Adam Michnik urged Democrats not to Give Way to Despair in Azerbaijan

Parliamentary elections in Georgia opened a new era in the history of the Caucasus, a well-known Polish social activist, journalist and one of the leaders of "Solidarity" Adam Michnik.

Basis of democracy in the possibility of change of power through elections, without violence and hatred, and Georgia did so in the last parliamentary elections, Michnik said yesterday at a meeting with a group of civil society representatives and intellectuals of Azerbaijan.

Michnik's meeting was held after the opening ceremony at the Center for Contemporary Art in Icherisheher exhibition "Design for freedom - the freedom to design", which shows the political posters and periodicals reflecting the political process in Poland during the last 30 years.

Baku Michnik arrived from Georgia, where he observed the parliamentary elections, raised his delight. Georgian precedent reaffirmed the universality of democracy and achievable by all. "No nations love to live under torture. It is a myth and demagogic propaganda of dictators," said Michnik.

He recalled that at one time, British experts said that democracy is for the civilized nations of the West, and if you give freedom to the Poles, they will arrange the anti-Semitic pogroms. But history has proven otherwise.

Speaking of elections in Georgia, Michnik indicated the following points followed by the leader of the winning coalition, "Georgian Dream" Bidzina Ivanishvili: 1) Georgia for all, 2) no rematch of the vanquished, 3) continue to go Georgia's pro-Western course and 4) lack of triumph at Ivanishvili.

As another important result, Michnik called Saakashvili’s recognition: "We lost, we turn to the opposition."

"Saakashvili began a new period in the political history and culture of the Caucasus, choosing the path of Jaruzelski, not Ceausescu," said Michnik.

Speaking of Poland, he expressed his pride of his country, where democracy prevailed as an irreversible process. On the question, what democracy is, Michnik said: "A year ago at a conference in California, the Kremlin propagandist Andranik Migranyan tried to convince the American public that in Russia there is "good democracy." I told him that for me democracy is when to the last moment in the presidential election the winner is not known. But there are countries where the winner of the presidential election has been known for half a year before.

The path to democracy is the culture of protest to the culture of dialogue and compromise. Examples of cultural protest speeches he called Solzhenitsyn in the USSR, Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Russia today, Nelson Mandela in South Africa.

"This protest is monologue. It is necessary and without it there can be no development of human morality. It must generate a dialogue," said Michnik.

"When we were at the origin of Solidarity, we were told, “You are crazy! Why do you go against Brezhnev?”

When we came to power, we were told it is necessary to finish the Communists to end. However, the real Democrat, coming to power, must be tolerant, even to the one who put him in prison," revealed the philosophy of democracy Michnik.

Tolerance is not only politicians, but also of all relationships. For example, at the stage of transformation Poland was in a dilemma: "Poland for the Catholic majority, or Poland for all"? And the choice was made in favor of the second principle.

What made the Solidarity a mass movement? In answering this question, Michnik said, "Probably because everyone was sick of everything." Important was that bastion of struggle was made in the largest enterprise - Gdansk shipyard, which was an example for others and the movement covered 10 million people. In addition, an important role was played by the creation of the underground structures of the organization across the country.

Preservation of the Solidarity was promoted by the mutual agreement not to use violence by the labor movement and the Communist leader Gierek. "This was probably the corridor that opened compromise," said Michnik. Achievement of the strikes was the permission to form independent trade unions of workers, although they included not these 10 million, but 100 thousand.

In addition, support came from the radio Free Europe.

Replying to the pessimistic replica from the audience that this does not work in indifferent societies like Azerbaijan, Michnik said as follows: "More recently, similar pessimistic views we had heard in Georgia. The same was in Ukraine before the "orange" revolution ...

When, in 1989, we achieved the political changes in Poland, Vaclav Havel told me that in his country it was impossible, and two months later he became President of Czechoslovakia."

Noting that "architecture and aura of Baku are not Communist," Michnik said that with the acquisition of political freedom social problems are not solved automatically. "After all, the freedom is received not only by honest and decent people, but also by criminals," said Michnik.

Michnik's visit is private and for his meeting with representatives of the democratic public they could not find a suitable hall in Baku. Perhaps, for some people Michnik is a too dangerous person and his meeting in the Centre of Contemporary Art was controlled by a police sergeant. In addition, to Georgia Michnik came with his video shooting team, which was not allowed to Baku. -06C-