As this #stampoftheday project has unfolded, I have wondered about what my “options” would be for today, July 12, which, as my sister has already posted, is my birthday. I could have with a 3-cent stamp issued on July 12, 1954 picturing George Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak. (That seemed appropriate if only for the many pictures – real and imagined – that I have of my life.
I also considered tinkering with my rules so I could use a runner-up from yesterday, a 4-cent stamp issued on July 11, 1961, honoring Senator George Norris, a liberal Republican from Nebraska, best known for his sponsorship of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Scholars have contended that he was one of the nation’s greatest senators; Franklin Roosevelt once said that he was “the very perfect, gentle knight of American progressive ideals.” It seemed to me that he not represents much of what is missing and is badly needed in today’s political discourse but also because he seemed to the kind of person that I’d like to be.

But, in the end, I decided to go with a 3-cent stamp, issued on July 12, 143, picturing the flag of Czechoslovakia. The stamp was one of the Overrun Country Series of stamps honoring the countries occupied by Axis powers in World War II. I feel a particular affinity towards the Czech Republic, which I was fortunate enough to visit briefly in 2018. In addition to its rich Jewish history, which I found extraordinarily resonant, I was also struck by a strong sense of the value – and fragility – of democracy.

The story is familiar but worth repeating. Once part of the Austro Hungarian empire, the country became an independent democracy in 1918. Twenty years later, the British and French sold the Czechs out by agreeing to German occupation of the Sudetenland region and about a year later the Germans occupied most of the rest of the country. For a few years after World War II, the country teetered but in 1948 the Communists seized power. In 1968, a brief period of liberalization known as the Prague Spring, was put down via a military invasion by the Soviet Union and other countries in the Soviet bloc. And, of course, the Velvet Revolution in 1989 brought down the Communist government and restored democracy. I know the country’s current state is troubled, but I will was say it was truly inspiring to get a brief sense of the long history of democratic aspirations and people’s willingness to fight for them.

So, it seemed to me that given the choice, I’d go with a stamp that, in its own way, was – and is – a symbol of democratic aspirations and the ongoing (and sometimes very difficult) fight again tyranny. In that I draw some inspiration from Vaclav Havel, a leader of the Velvet Revolution who went on to become president of Czechoslovakia, who oncd said, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Be well, stay safe, have hope, fight for justice and work for peace.