Sep 11, 2008

Tribute to Bronislaw Geremek

Remarks by Carl Gershman in honor of Bronislaw Geremek

Washington D.C.

It’s my pleasure, on behalf of the National Endowment for Democracy and the Embassy of Poland, to welcome you to this Memorial Gathering in honor Bronislaw Geremek. 

Since this gathering coincides with the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I suggest that we take a moment of silence before we commence the program in remembrance of the victims of that attack upon America.

When we decided to hold this gathering, we did so for essentially three reasons.  We did so, first of all, out of friendship and solidarity. Bronek was a friend of the NED and of many people here.  It was a friendship forged during the liberation struggle of Solidarity and its immediate aftermath, and in the case of the NED, it shaped our identity during our early years and connected us to history in a way that probably exceeded the wildest dreams of our founders.  Many of our friends from that period – Jan Novak and Jacek Kuron, Lane Kirkland, Tom Kahn and Walt Raymond – are no longer with us, but we cherish their memory, as we do that of Bronik.  I want to note the presence here today, despite having sustained 25 stitches just yesterday, of one friend from that period, Stephen Solarz, who used his presence in the Congress and his frequent visits to Poland to help us communicate with the Solidarity leaders, especially Professor Geremek.

The second reason we wanted to honor Bronislaw Geremek is stated by Madeleine Albright in the statement we’ve distributed.   He was, she writes, “one of the great heroes of democracy in the twentieth century.”  She recalls poignantly their collaboration in organizing together in Poland the founding meeting of the Community of Democracies, and the pride that Bronek took in the fact that Warsaw might now be associated in the public mind not with a communist military pact but with a declaration of universal democratic principles.  The Warsaw Declaration also serves as a monument to Bronek’s democratic convictions.

Finally, we had an educational purpose in wanting to hold this memorial.  As the statements we’ve distributed from Senator Barbara Mikulski, Sasa Vondra, Adam Michnik, and Leszek Kolakowski make clear, Geremek lived an edifying life that needs to be remembered and also understood by those too young to recall the momentous events of 1989.  His life, as Michnik writes, was a demonstration of his belief “that the history of human societies is a process of the constant overcoming of egoism and broadening of the spirit of solidarity,” despite all the failures and setbacks.  As Kolakowski notes, Geremek was very much an astute and calculating politician, but “he never lost sight of the fundamental values that must be kept intact amid compromises and concessions.”  He never compromised “the value of truth…for the sake of a good result.”  His life was a model of responsible moral engagement that will continue to inspire successive generations.  It is also a standing rebuke, as Sasa Vondra caustically notes, to “politicians, especially in Western Europe, [who] bury their heads in the sand to avoid tough challenges of the future…”

These messages that I’ve referenced, and another one from the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski that will be read by the Ambassador, are from friends of Bronislaw Geremek who wanted to be here but couldn’t.  Thankfully, we also have a full program of tributes by friends and colleagues of Bronek who have been able to join us, and they will speak in the order in which they are listed on the program.  I especially want to welcome Senator Richard Lugar, Under Secretary Paula Dobriansky, and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, all of whom served selflessly on the NED Board, and Ambassador Max Kampelman, whom we honored with our Democracy Service Medal just last May.   It’s now my pleasure to introduce Ambassador Robert Kupiecki, who is our co-host and with whom we planned this memorial gathering.  Ambassador Kupiecki.

Before we adjourn for the luncheon reception that is so generously hosted by Ambassador Kupiecki and the Embassy of Poland, I want to read a passage from the tribute by Leszek Kolakowski that I think captures Bronisla Geremek’s historical significance.

We may safely say that without him the entire process that brought to an end the power of the communist party in Poland would not have succeeded. And this was also the process that started the chain of events which in subsequent years led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, and finally the collapse of communism in Central Europe and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have no idea how this process would have been possible without the Polish example, how many years and how much bloodshed it would have caused. But let me repeat: it is safe to say that today’s world would be worse than it is without Geremek’s contribution to its history.