I have reasons to believe that I have been subjected to attempts to drive me insane. Would you look into the matter?
What are my reasons? To begin with, let me quote the opening
paragraph of Nick Cohen’s ‘The Pub Philosopher’: ‘The judgements passed by
Oxford dons on Julius Tomin seem outrageously brutal. “I don’t wish to sound
East European,” said one, “but perhaps he does need psychiatric help.” (The
Independent Magazine, 18 November 1989)
When it proved impossible to put me into psychiatric
hospital in reality, I was put into psychiatric hospital in the minds of Czech
emigrants living in Britain. Let me explain.
In September 1998, after eighteen years in Oxford I returned
to Prague; I was offered a Jan Hus Foundation grant for a year with a promise
of a flat and a permanent job at the Institute of Philosophy. These promises
were not honoured. I therefore returned to England. Shortly after our return I
found on the internet a Czech report of August 14, 1998 entitled ‘A Press
Conference of the Czech Social Democratic Party’. At the conference a free
lance journalist Sedlák addressed
Libor Rouček, the Press Spokesman of the Party as follows:
‘Czech TV
on all its channels presents Tomin. You too lived in England and therefore know
that Tomin had received psychiatric treatment – he allegedly suffered from the
fixed idea that he was Jan Hus … An unhappy man, who should have no place on a
TV screen. And this is public-owned TV, paid for by the tax-payer.’
The Press Spokesman replied:
‘… yes, I
believe that Mr Tomin is an unhappy man, and as far as I am acquainted with
public-owned TV in other countries, not a single one would produce such a
programme. But this is a matter for Czech TV and for its Council.’
The TV programme, which these two men discussed, concerned
the interview held on the occasion of my protest hunger-strike against the
nomination of Jan Kavan as the Czech Foreign Minister. I didn’t think that a
man who committed a perjury should be our Foreign Minister. What perjury?
In a sworn Affidavit of 19 August 1982, in The High Court of
Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, Divisional Court, Jan Kavan denied that a van
which he sent to Prague in April 1981 packed with books for Czech dissidents
contained their names and addresses. In 1992, a list of Czech dissidents was
discovered in the files of the Czechoslovak Secret Police and proved to be the
list sent by Kavan in the van. In June 1997, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary
wrote to Jan Kavan: ‘I have taken the precaution of having the official record
checked. I can confirm that there is no suggestion that you have ever been
guilty of committing perjury in the United Kingdom or, indeed, any other
similar offence.’
The verdict of the Press Conference of the CSD Party were
taken heed of by the Czech TV; I was not given an opportunity to explain on TV
or in any public media why I objected against Kavan’s nomination. In the
archives of the Czech TV is – or at least was at that time – a programme about
my stay at Oxford that was to be presented shortly after my return to Prague.
It was produced at Oxford, and had it been broadcast, the words about ‘unhappy
Tomin’ would have sounded very hollow. Most of the filming took place on a punt
on the river Cherwell; surrounded by the beauty of Oxford Colleges and
University Parks, I initiated the Czech TV reporter into the delights of having
the Bodleian Library at my disposal with all its treasures, of enjoying the
beauty of the English countryside on my long cycling rides, and of my daily
trips into the treasures of Ancient Greek thought.
On 18 May 2011 I read in the Wikipedia entry on Julius
Tomin: ‘Tomin … had been sent to a psychiatric hospital for two years.’ My wife
wrote to Wikipedia; the mistake was corrected.
In The Guardian January 6 1986 Polly Toynbee wrote:
‘Both Oxford and Cambridge had written to Julius when he was in mental hospital
praising his work and offering jobs any time he wanted.’
The Guardian published my correction under the title
‘No knowledge’: ‘I have never been offered any jobs by Oxford or Cambridge
during the time I was in mental hospital. The whole affair lasted 60 hours, 24
of those falling on Sunday. There simply was no time for Oxford or Cambridge to
write any letters. All this happened in the autumn of 1979, in the heat of
Oxford participation in my philosophy seminars. The Czech police tried to stop
my seminars; my seminars were open seminars; young people interested in
philosophy were welcome. The first move of the police was successful; they
prevailed upon the serving psychiatrist when they brought me in the psychiatric
hospital in Horní Beřkovice late on
Saturday night. I was taken in and drugged. All changed on Monday.
Professional honesty of Czech psychiatrists prevailed. I was released from the
hospital the following Tuesday at noon.’
But why am I trying to do something about it now? I live in
a little flat in an accommodation for elderly people. In the last three months
I have been subjected to repeated proofs that my computer, my files, and my
possessions are looked through, displaced, and at times simply taken away. But
when my warm jacked was taken away, it was a step too far. I want that jacket
back.
Why is all this happening in the last three months with
particular intensity?
***
Having got thus far, I had to stop writing the letter and go
to the dentist for a prearranged appointment. When I got back, the jacket was
on my chair.
In this form, unfinished, my letter has been on my computer
for more than a month. I would have sent it to you on August 11, for on that
day the interference with my work became intolerable. I began to write a paper
on ‘The Phaedrus and Laws
X’, which clearly shows that the late dating of Plato’s Phaedrus, dating accepted as
imperative by Platonic scholars since the early twentieth century, is faulty. The
late-daters of the Phaedrus don’t have a leg to stand on.
I wrote the opening
sentences: ‘In the Phaedrus Plato defines the soul as ‘that which moves
itself’ (to auto heauto kinoun, 245e7-8), and in Laws X he
defines it as ‘the motion that has the property of moving itself ‘ (tȇn dunamenȇn autȇn hautȇn kinein kinȇsin,
896a1-2, tr. T. Griffith). But there is a difference.’
At that
point my computer stopped working. I was not worried; this was happening for
more than two months. After a while the computer began to work. I wrote the
next few sentences: ‘In the Phaedrus the soul is emphatically agenȇton,
i.e. it ‘cannot come into being’, as Hackforth translates agenȇton
at 245 d1, ‘does not come into being’, as he translates agenȇton
at 246d3, and ‘is not born’, as he translates agenȇton
at 246a1. But in Laws X the soul is genomenȇ
‘it has come into being’, as Griffith translates genomenȇ
at 892a5.’
After this, my computer stopped
working again, and today, thirteen days later, it still isn’t working.
On August 16 I bought a laptop, wrote ‘The Phaedrus and Laws X’,
put it on my blog, and began to write ‘Laws XI, Lysias’ Against
Eratosthenes, the Phaedrus, and the Republic’. I was in the
middle of writing it, when I received a letter from HM Government entitled: ‘The
EU Settlement Scheme deadline has now passed – you must take urgent action to
secure your rights’. The letter was dated 09 August 2021.
And so I
wrote the following letter:
Dear Officer,
Today I have received tour letter
of 09 August 2021, which says:
'The EU Settlement Scheme
deadline has now passed - you must take
urgent action to secure your
rights'
I arrived to Britain in August
1980. On 9 September 1980, at Thames Valley Police at Oxford I received a
Certificate of Registration. I was given Leave to remain in the United Kingdom
until 7 - 8 - 1982. On 13 May 1982 I received Leave to remain in the United
Kingdom until 7th August 1985. On 2 SEP 1985 I was Given leave to remain
in the United Kingdom for an indefinite period:
IMMIGRATION ACT 1971
The holder of this Certificate is
exempt from registration with the Police, but should retain this Certificate.
illegible signature
for Secretary of State
Home Office
Date 2 SEP 1985
I've believed that this document
has secured my UK immigration status. Have I been wrong?
If so, let me apply for a UK
immigration status.
Please, inform me if there is
anything else I should do to secure valid UK immigration status.
Julius Tomin
I wanted to
send the letter to the authority that had written to me, but I haven’t been
able to find the address to which I should send it. Could you help?
The words ‘you
must take urgent action to secure your rights’ spurred me to action. I began to
rummage in my papers, trying to find a notification from a lawyer which said
that I may stay in the flat – in the house for elderly people – to the end of
my days. I didn’t find the notification, it appears to be one of those things
that disappeared from my drawers, but I found a cutting from The Daily
Telegraph of Wednesday April 5, 1989:
Czech
refugee starts 10-day hunger strike
By R Barry O’Brien
DR JULIUS TOMIN,
the Czech dissident who won fame for his underground philosophy classes in the
1970s, has written to President Gorbachev and Mrs Thatcher seeking their help
in regaining his lost Czech citizenship.’
I put the
text on my blog, and from that moment anything I write, as well as any articles
or documents saved, comes up on the screen in miniscule letters, although I want
it in size 12. Luckily, whatever I print, the printer gives me in size 12, as
it did with this letter. And so, I can sort of work, but the amount of energy I
must invest in printing any text paragraph by paragraph is intolerably
wasteful. I can’t see how I can go on writing the paper on ‘Laws XI, Lysias’
Against Eratosthenes, the Phaedrus, and the Republic’, which
is the next for me to finish.
With best
wishes,
Julius Tomin
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