In retelling his experience of living through the Velvet Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the lifting of the Iron Curtain, Czech Republic president Václav Klaus offers his views on what students today need to understand about life under communism.

He also defends his opposition to the idea of a European superstate—“I do not consider the Lisbon Treaty to be a good thing for Europe, for the freedom of Europe, or for the Czech Republic”—and compares the ideology of environmentalism and global warming alarmism with the ideology of communism. Finally, he ponders the question of what lessons from history his grandchildren are learning. (28:58) Video transcript

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• start video from beginning Czech Republic president Václav Klaus discusses the events of 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down.
• start segment 2 at 6:48 Are there parallels between a united Europe and the late, unlamented Warsaw Pact? Czech Republic president Václav Klaus makes the case.
• start segment 3 at 14:17 Czech Republic president Václav Klaus says that Al Gore is wrong about global warming.
• start segment 4 at 18:29 Czech Republic president Václav Klaus describes how he became an advocate of free market principles.
• start segment 5 at 25:36 Have we drifted from the decisive victories for freedom achieved in 1989? Czech Republic president Václav Klaus responds on Uncommon Knowledge.