<HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Adobe PageMill 3.0 Win"> <TITLE>Die Zeit Article</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY> <P>This is an article which appeared in the German Newspaper Die Zeit originally in German, the English translation was do by Ralf Weiderman and Kristen Flory.</P> <P>Die Zeit, Oct. 27, 1994</P> <P>The Activist</P> <P>Prague, Wenceslas Square, Museum metro station: Outside stands a<BR> tall guy with long hair. On the lapel of his jacket is a button<BR> that says "Protest" in Cyrillic letters. The man is an<BR> American, but is called, somewhat unusually, Paxus Calta -<BR> walking with a springy step in well-traveled tennis shoes. He<BR> is a vegetarian as well. He repeatedly searches the menu of the<BR> restaurant Variete, as if there might be some hidden section for<BR> vegetarians. I hear he is 36. He doesn't drink alcohol; he<BR> likes the effect, but not the taste.</P> <P>He doesn't smoke either, apart from joints, which one inhales<BR> rather than smokes. Just now there was an action in front of<BR> the US Consulate: STOP US FUNDING OF SOVIET NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS<BR> IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC! Paxus pulls a toxic yellow rad suit out<BR> of his travel bag. This is Greenpeace wardrobe for such<BR> occasions, but Paxus is not with Greenpeace. He is a member of<BR> the Czech environmental organization DUHA, as well as a member<BR> of WISE, with international headquarters in Amsterdam. At these<BR> actions here in Prague and in Vienna it was mostly about<BR> pictures; pictures for the Temelin Task Force in Washington,<BR> with which they could show the American Congress that the<BR> protest against the nuclear power plant in South Bohemia is<BR> international. QED.</P> <P>So, Paxus: international environmentalist; single and childless.<BR> A girlfriend sent him his sweater; the jeans are also a<BR> donation. He lives on 150 DM per month. Actually, considering<BR> the stench, there should be a smog alarm in Prague today. In<BR> Northern Bohemia people live an average 7 years less than in the<BR> rest of Europe, and in Prague there are 20,000 US Americans and<BR> six McDonald's as well as yogurt in recently introduced<BR> non-recyclable plastic containers. The president of the West is<BR> visibly called Coca-Cola, and his platform is obvious: "You<BR> can't beat the feeling." Paxus took leave of the home of the<BR> brave in 1988, but the West is making more inroads in the East<BR> than he is.</P> <P>So, back again to Paxus and why we are going with the Czechs to<BR> Brno in the south of the country. Once upon a time there was<BR> another Paxus, one could say: the son of a father who had 50<BR> employees. And there was this American Dream whereby the<BR> upper-middle class improved their incomes. That also was Paxus<BR> back then. He was - how can one say it? - he was the<BR> university's "most outstanding student." His major was<BR> economics. Wasn't software the big thing, those young pioneers<BR> from Apple, etc. who earned 10,000 dollars in the time it took<BR> Dylan to sing his "Idiot Wind?" Paxus had two software<BR> consulting companies in San Francisco and Washington, D. C. and<BR> was earning 20,000 dollars a month.</P> <P>But somehow it was too easy, too fast. Too young he was already<BR> successful and like his father. A future like a bouquet of<BR> roses, but horribly predictable. "...It was interesting, but it<BR> wasn't a challenge," says Paxus. Paxus dropped out, changed,<BR> joined the anarchists and battled with words, sometimes with<BR> deeds against US military intervention. Vaclav Havel? What<BR> does he think about him? "Well," says Paxus, "Havel was a<BR> political prisoner, like me, just in jail longer." After being<BR> released from a short prison term came the realization that the<BR> US citizens whom Paxus wanted to change understood change as<BR> meaning better weather. When, in their thick-headedness, they<BR> elected George Bush, Paxus realized that he was living in the<BR> wrong country and became a political refugee.</P> <P>His bank account would have permitted him to but a piece of the<BR> West Coast. Instead, he took to the sea, hitchhiking on<BR> freighters across the Pacific: Hawaii, Hong Kong, and then<BR> Amsterdam. Just then the champagne corks were popping at the<BR> Berlin Wall.</P> <P>The East had been opened: wide unexplored pioneer land for all<BR> sorts of adventurers with a purpose. Paxus had worked in<BR> Amsterdam for WISE, an organization which collects international<BR> information about nuclear energy. Also confidential and<BR> sometimes secret documents were received from sympathetic people<BR> in their respective ministries.</P> <P>Paxus is actually opposed to westerners going on adventure<BR> missions to the east, but the Czech group DUHA called him,<BR> needing western environmental knowledge and an experienced<BR> activist. So Paxus traveled east to Brno, with his toxic yellow<BR> rad suit in his luggage, as well as a magic marker, a roll of<BR> wide tape, and a pocket knife - things that every good activist<BR> should have, according to Paxus (no, the knife is for cutting<BR> paper when you need to leave messages in train stations, etc.).</P> <P>So, Paxus, as he in a way follows the nuclear power plants<BR> deeper and deeper into the east, like his forefathers went to<BR> the west. Temelin in the Czech Republic hasn't yet been stopped<BR> and already the Romanians are calling him: "Help us build an<BR> environmental organization." But first Temelin! Paxus shows me<BR> the DUHA office in Brno's old town. Here he works against the<BR> billion-dollar project, against the Czech government, against<BR> the multinational Westinghouse which they claim has greased the<BR> palm of Czech Prime Minister Klaus in order to get the Temelin<BR> contract, and not lastly they are fighting against the 60% of<BR> the population which thinks highly of nuclear power. They have<BR> posters on which Indians maintain that people cannot eat<BR> money They have old computers. The telephones are tapped.</P> <P>Paxus is immediately called from all directions - where ever he<BR> is, he's wanted. Except for Paxus and a volunteer from the USA,<BR> the five to ten people here are all locals, who in the eyes of<BR> official Prague are Bolsheviks who want to sabotage progress.<BR> The official language here at DUHA is English. The volunteer's<BR> name is Erikk Piper, who joined a, as he puts it, liberal<BR> American church to do two years voluntary service for a cause on<BR> which side one doesn't really know how God stands. Does he at<BR> least know if Temelin can be prevented? "I'm an agnostic," says<BR> Erikk.</P> <P>Paxus, again, shows me a billboard of McDonald's advertising in<BR> Brno that has been pasted over with pictures of dirty, dark<BR> slaughterhouses. In the West this would be a harmless protest,<BR> but less so here. "McDonald's doesn't allow this," says Paxus,<BR> "yet it has been pasted here for over a week already." By what<BR> authority does the Big Burger "allow" something, one asks<BR> oneself, and then hears that the police used tear gas at the<BR> recent opening, not against the handful of demonstrators who<BR> were peacefully holding up signs, but against the press to<BR> prevent the publicity of the protest.</P> <P>Paxus came here three years ago to train the DUHA people.<BR> Action training, non-violence training: he learned this in the<BR> US. This is knowledge that the Czechs urgently needed. "I<BR> mainly teach them how not to get beaten up by the police," says<BR> Paxus. Dealing with outraged workers who defend their plant is<BR> also practiced. Besides the practice is also the theory.<BR> So-called strategy games simulating a year's events: a<BR> pro-nuclear PM is elected, unemployment rises, the people want<BR> nuclear power. What do you do? How many people can you<BR> realistically can into action after a small nuclear accident in<BR> Russia? After a big one?</P> <P>Evenings they analyze government documents: introduction to the<BR> language of contracts and communiques. But Paxus also knows how<BR> to build toilets, how to write press releases to put pressure on<BR> parliament. The Czech environmentalists are still inexperienced<BR> in these matters; democracy is still teething in their country.<BR> How did the director of the Kozlodoy nuclear power plant down in<BR> Bulgaria put it to Paxus and some others who had blocked the<BR> entrance somewhat? "Black is white, light is dark, truth is<BR> lies, thank you for coming to Kozludoy and here is a pen as a<BR> souvenir."</P> <P>Train station in Brno. Paxus has to go to Vienna to some action<BR> meeting. "For your daughter," he says in parting. For my little<BR> daughter, among others, he wants to stop Temelin, which is in<BR> Bohemia, nearer to her bedroom than Chernobyl. And after<BR> Temelin...who knows? In Lithuania there are unfinished nuclear<BR> power plants. Westinghouse. Siemens. Everyone is already pawing<BR> at the ground. Also the Lithuanians have asked Paxus if he<BR> couldn't help them start up an environmental movement. "I'm a<BR> hired gun," Paxus once said, and he comes cheaply: 150 DM per<BR> month. At that price the East European environmental movements<BR> can, so to speak, rent him. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE WESTERN<BR> KNOW-HOW, both the bad and the good. </BODY> </HTML>