ON GRAFTON STREET:THE POLISH Solidarity leader Lech Walesa yesterday became an unwitting player in the partisan Irish political game when accompanying Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny on a "walkabout" at St Stephen's Green in Dublin.
An array of paintings was on display along the Green and the Kenny-Walesa duo stopped to admire the work of pop artist Brendan Higgins who has an Irish variation on the Barack Obama “Hope” poster which shows the face of Brian Cowen and the words, “No Hope”.
Before he knew it, the guiltless Polish leader, who speaks no English, was holding the “No Hope” portrait of the Taoiseach as the photographers snapped away merrily.
The two men had just emerged from a joint press conference at the Shelbourne Hotel where Walesa took 40 minutes to answer about a half-dozen questions. His feisty delivery, the relentless detail of his responses and his passion showed why the Polish communists simply did not have a chance.
Walesa said his decision to attend two election rallies of the anti-Lisbon group Libertas earlier this year was part of a process of engagement with his opponents.
He agreed with the Libertas analysis, but not their opposition to Lisbon, he said. The man who did more than any other individual to destroy the Soviet system of government showed a Marxist-style capacity to maintain contradictory viewpoints in dialectical unity.
When the men stood together at Fusiliers’ Arch, popularly known as “Traitor’s Gate”, and a passer-by loudly phoned a friend to say he was in the presence of the great Lech Walesa, it was not all one-sided. Two teenage girls were screaming with delight after getting their photograph taken with the Fine Gael leader; whatever about Brian, there seems to be hope for Enda.
