"When I first found out about the crash, I shook with horror," Mrazek noted. "How many families will now remember this day as black Saturday? How many will suffer because of the deaths of their friends and loved ones? A few hours passed, and I took a look at the discussion under the article. And I began to shake again, except this time with disgust. One cannot comprehend how the death and suffering of others can possibly bring someone pleasure."
Apparently, in the comments Mrazek was looking at, some of his fellow countrymen used the crash as an opportunity to make offensive and insensitive statements. One user suggested that "if it had been a Czech plane which had gone down, the Russophiles would not have cried this way," while another insensitively joked that the crash was really "a failed kamikaze attack on Israel."
Unfortunately, the journalist noted, such comments were not merely the words "of a few fools." It turned out that among Czech readers there were more than enough "jokers" ready to grin like "disgusting hyenas" over the 224 people killed in the crash. Among them were even moralists and "preachers of the one true path, stupefied by propaganda" in the country's television and print media, proclaiming that the crash was really "God's punishment for the occupation of Crimea and Ukraine."
"Is this normal?" Mrazek angrily asked. "Is this really who we, the Czech people, are? Have we been completely brainwashed? Are we really so pathetic and stupid, or have we just been set up? What else is this, if not the most despicable form of fanaticism?"
In the journalist's view, the "scribblings" of these commentators demonstrate the "moral squalor" and "beastliness" of a part of Czech society. "The beasts among us celebrate over the deaths of people whose plane fell on the way home from a resort," Mrazek noted, adding that "there are moments when I am ashamed to be a Czech."