Poland's New Solidarity: Belarus Redux
Because I'm sitting in the Warsaw Airport waiting for a first-cancelled-now-scandalously-late Malev flight back home to Budapest, I'm missing the "Solidarity with Belarus" concert that everyone I know in Warsaw is at right now. After complaining last week about the invisibility of Europe's tragic child Belarus, it's been interesting to spend the last few days in Warsaw and discover how angry the Poles are about their neighbor to the east. My sample is, of course, biased; I've spent the last few days with Poles and varied expats in Poland who work for NGOs, and who care deeply about the spread of democracy in a region that hasn't seen enough of it over the past fifty years. That said, I've been interested to see that the front pages of local papers are carrying stories about the upcoming Belarussian election, and that central Warsaw was plastered this afternoon with the poster at the right, a call to Poles to attend at "Solidarity with Belarus" concert being held this evening.
Incidentally, according to a Polish friend, the "Solidarity" of the title is no accident: several of the Poles central to the campaign and the organizing of the concert are children of Polish Solidarity leaders. They grew up in the 1990's, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the relaxation of martial law in Poland. As my friend noted, they "missed their revolution". What their parents brought to Poland, they want to help bring to Belarus. Not a bad legacy for Solidarity -- not only a democratic country, but also a population with a sense of the job still unfinished.
Furthrer reading: for a good review of Poland's recent history, check out Timothy Garton Ash's recent useful article in the New York Review of Books, The Twins' New Poland.