Welcome to Talkback, a forum to voice your opinion on today’s Czech news.
This week’s topic:
Will you join the Czech gold rush?
As shares on global stock markets continue to fall, are investors starting to look for alternative ways to invest their money. The Czech Republic is not an exception. Lidové noviny reported last week that the Czechs have started investing in gold. Pavel Trtík, head of numismatics firm Zlaté mince said the company’s sales for the past few days match its normal monthly total. The company now makes as much as CZK 25 million on daily sales. People have to wait up to 14 days for some of the most sought-after pieces. The situation is similar with gems. Luboš Říha, board chairman of the diamond dealer DIC said the company’s sales this year have grown 200% compared to last year. People are buying everything from one-carat diamonds worth hundreds of thousands of crowns to even more precious jewelry.
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Your comments on last week’s articles published in Prague Daily Monitor?
Monitor reader Douglas responded to the story “Czechs sacked from study under Communism to be compensated”: “I have seen first-person testimony concerning the horrors inflicted under communism; indeed, they are far wider than just the effects upon an individual’s education. Yet I wonder whether compensation for those dismissed from universities will open the floodgates for other similar claims from those dismissed from high schools, pre-schools and other similar institutions?
As much as I believe in a right to an education of the best possible standard I have to wonder whether the money that will no doubt be ear-marked to compensate those who were dismissed from universities would be better spent in addressing those that have been dismissed from their homes, families and in many cases their own lives.
I speak of an ethnic group that was similarly affected at a very similar time. Millions of ethnic-Germans, Hungarians and other alleged undesirables were forced from their homes, separated from their families and murdered under the apparent jurisdiction of the now popularly called Beneš Decrees. It is these people who endured physical and mental harm that should be made a priority in terms of being compensated for an act that had no real legal order, and that was, moreover, conducted by a form of hangman’s justice. It is these innocent men, women and children who deserve to have their plight recognised.
The racist and discriminatory decrees are continually talked about as a historical event, but they are not. Many of those expelled want to return to their former homeland and contribute to the local economy, the arts, science and so forth in the Czech Republic. But by definition and because they where expelled the current government, in keeping with the current legislation will not let them return.
Many Czechs are fine upstanding citizens that the Czech Republic should be proud of, but there is an element of racism and discrimination within the Czech government that must be addressed. Just ask the gypsies: I recently read that suggestions were being made about expelling or rather exporting their talents to India. Then there is the ethnic-German question and the ethnic-Hungarian question. All of these are issues that need to be resolved to the satisfaction of both European and universal human rights legislation.
Every single European individual deserves to be protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, but the Czech legislature seems to think that this part of universal legislation doesn’t apply to them. How then, may I ask, can the Czech President take the rotating presidency of the European Union and stand up for its values, while his own country continues on a path of discrimination?
The right to education is important, but doubly important is the right to educate about the violations of human rights.”