Quoting his friend Shvetz:
“You in the West, you get your democracy just like you get your coffee and your morning paper. It’s like water coming out of the tap. You don’t have to think about it. It’s going to come every day. People used to come here from the West and say, ‘Now, behave yourselves and be democratic,’ and then leave. But you never had to fight for it, not in your lifetimes. We have to fight for it right now. One hundred metres from here. We’re at the front of democracy—literally at the front, where people die.”