If you define a hero as someone who performs deeds which you cannot imagine yourself perform and which are marked by self-sacrifice for a greater good, Václav Havel, who passed away today at the age of 75 near Prague, was my hero. The 13-year old me learned his name early on in the Velvet Revolution, as he and his fellow dissidents negotiated the end of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia’s rule. With democracy taking hold in my country for the first time since 1938, details of his life emerged: […] Continue reading >