We know from a number of harsh experiences that neíther reform nor change is in itself a guarantee of anything. We know that ultimately it is all the… - Václav Havel

Our concern is whether we can live with dignity in such a system, whether it serves people rather than people serving it.

You do not become a ''dissident'' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.

A genuinely fundamental and hopeful improvement in "systems" cannot happen without a significant shift in human consciousness.

Those who rebelled against totalitarian rule and those who simply managed to remain themselves and think freely, were all persecuted. We should not forget any of those who paid for our present freedom in one way or another.