■ COMPARATIVE AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS ■

1. Question

   On what priorities and reforms do the leaders of Solidarity and Mikhail Gorbachev seem to agree? About which priorities do they disagree?

2. Question

   Compare and contrast Havel’s New Year’s message with the Solidarity Union’s “Twenty-One Demands.” What similarities and differences do you see in their analysis of the causes of the economic and social problems faced by eastern Europe?

3. Question

   How do Havel’s thoughts on the nature of unfree society compare with the photograph from China of a single man holding up four tanks? Based on what happened to the Tiananmen demonstrators, are Havel’s beliefs about the future justified?

4. Question

   Compare and contrast NOW’s statement of purpose with the excerpt from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (Document 28-5). What similarities do you see in Friedan’s and de Beauvoir’s analyses of the place of women in modern society? What differences do you note?