Happy Birthday Mr Mazowiecki




Portrait Photography 2001 by Maciej Plewinski, Krakow, Poland
http://www.plewinski.com/

Dear Mr Mazowiecki
You are one of the most distinguished political thinkers and political leaders of our times, and it cannot be stressed enough that not only you have been, as Rudolf Stamm notes on page 7 of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of April 17, 2007: "The Spiritus Rector of Solidarnosc" but that you have lent your intellectual and moral power, after your successful term as Poland's first post-communist prime minister in 1989 and 1990, to one of the most difficult humanitarian mandates of the last decade of the 20th century:
as envoy of the United Nations from 1991 to 1995 in Bosnia torn apart by a cruel fratricidal war. More to that: you had the courage to step back and to declare that you did this not so much because you were tired but in order to protest against the political class of Western Europe that did systematically scotomize these disastrous events which have left deep wounds in the Balkans that will last for decades to come.
Your recent engagement against growing ultra-nationalist extremism in your own country at an age where others would sit back to contemplate the world with contempt but without telling their fellow citizens about their thoughts and their feelings, merits our full admiration.

With my best wishes for many years to come, for fine health and good spirits

Osservatore Profano