Madam, - Congratulations on your excellent Editorial of August 17th on the legacy of Solidarnosc ("Solidarity"). Its inception marked the simultaneous beginning of a peaceful revolution, a great social movement, a national uprising and an independent trade union. Solidarnosc's membership amounted to almost a third of Poland's population, which was a phenomenon in itself.
The union became a guarantor of renewal in Poland, of economic reforms, democratic changes, eradication of injustice, curbing of lawlessness and restoring the freedom of the mass media. It became a movement for reclaiming civic rights and national traditions.
Solidarnosc's programme rejected violence as a means of resolving collective disputes. It was a pacifist movement which invoked the principles of social solidarity and moral values in public life. It helped erode the foundations of communism in Poland and later throughout the entire Soviet bloc.
Between August 1980 and November 1989 Europe experienced its greatest peaceful revolution since the second World War. The Iron Curtain disintegrated, the Berlin Wall - a symbol of divisions in Europe - was demolished.
This process was put in motion by Solidarnosc. It blunted the aggressiveness of the communist system and it stimulated social creativity and fortified courage, as you rightly notice, with the help of John Paul II and his spiritual guidance.
Today Solidarnosc is a trade union representing the economic and employee rights of its members.
Poland is a democratic state, a member of Nato, the OECD, the Council of Europe and the EU. The victory of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine resembled the atmosphere of Polish Solidarnosc in 1980. It marked another victory of peaceful, collective protest, proving that the love of freedom cannot be snuffed out in any society. - Yours, etc,
WITOLD SOBKOW, Polish ambassador, Dublin.