Walesa talks of faith, the future and responsibility

Matt McKinney, Star Tribune
December 1, 2005

COLLEGEVILLE, MINN. - Lech Walesa, the onetime shipyard worker who led his nation out of communism to become its president, spoke at St. John's University in Collegeville on Wednesday evening, urging the world's only superpower to use its leadership for moral and political good.

The former president, speaking to more than 1,000, sprinkled his talk with the humor that made him a popular figure among the people of Poland, calling himself just "a little Pole," and wondering how Europe could ever compete with the much more populous China. Maybe every family could have 30 children, he joked.

Before taking questions, he recounted the history of Poland's popular uprising that toppled the Soviet system. Several times he spoke of his faith, saying that without it he would have been "eliminated from this world."

He also spoke of the good fortune his movement acquired when Pope John Paul II, a Pole, rose to the head of the Roman Catholic Church, emboldening the people of Poland.

And he spoke of the hopelessness of the country before his Solidarity movement helped topple the Communist government installed by the Soviet Union.

"I never came across a single politician who would give us the slightest chance of bringing communism down and winning a victory against it," he said.

Walesa's folksy style, which characterized his leadership among the working class, was evident as he explained seeing the Communists and secret police meet the Polish pope for the first time. They had learned how to cross themselves, but couldn't say the accompanying words, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," so instead they counted "one, two, three, four, five."

His first meeting with the pope was not overtly political, he said, but later he realized "the whole nation is a nation of believers."

He encouraged people not to be disappointed by failure, saying his movement was full of failure before it found success. "Be not discouraged by your failures," he said. "If you're headed in the right direction you might even end up with a Nobel Prize for it."

Marta Lewicka, a math professor at the University of Minnesota, drove to Collegeville to listen to Walesa, remembering what it was like when she attended high school in Gdansk adjacent to the shipyards where Walesa was battling the government. She said, "You can't go on, you can't do anything, unless your choices are based on faith, which indeed worked in Poland."

Nick Hayes
University Chair in Critical Thinking
Quad 451B, SJU
(320) 363-2623

Kathryn Holt
Research Assistant

Norma Koetter
Administrative Assistant, University Chair in Critical Thinking
(320) 363-2770
nkoetter@csbsju.edu