You witnessed something that is sometimes called the "Havel's greengrocer". > Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers

You witnessed something that is sometimes called the "Havel's greengrocer". > Havel uses the example of a greengrocer who displays in his shop the sign Workers of the world, unite! Since failure to display the sign could be seen as disloyalty, he displays it and the sign becomes not a symbol of his enthusiasm for the regime, but a symbol of both his submission to it and humiliation by it. Havel returns repeatedly to this motif to show the contradictions between the "intentions of life" and the "intentions of systems", i.e. between the individual and the state, in a totalitarian society. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Havel's_greengrocer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_the_Powerless#Hav... If you'll ever hear people comparing modern "woke" movements to the communists of the past (especially Mao's Red Guards) , those similarities are precisely why.