FORUM VOŠ Domažlice

Totalitarian systems in the developed world

This morning, March 20, 2006, I have seen a report on one German TV channel about election in White Russia, Lukashenko was elected and his opponents maintain the elections were faked. Lukashenko proclaimed that if somebody will be against him he might even be sentenced to death.

It is really strange that in 21st century we still have dictators like this man. Well, or is that not a surprise?? Actually, it is not, all over so called developed world, like USA, European Union and most probably Japan and China too, we have the same system governing our lives.

In the Czech Republic, at the schools I used to teach at this totalitarian and dictator-like system of management is performed the same way as Lukashenko is doing that in White Russia.

The phenomenon might be well called “ruling by fear”! This is the typical way of management in the schools in the Czech Republic as I have experienced that in last 10 years, between 1996 and 2006.

Many times I have had an excited exchange of ideas with the directors when I see that their performance is not good enough. When such exchange of opinions occurs publicly, in front of other teachers, then, occasionally, few of them come to me and say I was right. No one of them has ever shown the courage to express his/her opinion in front of the directors and colleagues. The reason is pretty simple: they are afraid of losing their jobs, and thus their income. This type of fear is misused always by extremely poor directors, managers or politicians.

Thus our “last dictator in Europe”, as Lukashenko is called in the west, is in reality not the last dictator; we have plenty of them on different levels of management of human society, in schools, in factories and in town halls etc.

We will have to pick up our courage and fight these primitive, low-level dictators whenever they might emerge. We need performance being achieved by willing workers, students, managers and teacher, nurses and clerks, and not the performance squeezed out of people by fear. This is extremely primitive way of managing the human society as the whole or its parts.