Hope in Gdansk
JOHN O'SULLIVAN
in Gdansk, Poland
Pushed off America's front pages last week by the destructiveness of Hurricane Katrina was a hopeful and inspiring event in the beautiful Baltic city of Gdansk.
Outwardly it was merely inspiring - the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Solidarity's success in forcing Poland's then-communist government to legalize it as the first independent labour union in Soviet-controlled eastern Europe. At the time the communists tried to claim that the deal was an equal compromise by both sides. But when Lech Walesa, an unemployed electrician who had conducted the negotiations with great skill and signed the deal, went outside to be greeted with a wave of cheers by the striking workers of the Lenin shipyard, it was clear that Polish (and Soviet) communism had suffered a serious defeat.
That defeat did not mark the end of Polish communism. Solidarity had to endure many setbacks - notably, the brutal imposition of martial law a year later - before the Polish communists were finally defeated in 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the entire Soviet empire unravelled, reaching its triumphant conclusion in 1991 when Lech Walesa was elected the first non-communist president in Poland since the Second World War.
On Aug. 30, 1980, however, the writing was on the wall - and the wall was the Lenin shipyard. Walesa was back there last Tuesday and Wednesday attending the various conferences that marked the anniversary. Accompanying him were heroes of that period from other countries, notably Czech dissident and writer, Vaclav Havel.
But Gdansk was not merely an exercise in nostalgia. It was also a forward-looking and hopeful event in two respects. In the first instance, representatives were present from freedom movements in the Middle East, Asia and Zimbabwe that have still to establish democratic government in their own countries. Harry Wu from China, for instance, electrified the conference held by the New Atlantic Initiative with a talk on the Chinese gulag and what he calls the Chinese government's doctrine of "classicide."
These new dissidents, especially those from authoritarian countries in the Middle East, conveyed a sense that powerful ideological currents were moving their regions in a democratic direction - and that the official U.S. government support for extending liberty was one of them.
Contrary to much condescending opinion in Europe and on the anti-war U.S. left, however, no one - neither the Mideast and Asian democrats nor the U.S. diplomats present - thought that this process would be either short or painless, or without setbacks.
An especially significant moment occurred when a young Vietnamese woman asked if the U.S. government would continue to press for democracy if it hoped to gain some benefit, bases for instance, from an authoritarian government. The most senior U.S. official present, a high-ranking member of the National Security Council, gave a very honest reply. The U.S. government, he said, would sometimes appear inconsistent because it had many interests in world politics and, inevitably, these were often in conflict. When that happened, the freedom dissidents should hold America to its promises. It might be an important factor in ensuring that Washington reached the right decision.
And at least the U.S. was present to listen to these dissident voices both last week and 25 years ago. Western Europeans were not very visible in Gdansk, except for a few senior officials like the British Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, to hear the developing debate over liberty and human rights. It was almost as if they are perfectly comfortable with authoritarian regimes and have therefore decided not to notice that there is a developing resistance to them.
That was even more striking in relation to the second hopeful sign in Gdansk - namely, the gradual shaping of a de facto alliance between Poland, Ukraine and U.S. to resist any Russian attempt by President Vladimir Putin to revive a sort of "Unholy Alliance" of authoritarian states such as Belarus in the region under his leadership.
Hence, one of the most popular political leaders in Gdansk was President Yuschenko of Ukraine, whose pock-marked face advertises the risks that he has taken by resisting Russian dominance.
Today the Poles are made still more nervous by the agreement between Putin and Chancellor Schroeder of Germany, due to be signed on Thursday, to run a natural gas pipeling between the two countries that avoids going through Poland - and so means that the Russians can cut Poland off from such supplies without cutting off Germany. Naturally, this revives ominous memories of previous Russo-German co-operation. But it also heightens the already rising anxiety of Poles that Russia intends to use energy - its main remaining weapon in geopolitics - to exert control over its neighbours and former satellites.
Most West European leaders are themselves anxious not to notice this threat. If they did, they might have to do something about it. And they would much prefer to maintain cozy relations with Putin's Russia with a good conscience.
Hence Poles and Ukrainians want the United States to remain in their locality. Only if the U.S. is there to help them resist Russia's energy imperialism are the West Europeans likely to eventually roll up to back them. Not unlike 25 years ago, in fact.
National Post
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John O'Sullivan is a writer based in Washington, D.C. He can be contacted through Benador Associates at www.benadorassociates.com (NATIONAL POST, Tuesday, September 6, 2005).
SOLIDARITY World leaders credited Poland's Solidarity movement with paving the way for revolutionary change in eastern Europe - from the fall of the Berlin Wall to recent uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine - as they marked the 25th anniversary yesterday of the trade union's birth ("briefly", 24hrs.ca SEPTEMBER 1 2005).
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