Europe is possessed of an extraordinary diversity and of a multitude of forms and facets but, nevertheless, since time immemorial, the fates of all its parts have been so profoundly interconnected that it is entirely justified to speak of this continent as one single entity, though intricately structured. Any substantial occurrence, in whatever area of human activity, always has had direct or indirect effects extending to the continent as a whole. A thousand times could a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Czech or a German care only for his or her affairs, and yet, the impact and consequences of their actions inevitably affected the others as well.

The Czechlands are situated in the very center of Europe, in an exposed location that was not spared by any European conflict; indeed, many European conflicts began or ended here. We Central Europeans thus rank among those particularly-experienced witnesses to Europe's interconnectedness as a political fact. This background has given us both a heightened sense of our co-responsibility for European developments and an increased awareness of how great an historic chance -- for Europe as a whole and for us within Europe -- is embodied in the idea of European integration.

In many troubled moments of European history, the especially- exposed position of the Czechlands brought the leaders of our State face to face with crushing dilemmas. The choice they had to make was whether to hurt the nation by submitting to somebody's dictate or by refusing to submit; in other words, whether to choose a so-called pragmatic solution or a moral stand.

A horrible dilemma was experienced by Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia, at the time of the Munich dictate. He knew full well that he was up against a madman's aggression, sanctioned by our allies of those days, who thus betrayed not only the treaties they had signed but also the values they professed. Beneš was aware that the right thing to do, in the interests of the nation's honor and for the sake of preserving its moral integrity, would be to resist the dictate. At the same time, however, he also knew what it could mean: thousands of lost lives, a devastated country, and the likelihood of an early military defeat by a far stronger adversary.

In the 1930s, Edvard Beneš embodied the best traditions of our continent. He helped to bolster the former League of Nations, promoted peaceful relations between States, and warned Europe against the advance of fascism. Possessing the foresight of an observant Central European, he had a premonition of the horrors that were imminent and attempted, unfortunately without success, to arouse the apathetic West. It was Beneš who –- against opposition on the part of Czech nationalists as well as of German supporters of Henlein's party in the Sudetenland –- opened our country in the second half of the thirties to thousands of freedom-loving Germans and Austrians who found in Czechoslovakia perhaps the friendliest European haven. Hitler launched against Beneš hateful propaganda, including certain stereotypes that, regrettably, survive even in the contemporary debates, often as an unconscious undercurrent perpetuated without thinking.

Beneš knew that if he decided to refuse the Munich dictate he would face lack of understanding or even rejection on the part of the democratic world and that they would brand him as a Czech nationalist, a peacebreaker, a provocateur and a risk-taker, foolishly hoping to draw other nations into a war that was considered absolutely unnecessary.

He decided to capitulate without battle because that course appeared to him to be more responsible than risking capitulation preceded by immense losses. Eventually, war broke out all the same, and the price for it -– a heavy toll of both lives and possessions -– was paid not only by the Czechs, but also by those who, in Munich, unwisely believed that they were saving peace.

The Munich Agreement is a historical trauma that has affected Czech thinking to this day. Beneš, frustrated by the Munich events, was determined not to let something like that happen ever again. This man, whose relatives Hitler sent to concentration camps, became in his London exile a symbol of the Czech struggle against Nazism and of our democratic tradition –- the same kind of symbol that de Gaulle personified to the French, Queen Wilhelmina to the Dutch, or Churchill to the British people. I remember very well how highly regarded Beneš was after the war and how much hope people placed in him, seeing in his person a genuine guarantor of our freedom, our democracy, our independence and our auspicious prospects.

So how did it happen that in 1948 the same man, old and broken, yielded to the Communist putschists without fighting back? How did it happen that this man –- an adherent of the European liberal and democratic traditions who was hated by Nazis as well as by Communists -– gradually embraced the idea that lasting peace could be secured only by expelling millions of Germans? It is cheap and superficial to dismiss this question and to simplistically name Beneš in the same breath with Milosevic or with Stalin. Edvard Beneš shared that concept with politicians like Churchill and Roosevelt, or like Sikorski and Mikolajczyk of Poland.

Beneš' behavior in the tragic days of Munich, as well as in the post-war era, will probably remain a perennial subject of discussions. I have always been inclined, and I am still inclined, to hold a rather critical opinion of the decisions he made in those fateful moments. Clearly, those decisions had something in common: on both occasions, a so-called pragmatic solution was chosen over a moral one. However, rather than dwelling on the constant criticism of Beneš for his acts of capitulation to evil, I am now much more interested in the origins of that evil, in the way it developed, and in the societal mechanisms that allowed its toleration. And, along with that, also in another phenomenon, extremely interesting and yet always somewhat neglected –- the special ability of us all to project our own failures onto selected scapegoats and to heap all criticism on them in an effort to purify ourselves before our own conscience. Instead of the question of why Beneš eventually accepted the Munich Agreement and the concept of expulsion, I am therefore interested in another question: How did it happen that he could do so in the first place, and that it met with so little resistance?

I certainly do not want to relativize any political decisions made by individuals or to dilute the responsibility for such decisions. It is part of a politician's fate to be sometimes called upon to decide for others and to accept responsibility for those decisions before those concerned, as well as before the judgment of history. I simply wish to point out that this judgment, if it is to be fair, must also pay regard to the question of whether some, by ascribing all responsibility to one man, do not attempt to deny their own responsibility.

European politicians, as well as the media and other publicly- active persons of today, should therefore realize that they are responsible for their actions, or for their inaction, if they either yield to the temptation to release the genies of nationalism and of old historical disputes from their bottles or fail to stand up to this. Unfortunately, reviving old images of the enemy has recently become a fashion in Central Europe. Let us not permit this to become the inconspicuous beginning of a pernicious course of development on our continent.

It is my firm belief that the time of the horrible dilemmas that faced European politician Edvard Beneš is over. But I am also convinced that if we were to be confronted by dilemmas of this kind again someday, the story of Beneš, as a person and a politician, may serve as an enlightening source of knowledge from which we could, in many ways, learn a lesson. His story represents a great drama of modern times. And every drama is a challenge to the human race. How we shall read this challenge, and what conclusions we shall draw from it for ourselves, is solely a matter of our conscience.