While reading “Power of the Powerless” and the chapter 4 Dictatorship and Dissent: Human Rights in East Germany in the 1970s by Ned Richardson- Little, there were a lot of similar comparisons between the two. In page 51 the author describes that those who held power in the GDR saw as human rights to be only controlled by those in power “As SED leader Walter Ulbricht said upon his return to Germany from exile, “it should look democratic, but everything must be in our hands” (Little, 51). And in Power of the powerless “Our system is most frequently characterized as a dictatorship or, more precisely, as the dictatorship of a political bureaucracy over a society which has undergone economic and social leveling” (Havel, [2]). In the beginning of Power of the powerless the author says that past history actions has caused dissent in this area. My questions to the class is, would you consider this comparison to relate what Havel was talking about? Also, do you think that by dictating what human rights is in your pov, will others see it that way? Or do you think that by restricting certain rights, no one will want it because the gov’t said so?
