Seeing Through Conditioned Prejudice.

When I was growing up the Cold War was still in full swing, and such references as were made to Warsaw Pact countries both by the Establishment and the media tended to err on the negative side of the propagandist imperative. Poles were putrid, Romanians were rotten, and Hungarians were… well… hungry. The message went home:

That part of Europe which lies behind the Iron Curtain is a wasteland of hovels, rampant pollution, and people kept in penury and ignorance by the evils of Communism. Only Western Europe has fine buildings, fine wines, and fine individuals with characters built upon free thinking, erudition and a sophisticated mindset.

And then the Wall fell down and people of my generation began to learn differently. This is a postcard I received this morning from somebody I once worked with, a Czech woman who now lives back there. She often sends me postcards and they’re often pictures of fine buildings. This is just one example. Not exactly a hovel, is it?