Jaroslav Miko: Czech President shows his arrogance and lack of basic social empathy on the first day of school

On the first day of the new school year, the millionaire Miloš Zeman has managed to perfectly show off his arrogance and lack of basic social empathy. He took advantage of taxpayer money to travel in comfort on a special military aircraft to Brno so he could tell the parents of the children who attend a school that is known to serve the most impoverished children from socially excluded localities that they should be giving their children more food. 

Based on his performance, I find it necessary to ask:  What was the point of this costly journey? Instead of humiliating words addressed to the local parents, I would expect our highest constitutional officer to give a speech about the fact that our society has to do all it can to make sure our children don’t have to live in extreme poverty, about how it is necessary, despite social difficulties, to arrange for the most equal possible access to education for all children, irrespective of background, because economic inequality cannot be allowed to become a barrier to children accessing the quality education to which they are all entitled. 

What else, though, could we have expected from this person, who has long incited hatred against the Czech Roma, and not just through his lying remark that 90 % of Czech Roma don’t work, right? I would really like to have a president of the Czech Republic who will not be lacking in social feeling and who will be able, through natural authority, to aid with the solutions to these enormous social and societal problems instead of intensifying them.