I'm from a post-commie central European country. I had a conversation with my mother maybe 10 years ago, she lived through nearly all of the Communist era and she was telling me to basically shut up and keep my thoughts to myself. I've always been opinionated, she knew it, and she was worried I'd shoot myself in the foot. Don't make waves, go with the flow, that sort of thing. I argued with her, because back then I thought she was only saying that because of the world she grew up in, and I genuinely thought it didn't work like that anymore, that things changed. Then I found a job with a US-based corporation and gradually I realized that she was right and I was wrong.

At the end of 1989, with the Velvet Revolution, we got rid of what we used to call "the cold wind blowing from the east". Now it's back, but it's blowing from the west. We'll manage, because we're the laughing beasts, and while our country's motto is officially "Truth prevails", the real one should be "Blow me" - but I really wish we didn't have to.