France can never accept that it is no longer a dominating power in the world of culture. This is true both of the French right and the French left. They keep thinking that Americans are primitive cowboys or farmers who do not understand anything.
ADAM MICHNIKWe lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing.
More Adam Michnik Quotes
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The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist party members and others who wanted to bring about ‘socialism with a human face.’
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The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.
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They want a gradual coup. If Orbán stayed in power in Hungary or if Kaczynski were to win an election in our country, it would be dangerous.
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We lack a political culture, a culture of compromise. We in Poland, as well as the Hungarians, have never learned this sort of thing.
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A part of society in our countries would still prefer an authoritarian regime today. These are people with the mentality of Homo sovieticus. But they also exist in France – just think of Le Pen – and even in Finland and Sweden.
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After the fall of communism in Poland, we had a post-communist as president for two terms: Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was very good. He brought Poland into NATO and the European Union.
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Sometimes the type of person from the old machine, who is everything but an appealing figure, happens to win an election. But democracy applies to everyone, not just the noble and the clever.
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This is why we will never again say that Chamberlain is no better than Hitler, Roosevelt no better than Stalin, and Nixon no better than Mao Zedong, even if we do condemn Roosevelt for Yalta, Chamberlain for Munich, and Nixon for Watergate.
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I consider that 9/11 was the day when war was started against my own work and against myself.
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I can’t remember any text of mine where I said that one should fight Hitler without violence; I’m not an idiot.
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Although there is a strong desire for freedom in the countries of Eastern Europe, there is no democratic tradition, so that the risk of anarchy and chaos continues to exist.
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Today we reject the notion of equality between a regime that belongs to the democratic world – even if it is conservative and disagreeable – and a totalitarian dictatorship, whether its colors are black, red, or green.
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Politics and ethics belong to different worlds.
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If you’re powerful, you are much more likely to be blind and deaf to signals from outside.
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The call to finally clean house is a propaganda tool of the right, which tolerates the leftists who it condemns.
ADAM MICHNIK