This weekend’s CzechTek fiasco was history in the making. At least that’s how it felt as CT24 (the Czech Republic’s 24-hour news channel) aired reports on the debacle every half hour or so yesterday. It was also, as President Vaclav Klaus has said (rather opportunistically), history repeating.
The images were sickening – a thousand cops in full riot gear, bringing to mind a thousand Darth Vaders, hit the five-thousand-strong crowd with water cannons and tear gas. It was something akin to watching a pack of speeding skinheads stomping the shit out of a flock of blissed-up Hare Krishnas. Things looked bad enough during the day, but launching tear gas canisters into a throng of inebriated, stoned, tripping, pilled-up, etc. people at night was stupefying – the brain-trust who ordered that has no right to be a cop, or to be gainfully employed for that matter.
Police intervention has always been a part of CzechTek, but usually this has consisted of the riot squads showing up by around the fifth day of the festival and shoving sending everybody home. By this time, people have usually had their fill, so they clean up the site and head off, perhaps grumbling a little about the fascist party-poopers, but there is always a general sense of satisfaction.
CzechTek 2004 was massive, almost overwhelming, and the way the festival has been progressing, this year it probably would have eclipsed all those that preceded it. Unfortunately, the intensity of police intervention has also been on the rise with every CzechTek, so it does not come as much of surprise that the riot squads took their bullying too far this year.
I understand the argument that CzechTek can leave rather nasty scars on the land where it is held. However, the organisers and many of those in attendance are well aware of this and usually do a very good job of cleaning up after the cops bust up the party.
This year, for the first time in the festival’s history, the organisers had been given permission to hold the party on private land. The puppets and pigs politicians and cops who put an end to the festivities argue that organisers “failed, however, to legally secure access areas to the site and owners of surrounding land asked police to block access to their property.”
That’s just a case of spiteful neighbours and nit-picking authorities. Had they known the cops would behave like brutes, would these landowners have called them in to protect their property? That is, if these landowners actually made this request – this “reason” stinks of bullshit being tossed about by the puppets and pigs.
It’s clear that CzechTek organisers have got to get themselves a team of people willing to ensure that such niggling details are handled beforehand. Of course, the whole point (and the beauty) of the festival is that it’s a non-commercial venture, so hopefully the organisers will be successful in finding legal experts who will undertake such a task free of charge.
While I’m not as keen on attending CzechTek as I used to be (Jitka was more up for it than I was this year), it is undoubtedly an integral part of Czech summer. It is not exactly as idyllic as, say, the first Woodstock, but it is definitely a Mecca for open-minded individuals, and something that the Czech Republic should be proud of.
CzechTek is something bigger than other neighbouring free festivals like Love Parade not quantitatively, but, in terms of individuality, qualitatively. It doesn’t aim to be a spectacle; in fact, many of the CzechTek faithful would probably argue that, along with the cops, the media and the gawkers should leave them alone.
Yes, Love Parade is also a beautiful thing, but in a very different way. Spend a bit of time watching clips or looking at photos from Love Parade and you’ll see people who want to be adored. Then check out CzechTek. You’ll see people who want to dance and be themselves – nothing more, nothing less. You won’t see very many people at CzechTek mugging for the cameras. Flipping the bird or sticking out their tongues, yes, but no posing.
CzechTek is something pure and wonderful, it’s the best of DIY culture, Czech-style. Losing it would be would be more than sad, it would be disgraceful.
Aug 2, 09:12 (Filed under: Culture )
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