“Dad always says they had a non-aggression agreement with the Civic Forum, and the Civic Forum people pulled the explosive material, true or false, about two days before the elections, at a time when the KDU-CSL could no longer respond effectively. It was definitely a dirty-trick, and it is often said that this ruined the election for it got the party down from thirty percent to eight, but my personal opinion is completely different. I think that the KDU-CSL was destroyed by the visit of the Pope, which took place in April, timed before the elections, to help Christian politics. However, I perceived the opposite effect in my surroundings that people saw some monumental buildings and people wearing tall hats on Letná and started to worry about what the Middle Ages are going to do here. Many of those people had an attitude, that they did not care whoever wins, but did not want the believers. So I think that the Pope's visit condemned the People's Party to failure.”
“I have a very significant memory - I think it was a celebration of the canonization of Jan Nepomuk Neumann, I think it was around 1988 in a South Bohemian town, I think it was celebrated in Prachatice. It was an all-night gathering, and all possible communities in the cathedral took turns and openly said who they were. For example, 'we are Focolarians and live like this and you will find us there and there and we are Salesians and we do such things', which would have been unthinkable in the 1970s, that would have been enough for the public security police to gather and lock up those people there. But by the year 1988, it was almost completely open.”
“The Jesuits are like striking units in the Catholic Church. They were founded by Ignatius of Loyola, who was a soldier. So he brought in very modern elements of management and obedience. Traditionally, the Jesuits work so that when the Pope needs something, the Jesuits will learn and do it. Such as special purpose units. Pope Francis today is a Jesuit, a denial of the principle that has been true for centuries that a Jesuit should never become Pope. The Jesuit is supposed to perform, it is an execution component. So this has attracted me very much, their abilities and competencies.”
“It was a big trouble at Radar. We may have gained too much courage, and in 1982 before Easter, we dodged the rule that the content would be absolutely neutral and did a screening of the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. A National Committee worker, Mr. Hejnoch, who attended the show, got up in the middle of it and ordered it to end. He threatened to make it bit deal of trouble. I played pretty important role in it, so I was threatened with penalties, but fortunately it was solved through school - I was on mathematical – physical university, then I accepted the admonition, repented and wrote a defense that I was not properly trained and so stupid, so I wasn't fired from school. Later in the public security files I read that they evaluated it, scattered my group and were happy.”
“As for the tougher dissent — I had a great experience or process. Often, when something was happening effectively, it turned out that the Jesuits were doing it. This is an order in the Catholic Church, they are priests who, moreover, follow very strict rules and undergo a very demanding, strict education. Very often, these people proved to be the ones you could rely on and did something important. I was so impressed and only around my twenty-two year I began to flirt with the idea of becoming an underground Jesuit. It was such an organized unit. It was a different level than those underground bands. I knew several of them, so I discussed the matter them, and I was admitted to the underground novitiate, which was supposed to last two years.”
“Among other things, in the late 1980s I experienced the onset of PC computers. The PC revolution. I immediately started using these computers in dissent to reproduce, create and share texts. At that time, a PC cost about 100,000 CZK and was often sent by some support groups from the West. Often one did not have to pay or someone brought it from a business trip. With the intention to support dissent I developed the first Czech text editor. Pragotext, that is how it was called back then.” - “That was probably a powerful weapon against the public security who wanted it - did they have knowledge?” - “They tried to keep up and did it in much the same way we did. It was not so much a question of investment and money, but rather of human capacity to get some heads there to help them. By the way, some of the people who worked for them at the time are in high office today. They're still the same people.” - “Seizing such a computer — that was a big loss…” - “That would be a big loss. But I don't remember that. It was just before the year 1989, which was an absolutely beautiful time, the communists had no power yet, who intentionally did not provoke them, was already safe. A lot of beautiful things could be done actively and at that time they no longer had the power to confiscate computers.”
Tomáš Svoboda was born on 14 July 1959 in Prague to a Catholic family of PhDr. Bohumil Svoboda and his wife Jarmila. His father had been a Christian Democrat since 1947, who as a FAMU student, did not pass the political cleansing and was kicked out of school and struggled with the regime throughout his productive life. He was helped by membership in the People’s Party, secretly cooperating with the Christian dissent. Tomas attended the Dauphin scout troop in 1968, and from 1969 to 1971 he lived in Texas where his father worked. He graduated from grammar school in the 1970s and then continued at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University. He founded an astronautic group that won an international student project competition and received the prize in Munich. He was also active in Christian youth communities, organizing events that were on the edge of conflict with the regime. In 1983, he was threatened by being expelled from college due to a public screening of the film musical Jesus Christ Superstar. He wanted to become a Jesuit priest and entered the underground novitiate, but found it wasn’t his path. Since 1985, he worked in research at a top workplace in Tesla Eltos IMA, dealing with information technology, installing dissidents’ first desktops and devising the text editor Pragotext. On November 18, 1989, he went on a one-month internship to Italy and returned to a free country. His father became the first deputy chairman of the People’s Party after November 1989, his brother Pavel Svoboda, a lawyer and politician, has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2014. Tomáš still works in IT. He has been married since 1989 with the musician Jana Březovská.
