Kasia Górnicka, 2016 Ideas Incubator Fellow, Poland
Someone could have said that after Solidarity movement public manifestations would never be the same and would never fight for the same cause as the trade unions during the dictatorship of communistic party. We do hope that we will never have to fight because of the same reason as in the past. At the same time, the other controversial question has appeared, is there any similarity between Solidarity movement and current marches and manifestations across the country?
After the Polish parliamentary elections in 2015 and the victory of the rightwing Law and Justice Party something in society has crushed. The new government and a party, which became for the first time in history of post-communist Poland the major force with ruling majority in the Parliament, started to reform country in the way, which led to discredit the well-known democratic values, like freedom of public media or independence of courts. What is the most important, it all started with the Polish high court, Constitutional Tribunal, which remain as a Polish supreme court, ensuring that the rule of law is always upheld. The ruling party has passed a law, which paralyzed the country’s highest legislative court and removed important checks on the government’s power. To the great surprise and fury of the government tens of thousands march in Warsaw and other cities in Poland to support the Tribunal and finally: to defend the democracy. What the Polish government and the participants of marches didn’t expect either, was the fact, that they captured attention of foreign media and European Union, which since that moments has started to pay more attention and actively act against violation of democracy.
The initiative to held demonstrations was undertaken by a Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD), who consider themselves as a social movement, gathering together people, who are not against democratically chosen parliament and its major party, but against undemocratic acts of law. At the same time, while the marches organized by KOD became more and more popular some journalists were trying to compare KOD and Solidarity movement as Polish phenomena.
In the context of recent events the meeting with Mr Konstanty Gebert, a member of Solidarity and opposition activist, was more than interesting. Although he haven’t compared those two movements, he gave us a strong expertise and familiarity on what Solidarity meant in 80’s and how we perceive it now. What can be seen as most crucial is the fact, that Solidarity is consider a peaceful political symbol. Regardless of the circumstances, needs of different groups of interests and against all expectations the Solidarity’s goal remained the same – free elections. Mr Gebert said: “Solidarity was about basic human rights and freedom; the aim was to go to strike for any demands”.
We all know, that eventually Solidarity won, but the crucial essence of this movement was that people allowed themselves to dream again and at the same time, for the first time after World War II people have the possibility to express their group identity. Thanks to this national uprising the vicious dictatorship disappeared without one drop of blood. During the 80’s Solidarity movement made it clear: there is no way we scale down our dreams. In the end, it’s all about human dignity. Finally, there is one proper conclusion, we cannot compare both movements, because we cannot agree on the fact, that the background, time or social situation are the same. Fortunately there is one certain thing. As a society we are capable of gathering together to protest and to manifest our disagreement towards the violation of the core values and of the democracy.
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