Speech of the Prime Minister of the CR Mirek Topolánek on the occasion of a ceremony at a memorial of victims of communism given on 27th June 2007

Dear ladies, dear gentlemen,
political prisoners, we are meeting today to honour memory of victims of communism; honour of murdered, martyred, executed, convicted and persecuted citizens of this country, who were suffering because of blame of other citizens of this country.
We are meeting nearly eighteen years after the fall of the regime, which enabled that persecution and which controlled it, in fact.
But we still cannot say that reconciliation took place and that we stay abreast despite our opinions and beliefs in quiet remembrance of those who are dead.
In spite of this fact – or just because of this fact – I want to emphasize that I perceive this ceremony as a ceremony at a memorial of victims, a ceremony during which it is better to be silent than to speak. A ceremony when it is not good to use those who are dead for politically speech for those who are alive.
My opinions on the communist totality are known enough. But I want to call on you to that reconciliation today. I want to call on you to find together a way how to unite our nation again, which is divided by horrors of forty years of undeclared civil war.
I hope that all of us are of the opinion that the evil, which the communist regime used, deserves condemnation and its victims deserve satisfaction. Let us salute those people and let us commiserate those blind, deaf and fallacious.
A harder matter will be to admit that it is not an anonymous system or orders from Moscow behind that violence. That concrete Czech citizens are on the blame, who committed violence; and no matter because of what belief. Evil is evil.
And the most difficult matter will be to overcome current political consequences, with reverberation of totality. Those who were suffering and those who were hurting are still alive. There is still lack of humility among the second group, which hampers the first group to show abundance of generosity.
I am aware of the fact that only time may treat those scars. But we can and we must help. We may shorten that time by our behaviour, if we get rid of rests of communism from our minds, if we prefer freedom, which is the highest value, in our behaviour, if we will actively defend freedom.
Let us pay homage to memory of victims and let us try to live in such a way, so that their suffering is not vain. We are morally bound to do that not only because of them but also because of our children. It is because of our children, why we do not want those old times, which are memorialized by this monument, to return again.