I don't know that anybody thinks of Walesa as a figure like Nelson Mandela, a reform leader deemed an enemy of the state that served decade after decade after decade as a prisoner of conscience rather than succumb to a fatally flawed system, until ultimately winning his freedom as that system collapsed, presiding over the establishment of a new system for a new nation, and becoming one of the most important leaders in the history of the world.
Walesa was a man who did the best he could. If he was a union president that informed on his members, he was a creature of his time and the system he was born into. Ronald Reagan did the exact same thing, only he was eager to inform on people he suspected of being subversives. Who benefits from pretending Walesa was the only one pressured into informing under that system? Who would want to tear that man down any further than he already has been? Has he ever claimed to've done more than his best under trying circumstances?
I don't know that anybody thinks of Walesa as a figure like Nelson Mandela, a reform leader deemed an enemy of the state that served decade after decade after decade as a prisoner of conscience rather than succumb to a fatally flawed system, until ultimately winning his freedom as that system collapsed, presiding over the establishment of a new system for a new nation, and becoming one of the most important leaders in the history of the world.
Walesa was a man who did the best he could. If he was a union president that informed on his members, he was a creature of his time and the system he was born into. Ronald Reagan did the exact same thing, only he was eager to inform on people he suspected of being subversives. Who benefits from pretending Walesa was the only one pressured into informing under that system? Who would want to tear that man down any further than he already has been? Has he ever claimed to've done more than his best under trying circumstances?