At the end of the afternoon on 19 October, Piotr, 54 years old, set himself on fire in front of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, to protest against damaging Polish government policies.
A few years previously, at the end of the last century and at the very last moment, Adam refused to enter the Great Hall of the People in Peking, where the Chinese authorities were getting ready to greet a delegation of European journalists.
These two symbolic acts illustrate Poland's recent...