We shall not yield to violence. We shall not be deprived of union freedoms. We shall never agree with sending people to prison for their convictions.

We must be courageous but also reasonable. The world admires us for walking a tightrope without falling off. It asks us to keep our balance.

The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible.

"It all came from there," Lech Walesa said, pointing to a TV when a reporter asked him why communism fell.

The people in Poland had to deal with painful reforms.

President Lech Kaczynski is not at all active in Poland and his image abroad leaves a lot to be desired.

It is not difficult to censor foreign news. What is difficult today is to censor one's own thoughts, To sit by and see the blind man On the sightless horse, riding into the bottomless abyss.