Final Word from Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Everyone praises his own oligarch and vilifies the others. This is a cornerstone of a society divided into semi-criminal fiefdoms that are scrambling to appropriate assets while the getting is good. MF Dnes wrote in its lead today that "Billionaire builds security team" for spying on competitors. The newspaper had in mind the "bad" oligarch Tomáš Chrenek, not its own "good" oligarch, Andrej Babiš, who has long had such a division. Likewise, priest Tomáš Halík on Fri. accused Miloš Zeman of becoming the puppet of oligarchs who are promoting their own economic interests. When asked yesterday by Helena Šulcová of Czech Radio about his own mini-oligarch, Luděk Sekyra, Halík praised the developer to high heaven as a successful businessman with noble intentions who recognizes his obligations to society. After such a canonization by someone looking desperately for the anti-Zeman, how can Sekyra not possibly run for president? [Czech Republic godfather Group real-estate]
Glossary of difficult words
to vilify - to disparage; to speak or write about in an abusively denigrating manner;
fief/fiefdom - a person's sphere of operation or control;
to scramble - to struggle or compete with others for something in an eager or uncontrolled and undignified way;
to appropriate - to take (something) for one's own use, typically without the owner's permission;
while the getting/going is good - while something is still easy or possible;
to praise to high heaven - to sing one's praise;
canonization - the official declaration of a person to be a saint.