During the Velvet Revolution, Michal Lobkowicz found himself wanting to take part in the events that would change the course of his country's history. But while many were content with just being a part of the revolution, Michal Lobkowicz continued to pursue a career in politics, and in 1990 he was elected to the Czech parliament as a member of the Civic Democratic Party. In 1998, at the age of 34, he became defence minister in the interim government of Josef Tosovsky, and during his ministerial term he quit the Christian Democrats for the newly formed Freedom Union. Last year he left politics to start afresh, and he is now pursuing a career in business. Here he recalls the "fresh start" that his country made in 1989, and the role he played in the Velvet Revolution.
I think I was in quite a similar position to many other Czechs. I was young when the big change came in '89. And it seemed to be -and was - a big challenge for all of us. And a lot of us were feeling motivated to enter public life and to somehow help the country to move ahead and to be a part of the big change. So I think it was a really challenging time. All of us felt that there was a need for action and that we had to take part in it. I was - as I always call it - a soldier of the revolution, so I was not a high-ranking dissident. I was distributing materials and I was participating in all the demonstrations and so on. So I was just one of hundreds of thousands of people who were individually protesting against the regime. That was before '89. And then during the revolution itself, in November, I was part of a very numerous team - there were a lot of people - and we were traveling all around the country and meeting people. Basically there were big meetings in theatres and in factories. And we were going there and telling people what we were a part of, and that it was good. And that those people who were doing this strange revolution somewhere in Prague, that their intention was basically good, and that we wanted the country to become a normal western-type country. So we were acting like "agents," traveling a lot around the country and trying to persuade the people that what was going on was good.
