Physician, lawyer, politician, educator, poet, writer, athlete… No, this isn't a chat with multiple people but rather a single one who managed to marry all of the above within himself. With Ivan Langer.
In an interview for our magazine in December 2021, you said that the new government has a difficult road ahead. How would you rate the year and a half of Petr Fiala's rule?
By quoting myself: "Words are sufficient to seize rule but insufficient to rule in truth," and, "If the goal was to achieve ruling status, the goal has been met; if the goal was to achieve something by ruling, I am unsure whether the goal has been met." This government is undoubtedly faced with the most difficult situation since the transformation of the early 90s. On one hand, it brings a change in the form of a prime minister whose public appearances and communication we don't need to feel ashamed of; on the other hand, I believe that, due to the difficult times at hand, it is coming to light just how unprepared its individual members were to rule. It makes me sad, but I still believe that the government will disperse my skepticism during the remainder of its term and the result of its rule and the balancing in the next election will not be the return of what came before it.
Speaking of returning, would you like to get actively back into politics?
There are moments when I say to myself why in god's name they are doing it this way and not the way I would do it, but I no longer have an active role in politics and my current goals are completely different. One of the most pivotal ones is building the first truly private university in the Czech Republic, which is missing here at the moment. If there's one thing that makes sense, it is advancing the education of the Czech populace. Education is a mere prerequisite for knowledge, but the more well-educated people we have, the more resistant we'll be to all sorts of "-isms": covidism, green-dealism, genderism, and many others.
Pardon me when I say that university degrees are a dime a dozen nowadays, and I'm sure that a degree doesn't automatically equal intellect…
I myself have met plenty of idiots decorated with academic as well as non-academic titles, which is why I say that education is a mere prerequisite for knowledge. The CEVRO Institute college, which I believe will eventually become CEVRO University, has never wished to be and never became a diploma printing press or a degree assembly line; we have always cared about quality. And so, it remains our ambition to blend the worlds of academia and practice to ensure that our students enter life equipped with not only theoretical knowledge but also practical experience. I believe that the time will come when the job market also starts paying attention to the origin of a person's degree and not just their possession of one.
You have a degree from the Olomouc medical school and law in Prague, you're on the CEVRO Institute board, you write, you paint… What do you feel yourself to be the most lately?
A free citizen who loves liberty and considers it to be the cardinal value in life that is projected onto each and every one of his views and decisions. A husband and a father of three children, an attorney and a builder of CEVRO University, a little bit of each. Now that I think about it, I primarily feel like a builder nowadays more than anything else.
Where did the idea to build a private university come from?
Freedom, education, and knowledge constitute one whole; I can only feel free when I know something about the world, when I have access to the maximum amount of information, when I'm capable of critical thinking and implementing its results in the real world. Stupid, or rather uneducated, people may feel free but they are mere slaves unto themselves. This idea is nearly 20 years old; after all, CEVRO Institute has been around for 18 years and it's been instrumental in helping me get my friends excited about the idea of building CEVRO University. A private university that will run based on principles and standards that many public and private educational institutions consider their own is a challenge. I decided to rise to it, and I believe that we will be successful thanks to the partnership we've managed to secure in this regard.
Isn't access to a multitude of information more of a threat in the sense that it further polarizes society and paves the way for a black-and-white view of the world?
There is definitely a rising tendency to view the world in black and white; I believe that some of the root causes are a lack of quality education and true knowledge, indolence, and a certain propensity for herd mentality among human kin. We make our lives easier and, rather than think long and hard about the truth, we accept other people's simple truths as our own and use them as a shield. I feel an absence of the passion for knowledge, for seeking, thinking, analyzing, that was present in post-totalitarian times. I feel that the world is moving in a direction that at least some of us don't want it to, that values which shouldn't be relativized are being relativized, and that the West is calling its very existence into question.
Does social media facilitate this black-and-white view by providing anonymity, which allows people to hind behind their avatars and avoid direct confrontation?
Social media bubblification most certainly facilitates the black-and-whiteification of society, wherein we tend to sequester ourselves and only surround ourselves with like-minded people and in so doing convince ourselves that the world is just like it seems to be within our social bubble. Let me offer an apropos suggestion that I try to follow: let us include within our network people with differing opinions to help us understand that the world truly does have color. If there is one thing that truly terrifies me, it is the creeping aspiration of the law to a singular truth, which one or the other party wishes to claim as its own, and if it happens to be the ruling party, it leverages the power it holds to proclaim this truth.
How do you feel about the frequent anti-government protests?
It's always worth taking a pause to think about the reason why people decide to go or not to go out and protest, feel out the situation, and employ critical thinking and inner reflection. If I subscribe to a specific opinion, it's bound to not conform in all aspects. It's completely natural for there to be people with differing opinions, which is why they are then seen and heard in squares and online feeds. We live in a parliamentary democracy and I hope it will stay that way. I do not judge, do not label, do not go out to protest, I would never go to the ones you mention, but I do not see a reason to look at those who do as people of lesser value. They are simply people who have a different opinion.
You played a part in the computerization of the state administration as the minister of interior. How do you feel that things have developed in this area?
There was a long hiatus after the projects we'd pushed through barring a sliver of hope in the form of the Right to Digital Services Act. Nothing is happening at the moment and I feel that nothing is going to. The Pirates' concept, which has been all talk and no action, leaves me feeling extremely skeptical if the sponsors continue to believe that tools can come ahead of processes. If you wish to make public administration and the actual execution of state power more effective, you first need to know what you want and don't want the state to do in order to make sure that it implements the simplest possible processes to do what it's supposed to. Only once you've conducted such an analysis can you define these processes and augment them with technology. If the processes and the extent of administration remain the same, not even state-of-the-art tools will change things.
How do you feel about Czech Post offices shutting down, which has caused a stir in the media?
I remember times when the Post was still in the black. It was given new digital communication tools in the form of Data Boxes and Czech Point at the time. What we are now witnessing is the expression of a primitive way of thinking, acting, and decision-making that lacks a strategic goal and communication plan and eschews dialog with the impacted entities. This brings me back to what I hinted at in the beginning, which is how unprepared the members of the government are to carry out their functions.
CV
Ivan Langer (born January 1, 1967, in Olomouc) is a former MP and minister of interior. He is currently a partner in the Pečený, Fučík, Langer law firm and chairman of the board of the CEVRO Institute private college.
He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Palacký University Olomouc and the Faculty of Law at Charles University Prague.
In 1991, he became a member of the ODS and was elected representative of the city of Olomouc three years hence, later becoming an MP in 1996. Between the years 2006 and 2009, Langer was the minister of informatics and the minister of interior.
He was a part of the team that wrote the laws leading to the digitalization of state administration, he played an integral part in the implementation of the Czech Point project as well as Data Boxes. And also in reforming the police force.
Langer likes sports (primarily cycling and swimming) and enjoys the theater, arts, and music. He has published several books, including a collection of "poemsculptures" as well as a humorous "diary" called "A Man's Guide to Pregnancy".
He has a wife, Markéta, and three children – Petra (21), Patrik (17), and Jakub (10).
MEMORY OF NATIONS
Ivan Langer's recollections of his time on the student strike committee and his active participation in politics are captured in the Memory of Nations, a unique project and the most extensive collection of testimonies of people who have witnessed events of the 20th century. This has cemented Ivan Langer's place in history, as he likes to say with a smile. In his testimony, he recounts the Open Past project, which he helped implement as the minister of interior. It provided access to StB (Communist state police) files to the general public, which was one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. "When I arrived at the Ministry of Interior, everything was the polar opposite of how things should be in a free society – everything was kept secret and the only things that the public had access to was what the state approved instead of the public having access to everything and only state-approved files being kept secret. It may sound like word play but it is a big difference, philosophically speaking."
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