In the “West”, arriving without money, relatives, friends, unfamiliar
with local customs and ways, we lived for free for about 4 months in
military-style huts provided by the Government. From my first few jobs I
managed to put some money together and through an agency I rented a two-bedroom
flat, fitted with a telephone (for which I was in Czechoslovakia applying for
many years, without success).
Four years later we bought a block of land suitable to build a house on, a year later we began building, and less than six years from arrival in this new country we were moving into our new house – my wife, myself, and four children that were born to us over the years.
If all written above is a typical description of a renegade – I
am wearing that badge with a degree of
pride.
I have no reason to apologize, I am not ashamed!
