新年致辞英文.docx

新年致辞英文
prague, january 1, 1990
my dear fellow citizens,
for forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us.
i assume you did not propose me for this office so that i, too, would lie to you.
our country is not flourishing. the enormous creative and spiritual potential of our nations is not being used sensibly. entire branches of industry are producing goods that are of no interest to anyone, while we are lacking the things we need. a state which calls itself a workers' state humiliates and exploits workers. our obsolete economy is wasting the little energy we have available. a country that once could be proud of the educational level of its citizens spends so little on education that it ranks today as seventy-second in the world. we have polluted the soil, rivers and forests bequeathed to us by our ancestors, and we have today the most contaminated environment in europe. adults in our country die earlier than in most other european countries.
allow me a small personal observation. when i flew recently to bratislava, i found some time during discussions to look out of the plane window. i saw the plex of slovnaft chemical factory and t