On our way to a picnic in Prague, Honza took us by what is known as the John Lennon Peace Wall. To stand freely in front of this wall was breathtaking. To think that people risked inprisonment to come and scribe a message of love or peace or freedom. It just confirmed my belief that music can touch people's souls.
Below is an excerpt from bagism.com about the wall:
Lennon was a pacifist hero for the Czech subculture during the totalitarian era. In the decade following the collapse of Communism, the Lennon Wall came to represent not only a memorial to Lennon and his ideas, but also a monument to free speech and the non-violent rebellion of Czech youth against the repressions of neo-Stalinism.
Shortly after Lennon's death in 1980, under the ever watchful eyes of the Communist secret police, an anonymous group of Prague youth set up a mock grave for the ex-Beatle. The event was spontaneous, much in the same way that fans in New York City had gathered at Central Park upon hearing of Lennon's death. But unlike the gathering in New York, mourners in Prague risked prison for what authorities called "subversive activities against the state."
Prague's mock tombstone was, in fact, a recess within a garden wall that forms the backside of a 14th century churchyard. At the time of Lennon's death, western pop songs were banned by Communist authorities and some Czech musicians who played the music were sent to jail for the offense.But the threat of prison couldn't keep people from slipping into the square at night to scrawl graffiti epitaphs in honor of their underground hero. The Communist police tried repeatedly to whitewash over the graffiti but they could never manage to keep the wall clean. Paintings of Lennon began to appear along with lyrics of his songs. The wall quickly took on a political focus and, inevitably, developed into a forum for grievances against the Communist state. Even the installation of surveillance cameras and the posting of an overnight guard couldn't stop the opinions from being expressed. Lennon marches also started to take place each year on Dec. 8. Those marches ultimately became linked to dissident protests on International Human Rights Day -- December 10. Participants in those early marches say they were channeled through a gauntlet of uniformed and plain-clothes police. Many were jailed or beaten for joining the marches.
Some of the writing on the Lennon wall during the 1980s was inane but much of it was quite profound. A running battle developed between the police whitewashers and dissident graffiti writers until November, 1989 when Communism collapsed in the former Czechoslovakia's non-violent "Velvet Revolution."It has been reported that the French ambassador, whose office looks directly upon the colorful wall, telephoned Prague's municipal authorities late in 1989 and asked them not to paint over or interfere with the graffiti. Long after the Velvet Revolution, new writing continued to turn up regularly.
In 1998, the local "John Lennon Peace Club" and the restituted owners of the wall -- a religious order dating from the 11th century called the Knights of the Maltese Cross -- worked together to reconstruct its crumbling facade.
There are several explanations as to why this particular spot at Velkoprevorske Namesti became a spontaneous memorial in the first place. The tombstone shape of the original gothic recess must have played an important role. There also is a centuries-old connection to the square and the name "John." The original name of the Maltese Knights, founded at the time of the First Holy Crusade, was "The Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem." Also, in Maltese Square, just around the corner from the Lennon Wall, there stands a baroque statue of St. John the Baptist. But most importantly, the Lennon Wall is just a footbridge away from Kampa Park, a place that has long been a popular gathering place for Prague youth. One western journalist living in Prague since the 1970s suggests that the Lennon Wall had been a kind of "counter culture wailing wall" even before Lennon's death, with poems written by teens about friends who had died in a car accident or suffered from a drug overdose.
In the post-totalitarian era, on any day of the year when it is not raining or freezing, a dozen circles of young Czechs and foreign travelers can be found scattered across Kampa Park strumming guitars, tapping out rhythms on African drums or just enjoying the sun. This serene setting, with the park's ground level view of the gothic Charles Bridge, makes it difficult to imagine the not-so-distant past when young people risked prison for singing Lennon's music.
