“Our democracy is not yet complete, nor has it even taken root. Take the average citizen and their relationship to the state, to the government, to officialdom, to parliament; tell me yourself, do you see before you the psychological type of a ruler of the people, one who is aware that they co-decide on these matters – or the type of a grumbling, unwilling, and irritated subject? Do we, on the whole, look as if we are ruling ourselves – or as if we are grinding our teeth under the yoke of some foreign rule and bureaucracy? It’s not about whether we have certain reasons to grind our teeth; it’s about the mental habitus of our citizen, who has not yet grown accustomed to the fact that democracy, governance, order, and all of that is a collective work, in which they too have their piece of participation, responsibility, and perhaps co-guilt. Spiritually, we still live in a state of serfdom, subjugation, unfreedom.”
– Karel Čapek, About democracy (1932)
This analysis of Czechoslovakia’s early democratic days was made by Karel Čapek nine years before the Nazi occupation in 1938 and the start of a tumultuous decade that ended with the 1948 establishment of the communist regime backed by the Soviet Union. In popular discourse, the period of the First Republic, from 1918 to 1938, is often referred to as the golden days of our democracy, a time of hope and growth between the two world wars. In the Czech collective memory, there is only one event that carries similar symbolic weight: the Velvet Revolution, which marked the return of democratic rule to the Czech lands.
The narrative of the non-violent revolution, sparked by students standing up to the totalitarian regime and becoming victims of its violence, is a central part of the Czech national ethos. This kind of national myth, however, is not unique to the Czech Republic. While the anti-Vietnam War protests in the United States don’t occupy the same revered place in American collective memory, mainly because the war itself is remembered with grief, guilt, and a sense of failure, the students involved are still often seen as representing humanistic values and moral authority. Despite facing public condemnation at the time, they’re now praised for their foresight and courage.
Student dissent, in that case, reflects a broader dynamic: while often criticized or dismissed in the moment, student activism is frequently reassessed positively in hindsight, once its long-term impact becomes clear. In the case of the Velvet Revolution, we tend to emphasize the peaceful nature of student action, while the more disruptive or even illegal aspects are often glossed over.
The memory of anti-war protests in the U.S. also points to something else: in established democracies, there seems to be a collective forgetfulness when students push back against the status quo in real time. People forget that students are meant to be active members of society, that due to their access to education and ability to think critically, they are supposed to act as a democratic backbone.
This apparent amnesia surfaced again recently, when students protested Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s appearance at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Social Studies (FSS) on 17 March.
When it was announced that PM Fiala—also a former rector of FSS, and one of the co-founders of the political science program—would participate in a debate at the faculty, not all students saw this as a neutral or justifiable event. One major concern was the format: rather than being confronted by a reasonably chosen opponent, Fiala would speak directly with students in a discussion moderated by another student from the political science program. This imbalance of power and voice sparked conversations in the halls of FSS, with some students framing the event as a further example of the faculty’s politicization, especially since the current rector is an active Senate member from Fiala’s party, ODS.
The debate itself didn’t start on the most neutral footing. The moderator’s first question asking whether Fiala felt more like “Batman or super-premier” only deepened concerns about the event’s apolitical character. After an hour of uninterrupted speech from the Prime Minister, a group of students disrupted the event by holding banners, shouting and voicing disagreement. Protesters argued that a politician should not hold public speeches at universities during an election year, calling the event a veiled campaign appearance. When invited to debate, one protester declined, saying he came to protest, not participate in what he viewed as a political show. After tense exchanges, the protest ended and the debate continued, though it was clear neither side left feeling satisfied.
The media picked up the story quickly, and public reaction was divided. Some people supported the protesters, pointing to a similar past instance when President Miloš Zeman was prevented from lecturing at a university during the pre-election period due to concerns over electioneering. What was even more striking was the negative reaction expressed not only by the wider public—who voiced their disagreement with the protest under various news articles—but also by students of the Faculty of Social Studies (FSS) itself.
One FSS student initiated a discussion within Masaryk University’s Information System, posting about how ashamed he felt of some of his peers from the FSS due to their behavior at the debate. He explicitly stated that such “vulgar and rude behavior is absolutely out of place in an academic setting.” His post quickly garnered 867 positive reactions out of 1183 total, strongly suggesting that his opinion resonated with the majority of students. Overall, both the public and students questioned the legitimacy of the protest, arguing that universities should remain spaces for open, civil, and good-mannered dialogue without any disruptions, including with sitting politicians.
In an interview with Aktuálně.cz, the student protesters said they had been placed in an unfavorable position, as both Prime Minister Fiala and the moderator were able to evade or ignore questions. As a result, the students felt they could not properly challenge the Prime Minister’s views and arguments. That, they said, is why they had to resort to shouting—because they were not being heard.
It’s tempting to see moments like this—when civic spaces get politicized—as signs of a broader crisis in democracy. In his 2004 book Post-Democracy, Colin Crouch argues that democracy in the West has entered a twilight phase. In this phase, democratic action is reduced to voting, while real power lies with economic elites and technocratic systems. Protest becomes residual, no longer a central or effective democratic tool.
While this diagnosis might fit long-established Western democracies, we should be cautious about applying it wholesale to post-socialist countries like the Czech Republic, where liberal democracy is still relatively new and carries its own historical baggage. After all, democracy is not a fixed formula—it’s a concept that varies depending on historical and social context. Or, to borrow from Max Weber, it’s an “ideal type”: a conceptual model that helps us think about a phenomenon that, in practice, always looks different. Yes, the global rise of populism is real and the Czech Republic has not been immune to it. But the reaction to the protest at FSS seems to stem less from structural decline and more from the country’s specific experience with totalitarianism.
Democracy is a multidimensional concept, and reducing it to civic engagement alone risks oversimplifying a far more complex reality. Still, the people’s power to discuss and critique social issues remains one of its cornerstones. A 2016 study by political scientists Stefan Foa and Grzegorz Ekiert found that participation in protest activity remains a strong predictor of successful democratic consolidation. This makes the Czech case particularly revealing: unlike some Western democracies that grapple with voter apathy and technocracy, the Czech Republic’s version of democracy, though in many respects scoring high, does not fully embrace protest as a legitimate or necessary element of civic life. This ambivalence starts to make sense when we, once again, recall the Czech past experiences with totalitarianism.
The Velvet Revolution was peaceful, but it was also disruptive. That disruption came from people, especially students who were not afraid to resist authority. Today, the popular memory of that time tends to emphasize calm and consensus, possibly as a reaction to the repression and chaos of both the Nazi occupation and communist regime. But in doing so, we risk forgetting that dissent, even when uncomfortable, was a vital part of that moment. The students of the past didn’t just politely ask for freedom—they demanded it.
That is why the polarized reactions to the FSS protest matter. This is why voicing critique matters. It matters because beneath that is a deeper question: do we, as a society, truly accept the role of students as active participants in democracy today? Or do we only honor student dissent once it’s safely in the past? The public’s discomfort with the protest seems to reflect a continuing preference for order, predictability, and politeness in civic life—a preference that reflects Čapek’s observation that citizens still live “in a state of serfdom, subjugation, unfreedom.”
The debate over whether students should “shout on academic grounds” isn’t just about protest etiquette or campus politics. It’s about the extent to which Czech society has internalized democratic values—not just in ceremony or memory, but in everyday political life. If we celebrate student protests of the past but criticize those in the present, then maybe the spirit of democracy hasn’t fully taken root. In that case, the Czech Republic’s democratic project is still unfinished, as arguably is the case for a lot of other countries too. And like Čapek suggested nearly a century ago, we all still have our share of participation, responsibility, and perhaps co-guilt, in shaping our democracy.
