Three decades after Polish trade union Solidarity rocked the Soviet bloc, the world has yet to come to terms with the end of the Cold War, the movement’s iconic founder Lech Walesa says.
“Solidarity brought to an end a period of division, paving the way for the unification of Germany and of Europe,” Walesa said in an interview in the Baltic port city of Gdansk, where the union was born.
A watershed Aug. 31, 1980, deal between Poland’s regime and strikers at the city’s Lenin shipyard led by electrician Walesa allowed the creation of the first free labor union in the communist bloc.
The authorities backtracked in 1981 and imposed martial law to crush Solidarity, which had snowballed into a movement of 10 million members.
Solidarity was kept alive underground and returned to the spotlight in 1989, negotiating an election deal with the regime and scoring a victory that was to speed the demise of the entire bloc over the next two years.
The problem, Walesa said, is that the world has failed to keep up.
“We still have structures left over from the old days which still need to be reorganized and updated,” he said, pointing to NATO which lacks its Cold War-era Warsaw Pact adversary.
He also cited a system of “capitalism which looks at the money and not the man.”
“As long as we don’t do anything about this, we’ll be working on the basis of an outmoded vision and the world won’t be safe,” he said.
Europeans, meanwhile, need to get their act together once and for all, he said.
“They have to understand that the nation state’s finished. In many fields there’s no France, no Poland, be it ecology, information or the economy,” he said, adding “Every state has a different health service or tax system. That can’t go on!”
“And there’s no Europe without Turkey,” the fervent Catholic said, brushing aside French and German wariness about letting the Muslim nation of 75 million into the 27-nation EU.
Walesa gave up the helm of Solidarity after becoming Poland’s first post-war democratically-elected president in December 1990.
After one term, he lost office to ex-communist Aleksander Kwasniewski in a knife-edge 1995 poll, and saw his popularity wither.
A self-confessed technology geek, Walesa has himself photographed with every guest at his Gdansk-based foundation and posts the pictures on his blog.
Walesa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his non-violent opposition to Poland’s regime, a move he says bolstered Solidarity.
He remains a tireless campaigner.
“There are a huge number of causes to defend,” he said. Among his most recent were Cuban political prisoners and Ukrainian television stations stripped of their operating licenses.
Walesa and Solidarity have long since parted ways.
The union has 700,000 members and mostly focuses on labor issues, but it still plas a role in the political arena and riled Walesa by backing his bugbear, losing conservative candidate Jaroslaw Kaczynski, in this year’s presidential election.
“I identify with the 30th anniversary of the great Solidarity movement that had 10 million members. Today’s union isn’t exactly big,” he said.
Ever-controversial, Walesa is skipping next week’s 30th anniversary events, but he has pledged to be there for the 50th, in 2030.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RSS