“There’s nothing worse, than uncertainty…”

I am a great enthusiast of adventures and extreme sports; however, I am anxious about uncertainty when it comes to every day life. Still, student life is almost always surrounded by uncertainty.

It all starts with the restless waiting for the admission emails, scholarship acceptances, and goes on with decisions on internships and leadership positions in college. Through all those times, there is a high level of uncertainty. Yet, this kind of uncertainty seems rather secondary. There is always some kind of plan B– settling for a less prestigious institution, taking up a student loan, and spending summer break working a part time job.

Then there are different kinds of uncertainties; those that rarely have plan B options. Unfortunately, this year was filled with several such situations. The first uncertainty came with the British referendum this June. At that time, I was interning at a Czech Embassy and got to chat with the British Consul. The polls were close, but till the last day, it seemed that the ones favoring Britain to remain in the Union would win by a slight margin. The Consul made few jokes about Brexit, but you could feel the uncertainty in his voice. The next day’s result came as a cold shower. Britain decided to leave the Union, which brought uncertainty not only to its future development, but also to the one of the whole EU.

Another important question was the presidential election in the US. Hillary Clinton was the favorite of my college and all my friends on social media. There were hundreds of pro-Hillary videos and articles shared everyday during the campaign. None of them expected any other outcome than having historically the first woman in the Oval Office. When my friends from home asked me who’s going to win, I did not have an answer. Still feeling kind of defeated by the outcome of Brexit, I lacked the faith that multiculturalism would prevail over nationalism, and that free trade and its economical benefits for the whole world would be a stronger argument than isolationism. Consequently, I was not completely surprised by the win of Donald Trump, but it was certainly not the outcome I had hoped for. This election brought about a set of further uncertainties – the ones regarding domestic politics, but also the ones on the international stage that might have an effect on many countries around the globe. Nevertheless, the scenario I have joked about since the beginning of the campaign actually came true. If Americans elect Donald Trump, they will know how ashamed I feel of my President every day.

This leads me to the situation in the Czech Republic. I have never been much interested in the Czech political scene; however, that changed with the happenings during the last year’s celebration of the Velvet revolution. The students were not let to the Prague’s quarter of Albertov, where the Velvet revolution started by students’ protests in ‘89. Instead, xenophobic and racist speeches were held there during a rally to support the president. Since November of last year, many other transgressions were added to the list: The Chinese President’s official visit that resulted in banning Tibetan flags, proven lies told by the president, visit of Dalai Lama to the Czech Republic that resulted in cancelling of a state recognition for a holocaust survivor and a controversial letter of the four most important Czech government representatives, censoring a talk show of Jan Kraus, and the most recent draft of a legislature that would criminalize “verbal insults, including strong criticism” of the Czech President. I was born into the democratic world and I have never thought that I might one day worry about the continuation of democracy in the Czech Republic, as I know it.

With this though I am getting back to the very beginning of this blog. The quote in the title comes from an interview of an Afghani girl called Nilob, who fled her country together with her family in the 1990’s and settled in the Czech Republic. We recorded her story and created an animated video as a part of Let’s Learn About Refugees project that will enter the Czech high school in the upcoming spring semester. This project is a result of a Project for Peace grant program that my friend from Grinnell and I won this year to combat negative attitudes towards refugees in the Czech Republic. We believe that by providing fact based information and a personal story will help students understand the current refugee crisis better and will help them put it into a greater context.

All my uncertainties are far away from those that people who flee their countries encounter on the way. Rather, their determination serves as a great motivation to do something about the way the Czech democracy is heading. I am also very happy that there are other initiatives such as Zvol si info (Choose Your Info) that aim at helping young people differentiate credible sources from disinformation and conspiracy websites. So, even though the world is changing and uncertain, I have hope for the future after all.

 

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