With a new wave of revolutions in the Middle East, certain historic parallels come to mind. In the last 50 years many countries experienced revolutions, some were violent and others peaceful; some turned out to be successful and others failed or brought about a slew of unintended consequences. We remember the most dramatic ones, or maybe the ones some of us witnessed in person; others were forgotten or drowned in the stream of worthless entertainment news. Whatever happens in the Middle East, the odds for the positive outcome are not very good.

In 1968 the Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia to prevent it from straying away from the Comminist party line. The Life Magazine covered the events in the issue headlined “Czechoslovakia:Death of the Bright Young Freedom”. I don’t remember this subject being covered in our school history books; if it was, the official version would have likely be completely removed from reality. The only time anyone mentioned it to me was when my Father talked about someone he knew who was serving in the military in 1968 and was deployed to Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia would stay Socialist until 1989.

The events of 1968 play a prominent part in the movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being.