Hedges: Every Act of Rebellion Helps Tear Down Our Corrupt System

Chris Hedges, who has a habit of being a war correspondent, recalls standing with thousands of rebellious Czechoslovakians in 1989 on a cold winter night in Prague's Wenceslas Square as the singer Marta Kubisova approached the balcony of the Melantrich building. She had been banished from the airwaves in 1968 after the Soviet invasion. Her entire catalog, including more than 200 singles, had been confiscated and destroyed by the state, and she had disappeared from public view. However, her voice that night suddenly flooded the square. There were throngs of students, most of whom had not been born when she vanished. Suddenly, they began to sing the words of the anthem, with tears running down their faces. It was then that Chris understood the power of rebellion. It was then that he knew that the Communist regime was finished: "The people will once again decide their own fate," the crowd sang in unison with Kubisova. Chris had reported on the fall of East Germany before he arrived in Prague, and he would leave Czechoslovakia to cover the bloody overthrow of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceacescu. The collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe was a lesson about the long, hard road of peaceful defiance that makes profound social change possible.
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