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Belarus’s Revolution of Dignity
Like most revolutions, the mass uprising in Belarus has come as a surprise, even though it was long overdue. Here, Sławomir Sierakowski, a first-hand chronicler of the protests, speaks with former Polish dissident leader Adam Michnik about the historical context and implications of today's events.
MINSK – Since claiming – preposterously – to have won 80% of the vote in the election on August 9, Aleksandr Lukashenko, Belarus’s president for the past 26 years, has been facing a growing protest movement comprising not just opposition supporters but also his own blue-collar base. Writing from Minsk for the past two weeks, Sławomir Sierakowski of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw has tracked the evolution of the democratic uprising. In what follows, he interviews Adam Michnik, one of the leaders of Poland’s Solidarity movement and an architect of the country’s democratic transition after 1989.