Comment on the article Marvin Rees: ‘When my pal Alexei Navalny is free, I’ll give him a grand tour of Bristol’ by Matthew Campbell in The Sunday Times, 14 February 2021. Polish version: Rees, Navalny, Colston, Dzierżyński,
In the June 8, 2020 article in the Evening Standard Marvin J Rees was quoted to have said
“My concern though is that racism is tackled not just by pulling down statues in symbolic moments – it’s stitched into the system. It’s the systematic exclusion of people from opportunity and power.”
This was after the statue of Colston the slave trader was toppled in Bristol.
This systematic exclusion of people from opportunity and power is a fact in Eastern Europe. The statues of Dzerzhinsky are standing in Russian cities, some erected recently. Contemporary Russia is built on terror and genocide. Navalny has no problem with that. Corruption is a nonessential issue in Russia. It is an ersatz story.
Mr Rees, you can meet me. I have a PhD in Physics from an American university and I will tell you how the systematic exclusion from opportunity and power is carried out in Eastern Europe. I will also tell you how my pianist wife and I were expelled from our jobs in Polish state educational institutions for our beliefs and simply for who we are.
@LechSBorkowski