Solidarity
turned 40 last year.
What started as a workers union led by Lech Wałęsa at the Gdańsk Shipyard, turned into one of the biggest grassroots civic movements in world history. In 1982, amid martial law in Poland, when the trade union was delegalized, the movement had close to 10 million members. The population of Poland at that time was 36 million.
It remains the most powerful symbol of a nation too proud to submit to oppression. It is a nail in the coffin of communism in Europe.
This banner was the first thing we saw when we looked out our hotel window in downtown Warsaw. Even though the movement started back in 1980, its message is as important today as it was back then. Belarusians can take a page from the Solidarity playbook.
Travel to Learn
Maureen’s history teacher had never heard of The Warsaw Uprising I’m sure there are many histories he is aware of that I have never heard of. This is why we travel. Mark Twain wrote, “I travel to learn.” How can you not visit a place or a foreign country and not learn a little bit about it while you are there? Even a flea-bitten, tourist trap of a tropical island has a history. You do it, and yourself, a disservice if you don’t attempt to find out what that history is.
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