Seeing Adam Michnik in person, the dissident who founded Polish Solidarity with Lech Walesa, is grounding. He’s a man who spent a total of six years in jail, lived through and brought about enormous social and political changes in his country; but he’s a humble and charming presence on stage, and touches on difficult and complex subjects.

Now editor of Gazeta Wyborcza and a historian, Michnik begins by paying tribute to event sponsor Amnesty International, describing himself as a former client of theirs along with Alexander Solzhenitzyn and Aung San Suu Kyi. He pays particular tribute to Suu Kyi, who he recently met, and asks us to keep her in mind during the event – along with Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and multiple imprisoned Belarussian writers.

Through translator Basia Howard, Mr Michnik describes what it is to be a dissident. A dissident, he tells us, is a person who ‘thinks and acts differently in a world of dictators’, and whose philosophy is a refusal to take part in a lie and willingness to take part in truth. The pocket of time when it becomes possible to be a dissident, he tells us, is the moment when they are still locking people up, but no longer executing them.

Topically, he spoke about the importance of what happens following the fall of a dictatorship – whether the resulting state will be a democratic one, or a state for winners – linking Poland’s history with current events in North Africa. ‘They’ve shown us that they do need freedom’, he tells us. Michnik also touches on politics in modern-day Russia, saying ‘Only Russians themselves can reach for democracy’.

There’s also talk of the complex Polish relationship with the church, which, along with the theatre, was the only public place where the Polish language was used. It formed a constant resistance against oppression in a stateless Poland, he says. Michnik answers questions on his role in the Rywin Affair bribery scandal, saying that he regrets not publishing the information earlier, and held back because of concerns that the country’s reputation would be tarnished while Poland’s membership in the EU was being decided in Copenhagen. Joining the EU, he tells us, represented a permanent cutting off from the Soviet Union.

On the legacy of Solidarity and the results of his life work, Michnik says he wanted a citizens’ society and an emancipation of workers. His wishes have been met – the end of the Soviet Union, release of political prisoners and democracy (which he describes as imperfect) – but he says the situation in Poland is not ideal. ‘This is a sort of positive patriotism, to be dissatisfied with your own country’.