Blogging the democratic revolution
One hundred thousand people gathered in Rome to remember the first anniversary of the death of John Paul II, the Polish pope who helped liberate Eastern Europe from communism. Thousands of others gathered in Krakow and around Poland. John Paul was a democratic revolutionary in the purest sense of the idea. Many of us know about how he undermined the communist regimes of Poland and elsewhere by working with the Israelis to provide intelligence and material aid to the Solidarity leaders imprisoned inside the communist regime. You can read about it in Peter Schweitzer’s splendid book, Victory, about what Reagan,…
Putin has okayed the return of the Sarospatak Library, seized by the Nazis and then by the Russians in WWII. Of course, this raises some eyebrows over the larger repatriation issues, even if the Russian official media feel the need to demonstrate that no new repatriation precedents are being set with the move. Given this, it’s no big surprise that Hungary has agreed to pay the Russians for “storage costs” that Putin’s buds can then turn around and tout as a foreign-policy success. So, what’s going on? A couple of things, as I see it. One, Putin is getting set…
The rift between Poland and Belarus continues, with the leading Polish newspapers blacking out their front pages to protest censorship in its less democratic neighbor. Could you imagine the papers here in the U.S. taking such a stand? WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s two leading newspapers blacked out large sections of their front pages Wednesday in an eye-catching protest against media repression in neighboring Belarus. The main pages of Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita looked as if a censor had taken a black marker to them, with most text and photographs crossed out. Amnesty International, which led the protest, wrote at the…
This is great. Gateway Pundit has the roundup. And the left fades into oblivion…
Today marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Solidarity trade union, which broke the grip of Soviet communism over the freedom-loving nation of Poland. It isn’t a national holiday, or even one that many people were alive to remember, but people took to the streets in celebration to remember the birth of freedom in their country. It might not have been a public holiday – but it was a national day of celebration in Poland. Gdansk, the home of the Solidarity movement, was particularly festive. Thousands of people crammed into Solidarity Square beside the main gate of the…
“Twenty-five years ago next Wednesday — 31 August 1980 — unemployed Polish electrician Lech Walesa struck a major blow to Soviet communism when, after leading a strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, he announced the official birth of the Solidarity independent trade union. Solidarity went on to play a central role in the demise of communism across the Soviet bloc, changing forever the course of history in Europe…” Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is running a couple of articles about the Solidarity movement in Poland, which has since become a symbol for non-violent struggle against tyranny in the…
As the ongoing feud between the Polish and Belarussion government over ethnic Poles in Belarus continues, and with all countries in the area outside of Russia declaring support for democracy, Polish activists are taking the issue up in a way that Elvis would be proud of. I’ll let the headline speak for itself, “Polish activists rock against Lukashenka.” 3 August 2005 (RFE/RL) — Young Poles want to use rock music to help Belarus’s pro-democracy opposition resist the regime of Belarusian President Aleksyandr Lukashenka. Pawel Stanczyk, head of Poland’s Association of Young Conservatives, says in Warsaw the association has launched a…
The Council of Europe ended its third summit since 1949 in Warsaw on Tuesday with everybody calling for democracy in Belarus, which is the only European country that cannot attend the event. Out of all the countries, however, Poland really stood out with its calls. WARSAW – Calls for democracy in Belarus and agreement on the Warsaw Declaration charting the course for the Council of Europe over the coming years closed debate at the council’s summit in Warsaw on Tuesday. Poland’s president Aleksander Kwasniewski slammed human rights violations in Belarus and called for the democratisation of Poland’s eastern neighbour, dubbed…
Timothy Garton-Ash is not a well-known name in the U.S., but when I was a student in England, during the darkest days of Poland’s martial law, he was the person whose lectures I went to, and the one whose answers to my questions provided the most illumination. He hasn’t changed any after all these years and today he writes about what he knows best in a truly fine summary of the Pope’s contributions to the world’s freedom struggles. Read the whole thing here.
I grew up despising Jerzy Urban, the Polish communist party spokesman, whose lies dropped out of his mouth like an loaded dumptruck . It turns out the fat creep isn’t done yet. Today, he weighed with a new pile of hate for the Pope on his passing, still spewing garbage after all these years. Read it here.
I promise I will never use such extensive alliteration again. David McDuff posts an interview translated into English with Zbigniew Religa, a professor who looks to be a promising candidate in this summer’s presidential election in Poland. He says he admires Wilson, and being the scholarly sort, he gives off that same impression. He has a good way with words. Read the whole thing.