In May 1980 I was visited by Roger Scruton. I’ve given him a
text which he then translated into English with the help of my student Lenka
Dvořáková in one of Prague parks. He got the text published in The New Statesman. When I was next
summoned to the police, the police had the The
New Statesman issue on their desk. The text was published under the title
‘Without music, Mr Tomin … ‘. It was introduced with the words: ‘Exasperated by
the security state’s continued harassment of him and of his philosophy classes,
Dr Julius Tomin sent an open letter to the Czech Minister of the Interior last
weekend, announcing the start of a ten day hunger strike. He headed the letter:
‘Must it have been?’
Prague, 10 May
Mr Minister,
On Wednesday 7 May at noon I delivered in person to the
Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs a letter in which I informed you about my
serious worries that servants of your department intend once more to misuse the
19th paragraph of law 40/74 which empowers members of the security
forces ‘to demand the required explanation from anyone who could contribute to
the clarification of matters important to the investigation of a civil offence,
or other breech of statutory duty, or help in the search for missing person or
property’. I then let you know of my serious anxiety that members of the
security forces would like to misuse the above paragraph in order to impede me
and my friends from engaging in our joint study of the elements of
philosophical thoughts.
On Wednesday the 7th at seven o’clock in the
evening I wanted to give a class on Aristotle’s Metaphysics in my flat, to a few of my friends. I told you that,
should my anxieties prove justified and the security forces, under your
command, prevent me by force from lecturing on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Book 1, I would in protest begin a 10-day
hunger-strike. Mr Minister, let me describe to you the manner of my last
interrogation following the invitation ‘to give an explanation in accordance
with paragraph 19 of law number 40/74; and in the case of non-attendance to
face a summons.’
As I informed you in my last letter, I was invited to the
police station on Fr. Křížka no. 24. I accepted the invitation and came at
three in the afternoon; I waited a moment in the entrance hall until the
arrival of an elderly gentleman, who informed me that he was not acquainted
with the matter, and the investigating officer was on his way. Then he began to
talk about music, assuring me that I would, as a philosopher, greet his
comments with interest. He spoke of our national music, and its part in the
life of the nation, saying that, so long as our country lives, so too we will
play the music of Smetana.
He turned to the subject of baroque music, and of the deep
impression which it leaves on the human spirit: ‘Without music, Mr Tomin, I
could not imagine my life. I do not want to reproach our modern youth;
nevertheless, nowadays young people do not understand music as we older people
understand it. Bach said that all men should learn to understand music, and it
is true that, in my case, I did not grasp the meaning of Smetana’s Bartered Bride as I now do. As a boy I
could not understand my mother when she asked me to sit in the meadow and
listen to the song of a skylark. Music is like love. Sensible women tell us
that the best lovers are men between forty and fifty. Take Beethoven, for
example. How pure and sensitive a soul, and yet how revolutionary was his
music! He would have been killed among the first by the Nazis, for they could
not understand such music. So gentle a man, and how loved by women! His nephew
took advantage of it, indeed appropriating for himself as mistresses the women
who loved his uncle. But Beethoven needed to express, in love just as in music,
sensitivity before all other things. And so he lived, in the end, with a
hunchback.’
The elderly gentleman in civilian clothes recounted that he
worked as an extra in the Theatre, and that he had managed to talk about art
with our greatest artists. He described to me the structure of a violin, and
the art involved in making one and mentioned that he had discussed the problem
with some of our greatest scientists. Then, changing the subject, he referred
to the concerts arranged for the Prague spring festival, and commented on the
various performances of Smetana’s My
Country. ‘Mr Tomin, how Smetana must have loved the Czech people; what
beautiful relations he must have had with the peasantry!’
At about 5.30, the elderly gentleman with musical interests
was replaced by a young man, also in civilian clothes, who announced that I
could have been sentenced for damaging the interests of the state abroad, and
he began to read extracts from the foreign press which described, for the most
part accurately, the harassment by the police of our Wednesday discussions of
philosophy.
Shortly after half past six I was transferred to the police
station at Bartholomew Street [the police headquarters]. There members of the
Secret Police worked on me. Two of them in particular impressed themselves on
my memory. Policeman A – they neglected to introduce themselves – walked around
the interrogation office, and every time he passed me, struck me bluntly on the
head, and then pulled my hair saying, ‘Don’t go to sleep here, Mr Tomin’. He
took a step to the door, a step back, and repeated the performance. I could
relax only during the five steps that he sometimes took to the window and the
five steps back to me. For variety, Policeman A merely pulled violently at the
hair of my temples, one side when going to the window, and the other side when
he walked to the door.
Another policeman stayed in the room meanwhile, standing
motionless by the window. They did not interrogate me, but continued a dialogue
among themselves. A: ‘Could this be a philosopher?’ B: ‘Fortunately his
philosophy can be seen through by a little child.’ – A: ‘He is crazy and
belongs in a mental hospital.’
A: ‘They say he has a doctorate. I would like to know what
he gave for it.’ B: ‘He is in the business for money, what can you expect? He
must have bought the degree as well.’ After some time A exclaimed: ‘We forbid
your lectures! And you will listen to us! And get up! You will want to stand up
when I talk to you!’
I recalled, Mr Minister, the second paragraph of law 40/79,
concerning the security forces: ‘The security forces help the citizen to exact
his rights and to maintain his dignity and personal freedom in accordance with
the law and interests of our socialist society.’
I remained sitting. Policemen A and B jumped on me, pulled
me to my feet, seized me by the collar of the shirt and pulled me to the wall.
I leaned against the wall. Policeman A: ‘Take a step forward! Don’t make our
wall dirty!’ I took one step forward. Policeman A: ‘Now we see that you can
learn obedience! And it did not require very much.’ So I went to sit down. They
shouted and demanded that I stand up; then jumping again on me they twisted my
arm behind my back, and finally threw me to the floor. When I tried at least to
lift my head Policeman A hit it down. They were breathing heavily, and moving
wildly around the room. A kicked my head and, after a moment, they jumped on me
once more, and, by twisting my arms, raised me almost to my feet before letting
me fall again. Then they took my legs and began to lift them, in order to hold
me standing on my head.
At last, no doubt through fatigue, they called for help and
together made me sit down on the chair. Others arrived and were told: ‘Imagine!
He has been lying on the floor again! What an exhibitionist!’ The reply was: ‘He
should be in a mental hospital. Everyone knows that!’ After a while B picked up
some of the official record paper: ‘We warn you for stopping (sic) your
lecturing activities immediately. Otherwise we prevent it by every lawful
means. Do you take this warning?’
I dictated and they wrote in their record: ‘I cannot accept
this warning since it involves a contradiction. I am certain that there are no
lawful means whereby, in our country …’ At this moment they interrupted me,
saying that I had no right to the words ‘our country’ since my country is
England. The official record then remained unfinished and unsigned.
The group of policemen who worked on me for two hours left,
to be replaced once more by the elderly gentleman who had spoken previously to
me about ‘my country’. He seemed a little tired now, and so he spoke about his
father whom he loved very much, and who smoked a hundred cigarettes a day. In
the mornings he would cough heavily and he was now very ill; they all, mother
and children, had to sit continually in the atmosphere of cigarette smoke.
Apparently this habit of his father’s had begun in the war, and it was for this
reason that the elderly gentleman remained a non-smoker. He spoke of his mother
who had prophetic dreams which could be confirmed on the radio in the mornings.
He himself was a materialist; nevertheless it seemed to him that they could be
transmitted, just as radio or television waves are transmitted, through space;
a doctor had explained to him that the brain is more sensitive at night and
able to pick up influences which would not affect it by day.
The Policeman B returned with his company, and I was taken
to Konviktská St where I was detained for 48 hours in a cell. The reason for
the detention was not given. When I at last got home I learned that during that
same evening eleven of my friends were taken from my flat, interrogated and
detained for forty-eight hours. Mr Minister, I hereby announce that on
Wednesday 7th at 6.30 pm in the afternoon I began a ten-day hunger
strike.
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