This is an article which appeared in the German Newpaper Die Zeit originally in German, the English translation was do by Ralf Weiderman and Kristen Flory.

Die Zeit, Oct. 27, 1994

The Activist

Prague, Wenceslas Square, Museum metro station: Outside stands a
tall guy with long hair. On the lapel of his jacket is a button
that says "Protest" in Cyrillic letters. The man is an
American, but is called, somewhat unusually, Paxus Calta -
walking with a springy step in well-traveled tennis shoes. He
is a vegetarian as well. He repeatedly searches the menu of the
restaurant Variete, as if there might be some hidden section for
vegetarians. I hear he is 36. He doesn't drink alcohol; he
likes the effect, but not the taste.

He doesn't smoke either, apart from joints, which one inhales
rather than smokes. Just now there was an action in front of
the US Consulate: STOP US FUNDING OF SOVIET NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC! Paxus pulls a toxic yellow rad suit out
of his travel bag. This is Greenpeace wardrobe for such
occasions, but Paxus is not with Greenpeace. He is a member of
the Czech environmental organization DUHA, as well as a member
of WISE, with international headquarters in Amsterdam. At these
actions here in Prague and in Vienna it was mostly about
pictures; pictures for the Temelin Task Force in Washington,
with which they could show the American Congress that the
protest against the nuclear power plant in South Bohemia is
international. QED.

So, Paxus: international environmentalist; single and childless.
A girlfriend sent him his sweater; the jeans are also a
donation. He lives on 150 DM per month. Actually, considering
the stench, there should be a smog alarm in Prague today. In
Northern Bohemia people live an average 7 years less than in the
rest of Europe, and in Prague there are 20,000 US Americans and
six McDonald's as well as yogurt in recently introduced
non-recyclable plastic containers. The president of the West is
visibly called Coca-Cola, and his platform is obvious: "You
can't beat the feeling." Paxus took leave of the home of the
brave in 1988, but the West is making more inroads in the East
than he is.

So, back again to Paxus and why we are going with the Czechs to
Brno in the south of the country. Once upon a time there was
another Paxus, one could say: the son of a father who had 50
employees. And there was this American Dream whereby the
upper-middle claass improved their incomes. That also was Paxus
back then. He was - how can one say it? - he was the
university's "most outstanding student." His major was
economics. Wasn't software the big thing, those young pioneers
from Apple, etc. who earned 10,000 dollars in the time it took
Dylan to sing his "Idiot Wind?" Paxus had two software
consulting companies in San Francisco and Washington, D. C. and
was earning 20,000 dollars a month.

But somehow it was too easy, too fast. Too young he was already
successful and like his father. A future like a bouquet of
roses, but horribly predictable. "...It was interesting, but it
wasn't a challenge," says Paxus. Paxus dropped out, changed,
joined the anarchists and battled with words, sometimes with
deeds against US military intervention. Vaclav Havel? What
does he think about him? "Well," says Paxus, "Havel was a
political prisoner, like me, just in jail longer." After being
released from a short prison term came the realization that the
US citizens whom Paxus wanted to change understood change as
meaning better weather. When, in their thick-headedness, they
elected George Bush, Paxus realized that he was living in the
wrong country and became a political refugee.

His bank account would have permitted him to but a piece of the
West Coast. Instead, he took to the sea, hitchhiking on
freighters across the Pacific: Hawaii, Hong Kong, and then
Amsterdam. Just then the champagne corks were popping at the
Berlin Wall.

The East had been opened: wide unexplored pioneer land for all
sorts of adventurers with a purpose. Paxus had worked in
Amsterdam for WISE, an organizaton which collects international
information about nuclear energy. Also confidential and
sometimes secret documents were received from sympathetic people
in their respective ministries.

Paxus is actually opposed to westerners going on adventure
missions to the east, but the Czech group DUHA called him,
needing western environmental knowledge and an experienced
activist. So Paxus traveled east to Brno, with his toxic yellow
rad suit in his luggage, as well as a magic marker, a roll of
wide tape, and a pocket knife - things that every good activist
should have, according to Paxus (no, the knife is for cutting
paper when you need to leave messages in train statons, etc.).

So, Paxus, as he in a way follows the nuclear power plants
deeper and deeper into the east, like his forefathers went to
the west. Temelin in the Czech Republic hasn't yet been stopped
and already the Romanians are calling him: "Help us build an
environmental organization." But first Temelin! Paxus shows me
the DUHA office in Brno's old town. Here he works against the
billion-dollar project, against the Czech government, against
the multinational Westinghouse which they claim has greased the
palm of Czech Prime Minister Klaus in order to get the Temelin
contract, and not lastly they are fighting against the 60% of
the population which thinks highly of nuclear power. They have
posters on which Indians maintain that people cannot eat
money They have old computers. The telephones are tapped.

Paxus is immediately called from all directions - where ever he
is, he's wanted. Except for Paxus and a volunteer from the USA,
the five to ten people here are all locals, who in the eyes of
official Prague are Bolsheviks who want to sabotage progress.
The official language here at DUHA is English. The volunteer's
name is Erikk Piper, who joined a, as he puts it, liberal
American church to do two years voluntary service for a cause on
which side one doesn't really know how God stands. Does he at
least know if Temelin can be prevented? "I'm an agnostic," says
Erikk.

Paxus, again, shows me a billboard of McDonald's advertising in
Brno that has been pasted over with pictures of dirty, dark
slaughterhouses. In the West this would be a harmless protest,
but less so here. "McDonald's doesn't allow this," says Paxus,
"yet it has been pasted here for over a week already." By what
authority does the Big Burger "allow" something, one asks
oneself, and then hears that the police used tear gas at the
recent opening, not against the handfull of demonstrators who
were peacefully holding up signs, but against the press to
prevent the publicity of the protest.

Paxus came here three years ago to train the DUHA people.
Action training, non-violence training: he learned this in the
US. This is knowledge that the Czechs urgently needed. "I
mainly teach them how not to get beaten up by the police," says
Paxus. Dealing with outraged workers who defend their plant is
also practiced. Besides the practice is also the theory.
So-called strategy games simulating a year's events: a
pro-nucleaar PM is elected, unemployment rises, the people want
nuclear power. What do you do? How many people can you
realistically can into action after a small nuclear accident in
Russia? After a big one?

Evenings they analyze government documents: introduction to the
language of contracts and communiques. But Paxus also knows how
to build toilets, how to write press releases to put pressure on
parliament. The Czech environmentalists are still inexperienced
in these matters; democracy is still teething in their country.
How did the director of the Kozlodoy nuclear power plant down in
Bulgaria put it to Paxus and some others who had blocked the
entrance somewhat? "Black is white, light is dark, truth is
lies, thank you for coming to Kozludoy and here is a pen as a
souvenier."

Train station in Brno. Paxus has to go to Vienna to some action
meeting. "For your daughter," he says in parting. For my little
daughter, among others, he wants to stop Temelin, which is in
Bohemia, nearer to her bedroom than Chernobyl. And after
Temelin...who knows? In Lithuania there are unfinished nuclear
power plants. Westinghouse. Siemens. Everyone is already pawing
at the ground. Also the Lithuanians have asked Paxus if he
couldn't help them start up an environmental movement. "I'm a
hired gun," Paxus once said, and he comes cheaply: 150 DM per
month. At that price the East European environmental movements
can, so to speak, rent him. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE WESTERN
KNOW-HOW, both the bad and the good.