Navratilova says US can be as oppressive as Czechoslovakia
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Thursday June 27, 2002
The Guardian
The tennis legend Martina Navratilova has hit out at her adoptive
homeland, the United States, saying that in some ways it is as
manipulative and oppressive as the Czechoslovak communist
regime from which she fled 27 years ago.
Writing in today's edition of the German weekly Die Zeit,
Navratilova says she escaped Czechoslovakia because it did not
allow independent thought or freedom of speech - but she had
ended up in a similarly oppressive world.
"The most absurd thing about my escape from injustice was that
I simply exchanged one system which oppressed opinion for
another," she said.
The nine-times Wimbledon champion and winner of 18 grand
slam titles said that as a child growing up in Czechoslovakia
she had read about the horrors of capitalism, and that everyone
apart from the communists was a liar. But in the United States,
she said, some politicians were equally skillful at employing
propaganda techniques.
"The Republicans in the USA manipulate public opinion and
brush the delicate questions under the carpet," she said.
She added that she was disappointed that "decisions in
America are based solely on how much money will come out of
it, and not on the questions of how much health, morals and the
environment might suffer as a result".
In her lengthy and philosophical article, Navratilova, who
campaigns for animal rights and the rights of homosexuals, said
she dreamed "of a society which is ruled by hearts instead of
diaries."
Navratilova, who left her parents and younger sister behind when
she deliberately failed to return home after the 1975 US Open,
has been openly gay for years. She has had a series of public
love affairs, some of them acrimonious. She criticised the US for
its stress on "tolerance" of minorities.
"You are constantly challenged to be tolerant... I hate this word.
If tolerance is repeatedly the order of the day, it is as if you are
putting up with a bad-smelling person by holding your nose. I
can't bear this pseudo-tolerance," she said.
Referring to the negative treatment of Muslims, Navratilova, who
is now an American citizen, said: "Today more people have
been turned into enemies because of their religion than in both
world wars put together."
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