The power of Charter 77: Signatures matter, but that’s only part of the story.

As a proud U.S. citizen presently living in the Czech Republic, I am often reminded of Charter 77 and the heroic few dozen men and women who were the original signatories to that dissident document in the former communist Czechoslovakia. Charter 77 is most notably associated with Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who became the first president of free Czechoslovakia after the communists were thrown out. Charter 77 and the movement that grew up around it were very influential in ultimately driving the communists from power, but it didn’t happen overnight. Only a few signed that declaration, but everybody in the country knew about it. And the more the authoritarian government and its communist supporters tried to suppress it, the more powerful Charter 77 became. The Charter only asked that citizens be accorded the basic human rights due to them under international agreements their government had ratified. Those early signers of Charter 77 were brave men and women. They knew that under the communists they would likely lose their jobs, perhaps their homes, their children could be prohibited from attending good schools, they would be subject to secret police intimidation and prison, and possibly even sent as slave laborers to work in uranium mines. If they could take that stand for what is right in their country – under a brutal dictatorship – I can take a stand, too. Whether as a signatory or as an informed citizen and supporter, I hope you will join me.