Orzechowski: Polish Author & Activist on the Hunt for Inspiration & Injustice

Michal Orzechowski, a Polish journalist, writer and human rights activist for the NGO World Solidarity, has a penchant for finding interesting stories in unlikely places.

 

The author of a book called "Free Tibet, Free China" Michal says that for the best stories, you need to be ready to step out of the comfort zone of your domestic back yard.

 

In 2008, his human rights work took him to Georgia. The ex-Soviet country was then reeling from a shock Russian military invasion.

 

[Michal Orzechowski, Journalist & Author]: 

"I came to Georgia because of the war. When Russia attacked on Georgia the 8th of April 2008, it was the same day the Beijing Olympics started. And I was shocked with Russia brutality. They destroyed private houses, they steal toilets from bathrooms, and they were hijacking people at night."

 

A few years later, Michal met the Dalai Lama while the Tibetan leader-in-exile was on a state visit to Poland, and a new adventure was in the works.

 

[Michal Orzechowski, Journalist & Author]: 

"Just after coming from Georgia and making humanitarian help in Georgia and also making a report for the European Parliament, I met His Holiness Dalai Lama in the Polish Parliament. And I asked him if maybe it's a good idea to go to Tibetan camps in India and to make a report on how Tibetans are living in refugee camps in India and he said you're very much welcome, please come. That's why I went to India."

 

But while documenting the Tibetan refugee camps in and around Daram Sala, India, Michal ran across an unusual and, to him, a fascinating story.

 

[Michal Orzechowski, Journalist & Author]: 

"So during my work for Tibetans in Tibetan camps, I met this fascinating story about a Chinese Colonel who first was a member of the Chinese Communist occupation forces in Tibet in the late 50s. And then when he realised what the Chinese were doing to the Tibetans, he switched sides, he joined the Tibetans, he was fighting as a Tibetan ally and he was protecting the Dalai Lama to escape to India. And then he went with the Dalai Lama to India and Tibetans, he stayed there, he learned Tibetan, he had a Tibetan wife and then he died there."

 

Michal adds that what's particularly inspiring for him is the example of a Chinese senior military official breaking with the communist regime to follow his own conscience.

 

[Michal Orzechowski, Journalist & Author]: 

"So in Daram Sala I met the author of a book about the Chinese Colonel. And I was really thrilled because just from the beginning I knew it was a great story. He make a book in Chinese, in classic old fahion Chinese and in Tibetan about the Chinese Colonel."

 

Michal is now working on a television documentary on the Colonel.

 

A screenplay adaptation of the story is also in the works. In fact Michal finds the story so compelling, he hopes to turn the Colonel's story into a feature film. 

 

Adventure, of course! 

 

And while there's always another gripping drama on the horizon drawing Michal to another part of the globe, he hopes the Chinese Colonel will be coming soon, to a theatre near you.

 

NTD News, Warsaw, Poland