Final Word from Wednesday, September 17, 2025

With the deepening of the divide in Czech society, words that used to have serious meaning are losing their bite. Foreign agents, spies or collaborators used to face wide public condemnation or even prison, but now you're not anyone if you haven't been called one of these names. Editor-in-chief Erik Tabery of Respekt said that he doesn't like the word "collaborator" but that it fits for SPD and Stačilo!. Pavel Šafr of Forum 24 said that the "worst collaborators" include Tomio Okamura, Kateřina Konečná and Lubomír Zaorálek but that Andrej Babiš is also an advocate of Russia and Vladimir Putin's Kremlin manipulation. Okamura, for his part, has said that KDU-ČSL is the fifth column because of the way it "collaborates" with the Sudeten Germans. For some people, Petr Fiala is a "Nazi and collaborator." Jokes are also made online about how Pres. Tomáš Prouza of the SOCR retail union is a "collaborator" with the foreign-owned retail chains. It seems to be a nation of collaborators. Yet the BIS counterintelligence agency and supreme state prosecutor have been strangely silent. So many collaborators, and no arrests. It must be the new normal. [ Czech Republic treachery ANO ODS PM collaoboration ]