Parallel Polis

Parallel Polis is a socio-political concept created by Czech political thinker and dissident Vaclav Benda in connection with the informal civic initiative, Charter 77. Benda and other philosophers sought to build a theoretical framework for social events in dissident circles.

Social structure

The alternative culture, or underground, was described in Parallel Polis in 1978 for the first time. A political scientist, Benda noticed the emergence of a new social structure in artistic and intellectual circles as a tool to escape the totalitarian communist regime and detected the following pillars of the new "field":

• Constant monitoring and verification of civic rights and freedoms, which the state tends to restrict. Parallel Polis consists of people who actively advocate for (and protect) their rights.
• "Alternative" (underground) culture is independent, and consists of art which is developed without the permission—or support—of public authorities.
• Parallel education and science, representing the right to free education and the development of scientific research (residential seminars and educational societies and academies)
• A parallel information system as an expression of the right to the free dissemination of information (such as samizdat publishing and unofficial magazines and collections)
• Parallel economy: "Political power considers this area as a critical resource for arbitrary control of citizens and strictly regulates it at the same time". The economy of dissent was based on reciprocity and trust in the individual. It was the germ of a principle and the search for resources which are not dependent on the control of monetary tools.
• Creation of parallel political structures and the promotion of their development. The alternative political structures must be incubated in the Parallel Polis and develop into a form which can replace the ruling authoritarian regime.
• Parallel foreign policy must be an instrument of the parallel society for the international stabilization and grounding of the movement and the search for financial and mental resources.

These patterns of the parallel structure are not a closed set; on the contrary, they occur on all fronts of the resistance against the authoritarian state. The aim of the Parallel Polis, according to Vaclav Havel, Ivan Martin Jirous, Milan Šimečky and other dissidents who discussed the concept, should be an independent society not oppressed by laws and decisions of representatives of public authorities—a society based on its own values, which are not forced by the central authorities.

The concept has been revived by scholars who met at the University of Washington and now work at other academic institutions. They posit that Benda's idea is being practiced on the Internet, which facilitates parallel institutions. Since 2014, a physical space inspired by the idea and named after it is in Prague's Holešovice district. The venue also operates as a cafeteria and accepts no other currency than the digital one like bitcoin.

See also

• Civil society
• Government in exile
• Prefigurative politics
• Shadow Cabinet

Further reading

• "Václav Havel's Lessons on How to Create a "Parallel Polis"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
• "The Parallel Polis and the Arts of Freedom". Dissident. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
• BENDA, VÁCLAV; ŠIMEČKA, MILAN; JIROUS, IVAN M.; DIENSTBIER, JIŘÍ; HAVEL, VÁCLAV; HEJDÁNEK, LADISLAV; ŠIMSA, JAN; Wilson, Paul (1988). "Parallel Polis, or An Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe: An Inquiry". Social Research. 55 (1/2): 211–246. JSTOR 40970497.
• Logos, Taso G.; Coopman, Ted M.; Tomhave, Jonathan (2013). "Parallel Polis: Toward a theoretical framework of the modern public sphere and the structural advantages of the internet to foster and maintain parallel social and political institutions". New Media and Society. 16 (3).