Mayor was given a statue for his birthday, rich ball attendees were fed bread and salt… A new form of civic disobedience has been blooming in Brno: tongue-in-cheek confessions of love and gratitude.

On 11/11/11, the very first protest of this kind took place at Moravské náměstí sq. and in the court of New Town Hall. The town’s mayor, Roman Onderka, was given an above-lifesize statue of himself for his birthday. The piece of art portrayed him flying on a piece of magical “obsidian” rock. Some 100+ people took part in this event. Its motto “May God protect you until the age of 111″ was a pun at Onderka’s expense, as he is obssesed with numerology.

Young people feeding the starving ball attendees.

The first protests were iniciated by the platform ŽítBrno.cz, which I am personally involved in (learn more in this article). However, the movement has become quite independent, not being tied to any specific person or political opinion. It reflects the general disagreement of ordinary people with the way the town is managed by politicians. Read more about recent issues.

Also, check out more pictures of the statue for Mr. Onderka and a video footage of the ball hack.

Miloslav Humpolíček in a conflict with bicycling advocates (source: Česká televize)

Last weeks have brought news so odd that it makes me wonder: has the town council of Brno changed their approach since the Velvet Revolution? Actually, has it changed anyhow since the sunset of feudalism?

Local representative Miloslav Humpolíček has tried to run over protesting bicycle activists peacefully blocking his parking lot. They did it to point to the irony that while members of town council can park their cars right in the historical centre, riding a bike through the streets of downtown Brno is prohibited as “too dangerous”. (see a video)

The family of deputy mayor Ladislav Macek has built a swimming pool, a sporting place and an arbour next to their weekend house – without having a building permit. However, Macek is superior to the town’s Office of planning and his family is trying to change the land-use plan to legalize the changes to the weekend house. No problem. (source)

My favorite one: The town council has decided to stop financially supporting any institutions suing it (source). So, if you are organising a festival or running a non-profit, you’d better shut up and not to point to any misdeeds commited by the omnipotent local politicians.

More bits: activist Hana Chalupská got an admonishment for putting up a table with a petition at Náměstí svobody sq. (source). Town’s employee Radmila Schätzelová has been giving permits to casinos even though they were closer to scholls than is allowed by law, claiming that she had no idea how to recognize a school (source). Mayor Roman Onderka got a bachelor degree for a thesis so weak that its consultant got fired, however Onderka is still using his Bc. degree (source). The town-owned public transport company lost its internet domain, which is now owned by a fan of local transport (source). Facepalm!

Do you have similar experiences with local politicians in your hometown? Have you overcome them? How?

If you want to, print out this poster and spread it.

For the first time in the history of Brno, this demonstration of power and hate will be blocked not (well: not only) by left-wing activists, but by “common people”: students, teachers, entepreneurs, waiters, actors, etc. This kind of activism is common for example in Germany.

If you want to join the crowd of several hundred people who don’t feel comfortable seeing neo-nazis marching the streets, check out the official web page of “Brno blokuje” (Brno impedes) initiative, translated to English, German and Polish.

As the website states, this is not an easy task to do. You may be harrased by police, beaten up by drunk skinheads and no one is going to give you a nice prize in the end. However, after several days of thinking and discussing with various people, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is important to show up and send a message: we, common folks, stand against racism.

The negotiation is still not over (photo by Borkur Sigurbjornsson)

Sunday negotiation led to the coalition of left-wing social democrats and right-wing civic democrats. Socialist Roman Onderka will most likely remain a mayor but ODS is to have majority in the local government.

This would mean:

• Larger support for the construction of new main station near the current bus station Zvonařka and for repurposing the current main train station building (instead of using it as a second traffic hub).
• Generally speaking, both parties symbolize what is called “concrete lobby” – it is likely that the town will prefer investing in “hard infrastructure” (roads, sewers, sport stadiums, multi-storey car parks) to the “soft infrastructure” (culture, festivals, various institutions).
• Possible source of a future political crysis, as the two parties are fighting each other on the country level.
• Good reasons for the greens to think about why they lost four seats. Hint: not fulfilling their promises made in 2006.

It is still not official, so I will let you know if anything changes.

One of the proposed looks of the new main station.

The plan of building a new main station in the “south centre” (next to Zvonařka bus station) got a blow that may be fatal – nobody knows if the project would have political support in 2014 and if EU is going to fund it anyway.

Aleš Kvapil, the mayor of Žabovřesky district, and Radovan Novotný, a former secretary of Brno-střed district, were arrested last week and put in custody.

Sono centrum. Source: brnensky.denik.cz

The reasons are not crystal clear, as the police doesn’t want to comment the case too early. According to local press, Kvapil was arrested minutes after he received a bribe of CZK 1,000,000 (€39,000) from a businessman who had been collaborating with the police. The bribery is supposed to be connected with building an extravagant facility called “Sono centrum” – but now we have to wait for further investigation.

Both politicians are members of right-wing Civic Democratic Party.

Update (8 p.m.): Aleš Kvapil left the mayor’s office and Civic Democrats anounced that he was no more their candidate to the chamber of deputies. I hope that is not the end of the case.

Desolated building of theatre 7 a půl at Koliště st.

Town council decided not to become a candidate city for the European capital of culture 2015, because organising the event would request an investment possibly bigger than CZK 1,000,000,000 (€38m). No matter that the politicians supporting the event claimed the investment would finally return, as it was in the cases of former European capitals of culture.

Source: iDnes.cz.

However, Brno will host the 2010 Basketball World Championship of Women, although the town failed in building a new hall and it has no hall big enough at this time, which leads to new expensions and potentially to an international shame. This is what you get when you elect rednecks to a town council.

Face it: there are several quite unique problems that damage the image of Brno.

The wasteland in the southern centre

Since the 1920s, politicians have been dreaming about building a new, modern quarter southern of the current train station, with a new train station as its urbanistic centre.

There is still no “south centre”. There has been just a long “building ban” in the area, resulting in a 2 square kilometers huge wasteland next to the old town. As the economic crisis grows and the project of the new railway station has more and more problems, it seems possible that the wasteland would be still there by 2020.

The underpass under the main station

A chaotic system of underpasses was built below the main train and tram station 30 years ago. It has been only rotting since that time.

Look what we have got here:

• Junkies, sectarians, beggars. OK, you can find these people close to a main train station in every town. Let’s be tolerant and allow them to drink wine there. But what about the dangerous dogs? What about the street fights? Sadly, it is quite easier for the metropolitan police to boss people about bad parking than to deal with the beggars.
• Stalls with goods for the white trash. Cheap underwear, cheap shoes, cheap knives, cheap CDs…
• Not enough elevators for disabled people.

Too bad this is the first thing seen by people who are arriving to the town via train or bus!

The ubiquitous porn ads

To make it clear: I am perfectly OK with pornography. But I also think that watching it or acting in it should be something private or at least not advertised in public places.

However, the managers of the town-owned public transport company have quite a different opinion. Anyone travelling by bus or tram can see posters drawing only 18-year-old girls to work as “webcam models” (or: virtual prostitutes) – and the main station is spammed with these banners that are simply telling all young women “fuck the career, fuck the school, you can get more money showing your naughty bits to filthy men”.

The burned building in front of the main station

What a sign of the slow czech justice: for almost 10 years, two companies are suing over a ruin of a casino in front of the train station. It is clear that no one is going to pay for a renovation (and maybe a developement of something more useful than casino) until the lawsuit ends.

The “Prague envy”

There is a mental illness spread among the people living in Brno. I call it the “Prague envy”.

The main symptom is claiming that people in Prague have everything easier on every ocassion: “It took me damned 20 minutes to get to office today!” – “Yes. We do not have a subway. Damn.” – “But those bloody folks of Prague have three subway lines! The whole country is paying their comfort!”

I think that little less envy and little more hard work is the cure – but there is no doctor to prescribe the medicine.