Volume 39, Number 21 · December 17, 1992
Czechoslovakia: The Pain of Divorce
By Paul Wilson
It is not that the Czechs and Slovaks didn't have enough to do already in trying to create a normal society out of the cold ruins of communism. They have to build democratic institutions that hold together and an economy that works. The expertise they need to do this has been crushed out of existence, or languished unused, or has been forgotten. It is proving to be an almost superhuman task, even without the additional burden of domestic strife. But in the middle of all this, the Czechs and Slovaks have decided they can't go on living together. They are like an old married couple trying to renovate their derelict house with unskilled labor while carrying on divorce proceedings, with the children, the inlaws, the door-to-door salesmen, and the neighbors all clamoring for attention. In fact, the whole neighborhood is turning ugly: just two doors down, an extended family of distant cousins are hacking away at each other and keeping people awake at night. The neighbors in the fancy houses across the way are getting nervous.
Feature, 7030 words
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