{"id":1385,"date":"2021-11-06T14:52:12","date_gmt":"2021-11-06T14:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/symposium.org\/?p=1385"},"modified":"2021-12-02T08:20:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T08:20:49","slug":"i-believe-in-dialogue-and-mutual-support-between-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/symposium.org\/i-believe-in-dialogue-and-mutual-support-between-generations\/","title":{"rendered":"“I Believe in Dialogue and Mutual Support Between Generations”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
An Exclusive Interview with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa (Part 3 of 3)
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In an exclusive interview, Leader of Tomorrow Gr\u00e9goire Roos<\/strong> talks to Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former Polish President Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa<\/strong> about Wa\u0142\u0119sa\u2019s own struggle for freedom, the current contestations of liberal democracy across the globe, and his vision for the future of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interview was conducted in early 2020, before the COVID-19 crisis, in Gdansk, Poland. This is part three of the interview. You can find part one here<\/a> and part two here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gr\u00e9goire Roos:<\/strong> In your memoirs, published ten years ago, you talk of your childhood. You say that your hardworking childhood made you stronger (you walked miles barefoot to school in order not to bare out your leather shoes, which your mother had bought by the sweat of her brow; you worked hard in the family farm, and even occasionally for neighbours in need\u2026). I was born after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and like most of my generation I enjoyed a comfort and a freedom that you couldn\u2019t even possibly imagine when you were my age. I know you\u2019re an optimist, passionate about new technologies (I should stress here that you manage your Facebook and Instagram accounts yourself with your tablet!) and very close to the young, but do you think that the comfort and carefreeness the new generations have enjoyed have had a bad impact on politics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa:<\/strong> I couldn\u2019t say it\u2019s been particularly bad. The new generations are simply different. I may sound like repeating myself, but you have to locate everything in time and space. Your generation will need to find its own solutions to its own problems. Don\u2019t get me wrong: I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s not my business. I\u2019m just saying it would be stupid and useless to tell the younger generation that they are helpless, that they don\u2019t understand anything to what\u2019s going on in the world, and that the problems of the coming world are no longer mine. No, yesterday was not necessarily better than today. And I believe in the dialogue of generations, in the mutual support between generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s like Europe: you won\u2019t achieve anything if you do everything in your own little corner. The burden weighing on your generation\u2019s shoulders is not that light either you know. You\u2019re confronted with imperatives that were unknown to my generation: unemployment, cancer, HIV\/AIDS, global warming, terrorism, crisis of Europe, the need to go on and on studying for years before finding a decent job\u2026 and, perhaps the toughest of all: speed. You have no more time to do anything. That\u2019s perhaps the greatest challenge the younger generations are facing and will be increasingly facing. Each generation has its own challenges. I like to repeat that God gives you such a cross that you are able to carry. It\u2019s up to each of us to find the strength to bear it. My cross was that of the post-WW2 communist world, with the threat of a nuclear cataclysm. You have the cross of globalisation, with the ghost of artificial intelligence.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos: <\/strong>One detail in your memoirs keeps striking me. You say that you\u2019ve never really liked history. But how can we lead a people and try to tackle the great challenges of the time if we don\u2019t take an interest in history? You said that leadership was inseparable from consciousness. But if you think about it, what is history if not the conscience of the peoples?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa:<\/strong> Well I have a different approach to history. If you travel in Poland, you\u2019ll see that some of the country\u2019s greatest heroes are those who killed the most Germans. Same if you travel to Russia. If we decided to stop fighting wars and to make peace, it\u2019s surely not to entertain this memory of killing and bloodshed. Our great-grandchildren may not want to renovate all the statues of these heroes. And that\u2019s perhaps better. We\u2019re going away from the era of wars, and moving towards that of globalised peace. I think we are currently witnessing this kind of movement in the US. It might take an excessively violent form here and there, but I feel the substance is legitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos: <\/strong>Don\u2019t you confuse history with the past or memory here? History is not just about statues and who killed more neighbours. It\u2019s about something greater. It\u2019s our common DNA beyond our age, gender, religion, skin colour or political affiliation. Churchill used to say that all political solutions (and we\u2019ve been talking about solutions since we started this discussion) were to be found in history books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa: <\/strong>I\u2019m thinking about Churchill in a different way\u2026 Churchill betrayed Poland my dear! He gave us to the Soviets. But perhaps it is because he was so wise and farsighted, and that he knew from the very beginning that Poles would destroy communism! Poles and no one else [laugh]!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos: <\/strong>Shortly before his election, Pope Benedict XVI denounced a “dictatorship of relativism”<\/em>, which, according to him, was corroding our societies and preventing them from distinguishing between good and evil. Getting back to the question of history (for you haven\u2019t really answered it), is there any identifiable link between the relative crisis of culture, this tendency of forgetfulness of the younger generation, and, on the other hand, the fact that this generation no longer seems to have any interest in politics and elections? People like father Jerzy Popie\u0142uszko [a Polish priest active in factories, who died of torture at the hands of thugs of the communist regime], <\/em>a symbol of the fight of the Polish people for freedom, died so that others could live free. I know you are an optimist, but let\u2019s be realistic: is this relativism and erosion of culture and knowledge not a problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa: <\/strong>I will disappoint you but no, it is not a problem. What you seem to suggest is that it is mostly because the young have less culture and knowledge of history (which is perhaps true) that they no longer vote. I can\u2019t agree with you. I believe that the real reason behind the young\u2019s low turnout in the polls is that they feel they\u2019re not properly understood and represented by political parties. And here we get back to what we discussed earlier on regarding the need for better representativeness of society\u2019s social structure in political parties. Voting is the demonstration of an interest, of a trust. Why would you have an interest in what doesn\u2019t show you any attention? Why would you trust those who seem not to care for you? Do you think the voters are mere philanthropists? Do you think they\u2019re stupid? No, of course they\u2019re not! The young do not vote and it\u2019s the best wake-up call we could imagine to lead parties to reinvent and reorganise themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa and the Dalai Lama, meet during a discussion on non-violence in Darmstadt, Germany in September 2018. Photo: Manuel Bauer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Roos:<\/strong> Let\u2019s come back to your memoirs. Talking of the communist government, you say: “they didn\u2019t want a fox, they wanted a lion”.<\/em> But you actually turned out to be a fox, to the great despair of the communist regime. You\u2019ve just said that each time calls for its own solutions. What would the current world require then? More foxes, or more lions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa: <\/strong>It\u2019s a good question. I would be tempted to say that our world asks for both: foxes and lions. But, you know, the situation in the 1980s was very special, just like my enemy. The Government wanted to fool us, lead us to unleash our anger and turn it into violence. Back then, roaring (as we\u2019re talking of lion) could mean ending up in jail. So we had to turn into foxes, moving quickly and in silence. In wars of attrition, foxes are stronger than lions. Today we need more arguments, more debate, more intellectualism in the political approach. But we also need more energy in the determination for change\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos:<\/strong> In other words, more thinking lions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa: <\/strong>Yes, exactly. But it should be a lion that would be ready to share the catch. Not sure everyone is ready for that\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos: <\/strong>In this discussion, I\u2019ve often heard you mention God. Reflecting upon the causes of the 1917 Revolution and the rise of the USSR, Russian writer and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn once wrote that everything had happened because, in the end, “men had forgotten God”<\/em>. In our modern societies, as we mentioned earlier, we no longer found politics on God (taken in the sense of a transcendence, not of a religion). So on what do we found a narrative for leadership if God has disappeared?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa: <\/strong>Well I wouldn\u2019t say God has entirely disappeared. Things are just all mixed-up. I would say that we\u2019ve incorporated God in our fight against rivalry. Let\u2019s put it another way: we need God for our after-life. But politics is not about what comes after death (and which is still uncertain\u2026), but about now, about the current, about the present. Many rules that encourage and promote order and justice are actually stemming from godly principles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And after all, you\u2019ve referred to two popes in your previous questions, which means that men of God can still be relevant references in a political discussion. Religions are still used around the world for evil purposes, we shouldn\u2019t forget it. That is also why the very notion of God is taken very cautiously in the political debate of Western societies. It has brought about too many divisions. You are right, however, that we must make the distinction between God and religion, for God is needed, but in a spiritual – not religious – way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos:<\/strong> Reflecting upon your marriage, your wife once commented: “it is impossible to see clear in him. For everything that happened, this mystery was crucial, otherwise he would never have survived.” <\/em>What is the place of loneliness and mystery in leadership?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa:<\/strong> To be honest with you, I haven\u2019t been able to see through myself either [laugh]! I\u2019m discovering myself every day. But to answer your question with the same honesty, I can but say that there is no answer. You can only pretend to answer. I think each human reaction in front of a crisis is unique, and that some people are more reserved and discreet than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe we are also a product of a childhood, of an education. It is therefore difficult to tell you: yes, you need to be mysterious to be a good leader. We could say nonetheless that you need enough inner depth to dive into yourself when the events ask you to take tough decisions, or that the enemy wants to isolate you. Learning to get on well with yourself is important. You are your best companion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roos: <\/strong>What is your definition of courage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wa\u0142\u0119sa: <\/strong>Oh but you\u2019ve kept the toughest question for the end! Again, this can only be a personal answer. What I think is that you should feel the moment when you should act, trust your instinct (whence the need to know yourself). Courage is being able to take a decision when everyone around you is shouting, paralysed and unable to act. It\u2019s not about being unflappable, for we are all humans, we are all weak and mortals. I think it is about managing to move by drawing from the depths of your being this extra breath of harmony everyone else around you is lacking. And, last but not least: remain true to yourself, to your creeds and beliefs, however tempting it may sometimes be to disown them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n