The NEIU Independent

Issue date: 2/9/10 Section: News

Media Credit: Submitted Photo

On Friday, Jan. 29, Lech Walesa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the former president of Poland, was in Chicago for one day. We were honored that he chose to spend part of his time briefly visiting with us on campus. This is the second time President Walesa has visited NEIU; his first visit was in late May when we honored him with the renaming of the former Classroom Building as Lech Walesa ("Vuh-when-suh") Hall.

President Walesa is largely responsible for the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In the 1970s, Walesa worked as an electrician in a Gdask shipyard, where he led labor strikes. In 1980, he founded Solidarity, the first independent trade union in the Eastern bloc, with striking laborers in Gdask and across Poland. Solidarity fought a peaceful revolution for the dignity of human labor in the Eastern bloc. Because of Walesa and the union's efforts, the establishment of a noncommunist government in Poland was initiated in 1989. The following year, Walesa was elected President of the Republic of Poland, an office he held until 1995. The success of Solidarity and Walesa's election to the presidency were striking victories for anti-communist candidates and led to a succession of anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, Walesa's leadership in Poland contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990's.

In 1983, Walesa was the first Pole to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In addition to many honorary degrees, his honors include the Medal of Freedom (from the United States) and the European Award of Human Rights.

After his first visit to our University, President Walesa wrote a letter of appreciation and advice to you, the students of NEIU. This letter was read at the NEIU Polish American Heritage Celebration that took place this fall. In honor of his second visit, I would like to share that letter with you, because as students of Northeastern you all have a stake in the shaping of what Walesa describes as the "structure of the future."

Dear Friends.

It is a great honor for me to be a patron of a building at your University. I believe that my name, which appears at the gable end of the building, will remind current and future students about our great victorious struggle against communism. It was a difficult and long journey, but we managed to overturn the totalitarian system without spilling blood. It was then that we showed the world how to fight and win without destroying everything around. This peaceful revolution opened doorways to a new epoch. In turn, this epoch demands new programs and new structures because the strategies employed to date do not fit in with our contemporary times. They should be updated in accordance with the challenges of current reality. And it is you, young people, now coming to shape, who will be making decisions about how the world should be constructed.

In our Polish struggle, we took the path of dialogue, solidarity and human dignity. These values and ideals brought millions of Poles together and led us to victory despite significant superiority of power on the side of the communists. They had missiles, soldiers and tanks, but we had the "Spirit" - the "Spirit of Solidarity" which proved stronger. Let this be an example for you that true success should be built upon values and respect for human dignity. Only in this way can we create a free, peaceful world.

Lech Walesa



'Til next time…

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