In an interview with istotne.pl, Marta Lempart spoke about the strength of the protests in Bolesławiec, Lwówek Śląski and Zgorzelec. “What paralyzed PiS, what filled them with fear, what took away their absolute power, at least for a moment, was that people took to the streets. First, in small towns, and second, in places where they did not expect anyone to come out at all,” said Marta Lempart, leader of the All-Poland Women's Strike. “Every authority imagines that it has places that belong to it, that are free from resistance, where no one will oppose it. The fact that they were confronted with the awareness that they do not know the day or the hour, that no territory belongs to them, and that nowhere can they be sure there will be no resistance—that froze them. It terrified them, and they are still afraid of it. Jarosław Kaczyński is a politician to us and may sometimes be dangerous to us, but to young people he is a meme. He is a surreal image toward which they feel nothing,” Marta Lempart added.
According to the leader of the Women's Strike, Law and Justice is primarily focusing on analyzing protests in small towns. “They are dying of fear; they have enormous resources to check how many people are taking to the streets in each town,” Lempart said of the Law and Justice party. “They hold meetings about it on Nowogrodzka, not at my office—or rather, they have an office [Strajku Kobiet – przyp. red.] on Wiejska. They hold meetings about the fact that 440 people were in Bolesławiec. I guarantee it, I am sure it is true: it depends on you. Big cities are a given, but the strength is in you. Their fear comes from losing territory. It comes from the fact that we surround Jarosław Kaczyński’s house and Nowogrodzka, but even more from the fact that they cannot be sure of any place in Poland. They cannot assume that there will be no resistance somewhere. And that terrifies them—remember that. Their fear is so great that it is incomparable to ours. Remember, they have the security services, the police and the army, and even so there are fewer of them than there are of us. All the services together are fewer than the people taking to the streets, and that is the point. I think we will make life difficult for all of them, both with what is happening around the Sejm and with the fact that all of Poland is telling them to go,” she said about protests, including those in Bolesławiec.
Marta Lempart admits that she argues with media outlets that want to show only crowds in Warsaw. “I also argue with the media because it looks better in photographs when there are lots of people. Then go work for Vogue instead of photographing protests if you want everything to look pretty. You have to go to Zgorzelec, and a woman [dziennikarka – przyp. red.] tells me that if there are about 50 people there, it looks bad. That is terrible contempt for people. What we can do is argue about it and show [małe miejscowości – przyp. red]. And you should be aware that PiS is not afraid of us in Warsaw or Wrocław, nor of me and the women in big cities.
The women's rights activist also addressed the possibility of forming a party from the emerging movement. She neither denied nor confirmed such a possibility. “We are not thinking that way at all right now,” she said in the interview. “This question is extremely difficult for me. Perhaps people in the Women's Strike will start discussing it. It is an interesting question. It cannot be that people talk to us about it and we reply that we will not deal with it. We are unable to deal with it now, but it may be that the pressure will become so great that we will have to sit down and consider it, and then we will make every effort to do it sensibly,” Lempart added.
The leader of the Women's Strike added that it was also crucial for her to listen to the voices of people taking to the streets. “If we do not mess anything up, no one writes a program and puts it away in a drawer, someone gathers these voices from the streets, finds a solution, and they are concrete things to put to the government: do this, and if you cannot, resign. With such caution, I can say that perhaps we are able to create at least the space to answer the question about a party. And perhaps there will be such a need,” the leader explained. “For me, this is a stressful time, because what is crucial now is to hear all the voices with the strength they currently have, in the numbers they have on individual issues, rather than listen to what is currently the loudest. And not to hear only what is closest to us. It is important to preserve the proportions, to put in as much work as necessary to reflect what is really happening in the streets, what people are really saying, and to have a full picture of 580 towns. These are different and divided voices. It is enormous work. And we are capable of taking it on,” Lempart declared.
Marta Lempart also described the work underway in the Women's Strike consultation council. “By creating a consultation council, for the first time experts will not invent some Poland of their own; they will work for people. They will collect every voice, every demand, every placard, every banner, every piece of cardboard. That is what I would like; it is my dream,” the activist said emphatically. “I am perfectly suited to the role of the bad cop, telling experts that their role is to serve, that their authority, commitment and skills are solely to serve people, and that we do not care one bit if they arrive with something ready-made. They are to work with the material they receive from us, which they receive from the streets; they are to work and seek solutions that are understandable to me, as someone without the appropriate education. I do not want to hear what healthcare and education should look like or which country’s model should be followed. I want to know what must happen so that people do not spend eight hours in ambulances and die, what needs to be done in the next three months, how much it costs and where to get the money. I will make sure of that,” Marta Lempart promised.
Marta Lempart—quotes
At first, we organized ourselves in small towns. Now it is paying off.
In 2016, we organized the first protest.
I do not tell people what to do; we only offer suggestions. People do what they want, how they want and when they want: they take walks, they protest.
We have become a civil society.
Motherhood should be conscious. It should be a decision made by a woman and her family.
The majority of abortions involve people who already have families.
We have 13 areas of protest demands.
We will not give up on abortion.
One in three women in Poland has had an abortion.
We all know how much it costs and how it is arranged; we all know someone who has had the procedure.
It is better to call things by their name. I leave lying to the Church and the right wing.
We are not thinking about forming a party now.
It is crucial now to hear all the people's voices: what people are saying and what they want.
Experts should deal with people's demands, rather than arrive with ready-made projects and visions.
The authorities did not expect protests in small towns. It terrified them, and they are still afraid of it.
PiS's fear stems from losing “territory.” There are fewer security services than people taking to the streets.
PiS analyzes how many people take part in protests in smaller towns. They are afraid of mass protests.
When the authorities become a joke, it means they no longer exist.
For young people, Kaczyński is already a meme.