In September 2009 in Bratislava, Transitions Online and the CEE Trust hosted Social Innovation Camp Central and Eastern Europe. This three-day event brought together Web developers, designers, and civil-society actors from seven post-communist countries and formed them into teams to build effective online solutions to real social problems.
During the camp, TOL executive director Jeremy Druker asked several of the participants to share their memories of the 1989 revolutions and their thoughts about their societies today.
Why the reality of post-Communist Europe has not measured up to the expectations of 1989.
By Jiri Pehe
“Now we have a democracy,” Tomas G. Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, said of his new country upon its founding 90 years ago. “What we also need are democrats.”
These words could be applied as aptly to the post-communist countries of contemporary East-Central Europe. The problem of “democracies without democrats” is as real today as it was when Masaryk’s new state rose from the ashes of World War I. Continue reading …
