BeatleLinks Fab Forum - Yoko's message to Lennon on wall

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_...5E1702,00.html

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono today inscribed a message, "Our hearts are one", on a Prague wall that was dedicated to the slain Beatle and became an unofficial symbol of freedom at a time of communist conformism.

"John, I love you too, YO", she also wrote with a black felt marker on the John Lennon Wall, a subversive altar to the cult of the Beatles only just tolerated by police under a regime in which pop and rock were synonymous with peaceful resistance.

Yoko Ono was in the Czech capital to open a retrospective exhibition of her own art under the title Women's Room.

Fourteen years after the end of communism, long after official images of the other Lenin have gone, the wall with a huge portrait of Lennon still stands in one of the capital's most picturesque spots, opposite a baroque palace housing the French embassy.

After Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980, the wall was covered entirely with portraits of him, along with texts of his songs and messages from admirers, anonymous poetry, and extracts from literary classics.

The communist authorities were reported to be particularly displeased by the appearance on the wall of a saying by the Chinese philosopher Confucius: "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

The communist authorities appeared to feel the need for caution, especially as the offending wall was within full view of the French embassy.

Nevertheless from time time, teams with buckets and brushes would appear on the orders of the state security to paint over the wall and obliterate its subversive decoration.

But the unofficial artists were indefatigable. Within a few days new portraits and slogans extolling love and freedom would inevitably reappear.