Polish Women Still in the Wimbledon Hunt

Lame, I know. But, hey, this is an angle to the Polish story. I'll get back to work soon. Let's hear it for the Radwanska's!

Wimbledon is the only thing...

...to derail my writing. Oops. Christie pointed out today that I had not updated this blog in a few days. There is only one excuse. Wimbledon. I am a tennis junkie. Two years ago, spending a summer in Warsaw, living without a television (and that is a whole other story), I discovered all of the sports pubs in town. And mooched some viewing time from friends. I even visited the art gallery owned by Poland's claim to tennis fame in years back, W. Fibak, multiple times, to feel a bit of Wimbledon vibe. Pathetic, I know. I'll be back at this now. Just watch.

Let's Hear It For the Ducks!

The Ducks turned 60! Picture your most petulant friend. Temper tantrums. Pouting. Insolent stubborn pettiness. That, unfortunately, goes a long way to describing Poland's President and his twin brother. Polish President, Lech Kaczynski and his mostly identical twin, the former Prime Minister (yes, they were in office at the same time), Jaroslaw Kaczynski celebrate their 60th birthdays this week. Cheers for the Ducks. Yip yip. The evening was settled and lovely, lazy white clouds floating around in the sky, the calm after another afternoon storm. Our coffees were still steaming as we sat around the marble table at Blikle and watched the world go by. Up the street, a sound of two-tone sirens alerted us to the coming motorcade. Three motorcycles led a procession of four black Mercedes, serious cars for serious business. Of course we looked. "Oh," he said, "it's just the Ducks." Presidential motorcades in Poland are not quite the dramatic affairs they are here in the States. No oversized SUV's, no press bus. Just the four Mercedes speeding up Nowy Swiat from the Presidential offices to the Presidential residence, or the Parliament or the opera. So went the Ducks, a twofer, both of them together, off to wherever they were wanted. Which is not everywhere, that's for sure. The Ducks are not terribly popular, especially in the capital. Which is why -- and you may have been wondering -- they are derisively referred to as "the Ducks." It's not a term of affection. And certainly not one of respect. The name "Kaczynski" is very close to the word for duck. Hence, you have it. They were child actors. Think Lindsay Lohen in high office. No, please don't. Lech and Jaroslaw became lawyers and then activists in the burgeoning Solidarity movement in the early 80's. After an infamous falling out with Lech Walesa, having to do with an admittedly crude joke Walesa made about matters pertaining to the brothers' sexual orientation, the twins went their way and were instrumental in the creation of a rival political party that has been consistently consumed with matters of personal morality and, more to the point, vendettas against the more liberal and outward looking politics of a long list of Polish presidents and parliamentarians. Of course there are substantive issues on which their political party, PiS -- and yes, Poles love to refer to it as such, knowing full well the meaning of piss in English parlance -- and other parties differ. Especially regarding the influence, directly or indirectly, of Roman Catholic teaching on issues of sexual morality. But it often seems that the main energy of PiS is all about antagonizing Walesa and whomever they view as allies of more progressive social policies. The pettiness has been laughable. And sad, disturbing and stupid. The Ducks are not in quite the same power position as two years ago. The PiS coalition in Parliament fell apart and new elections were held, from which a new party emerged victorious. Lech is still the country's President but Jaroslaw is only the leader of the minority party. Nonetheless, they manage to keep stirring the pot. Temper tantrums of late have included ridiculous posturing about their role in the celebrations of the end of communism. Several European leaders, including Angela Merkel of Germany, came to honor Poland's role in bringing down the walls around the Soviet satellites. But there was no President of Poland to welcome her. Oh, no. He was off in Gdansk, leading a counter-celebration set up to compete with the official one. Earlier, he chartered a plane to fly to an EU meeting where he was not officially involved because, he insisted, he should be. And the Ducks duo summarily cancelled an important international summit two years ago because they were angry at German political cartoons for making some fun of them. It would be like Bush refusing to go to France because, oh, wait, I think that happened too. Well, anyway. Pettiness and petulance are their hallmarks. And I tell you all this because it has had an unfortunate effect on Poland's continued development economically, culturally, and politically. Poland, twenty years beyond communism, is still spoiled to an extent by the continued suspicions and resentments of the past. Who did what, who was on what side, who got what when the country privatized its huge production plants and corporations? It will take until the next generation is firmly in charge, probably, for all of these old hurts and frustrations to stop standing in the way of basic reforms still needed to modernize the economy. How can you get anything done when everything is hamstrung by bickering, obstinance and stick-out-your-lower-lip, take-your-ball-and-go-home silliness? Poland's remarkable economic success has happened in spite of, rather than thanks to government leadership. So now Poland has only one Duck in high office instead of two. But both brothers keep up the barrage of bad behaviors. In spite of that, and in the spirit of cheesy bipartisanship, let me be among the well-wishers. Let's hear it for the ducks. Quack.

"We are not alone, the world is in Tehran"

The tweets come in at the rate of 2 per second. I would have died for this much information from Poland during its darkest days. As it was, we counted on National Public Radio and the television networks. They did what they could but it was never enough. It was never even close to enough. In the horrible days after Martial Law was declared in December, 1981, there were no telephones, no snail mail and we hung on every word of every foreigner who came out from Poland, "what about this street? were the photographs from the Academy of Science really true, were there tanks?" We were desperate for information about friends, colleagues. Who had been arrested? Where were they being taken? More than anything, I was overwhelmed with grief for my friends, for the trauma they were feeling and facing in the days to come. It was months before I had any useful information. Months. And that was, for then, normal. Now, in the time I've taken to write this, my TweetDeck reports that another 140 tweets have come in. I get a chirp every twenty seconds or so. Since I started this paragraph, I've received 40! And since then, 60 more. It's the middle of the night in Tehran and it's not quiet. Or peaceful. This only serves to remind that the peaceful transformations in eastern Europe twenty years ago were not then, and not now in memory, to be taken for granted. For those who wait here tonight for news from Iran, I'm not sure if it is better or not to have all of this graphic data in real time -- cars burning, gunshots exchanged between police and protesters firing from apartment windows. But surely this is good news, a tweet that just came, "we are not alone, the world is in Tehran tonight." We matter to one another. We do.

Pride

Europe will invade Poland. Again. Poland will host Europride next summer, the international gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups and persons who work for an end to discrimination against homosexuality and for protection of human rights. As for this summer, Warsaw's Gay Pride Parade was held on Saturday, June 13, and a smaller than usual turn-out turned out. Nevertheless, it was a vibrant celebration of gay rights in a traditionally conservative Catholic country, which is to say, not the most welcoming of environments. (click on Pride title for link to parade video) It was illegal to be gay (figure out how to comply with that, lgbt friends!) during the communist era. Or more precisely, the topic (and the lifestyle) was taboo. I was invited to a very official high level church dinner in 1986, with local and international guests, including gloriously-hatted Russian Orthodox archbishops and metropolitans, and Orthodox representatives from the Middle East. As far as the other participants were concerned, my presence was the scandal du jour. But to my Polish friends, who drove me there and had to come in to be sure my information was accurate, the big scandal was the choice of Warsaw's leading (yet discreet) gay restaurant as the site for this ecumenical event. In the twenty years since Poland held its first free elections and left the straight-jacket of communism behind, Poland's gay community has been inching out of the closet. The first Gay Pride Parade was more of a huddle. In 1998, three brave individuals with hoods over their heads met at the Sigismund column in Castle Square. By 2003, four thousand marchers carried rainbow flags and demonstrated in favor of protection from discrimination. Then came the return of dark ages, as Lech Kaczynski, then mayor of Warsaw, now the country's President, banned the parade. By 2005, thousands of Polish and international marchers took to the streets in the largest illegal parade through Warsaw's streets, in its history. Clashes with police were tense but not violent. By 2006, ten thousand GLBT persons and other supporters of gay rights were parading peacefully. And so it has continued. But not without strong resistance. While President, Kaczynski was inducted into the Hall of Shame by Human Rights Watch, a group that monitors minority rights throughout Europe. He used "heavy-handed" language to warn of dire danger to the moral order of the country should Poland accede to the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, which does promise protections of human rights. A member of his government, Ewa Sowinska, took the Tele Tubbies to task, famously challenging Tinky Winky's use of a purse -- "a homosexual undertone" -- and warned that his behavior could have an adverse effect upon children. I was glad to see him along with the rest of the tubbies (pronounced tubeys or toobeys in Polish)when I arrived in Poland later that year. Phew! Large parades are back, along with much freer debate and dialogue. Poland's leading news magazine, Polityka, has an excellent article this week, an interview with a leading psychotherapist who specializes in treating GLBT persons. It is very sympathetic and sophisticated, about How to Live in a Homosexual Relationship. You might find something similar in The New York Times or The Economist. It notes that Poland is thirty years behind much of the rest of Europe with respect to GLBT issues, especially in terms of education and tolerance, but credits the internet for the explosion of positive developments. And now this article will be yet another step along the road to legalization of gay unions, protection against discrimination, and good education for the general public about homosexuality. And, meanwhile, as the struggle continues here and there and everywhere, it truly can be said that Poland, now after these twenty years, is normal.

Reaping the Whirlwind

"Where there is hatred, let me sow love." Why? Why do we hate? Why do we choose to believe the worst of one another? Why do we suspend disbelief and choose to believe what is not true? Three murders in three weeks. Hate crimes, whether or not they will be so determined by the courts. Of course, all murder is a hate crime, in one sense or another. But these three, the military recruiter, Dr. George Tiller, and the security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, have this in common: their killers were not at home with truth. Delusion. Virulent hatred based on the choice to believe what is not true. America is not at war with Islam or all Arabs. Late-term abortions are not frivolous. The Holocaust did happen. We choose to hate. We choose to be intolerant. I don't know why. Do you? Theories I have, of course. Fear. Convenience. Laziness. The need for control. The need for surety. Greed. Jealousy. Poland knows too much about hate. The most hideous hate crimes imaginable were carried out by Nazis on Polish soil. Auschwitz. Treblinka. Majdanek. Sobibor. Those are infamous. They really did happen. The barracks and barbed wire at Auschwitz still bear grim witness to that reality. The crematorium is still standing; you can go inside it. Hate. Our human nature is profoundly perverted at times. Our logic is skewed. Our fears provoke us to irrational conclusions. We choose to believe things that are not true because it serves us somehow. Nazi's chose to believe that Poles were inferior, sub-human, that Jews were responsible for all that was wrong in the world. What to do? Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. was a testament to awful truth. Dangerous, disturbing, disruptive truth. What to do in the wake of this tragedy? Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Hate kills. It reaps what is sows. In response, I can only think to pray, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace....where there is hatred, let me sow love."

Bellybutton of Europe

"Pawlak: Poland Can Be Normal." Say what you will, Poland is an exceedingly normal, sometimes boringly normal place these days. The Deputy Prime Minister's headline caught my attention last year and reminded me of the desperate need we all have, to fit in, to be one of the gang, to be, in other words, normal. "We're a normal country now," my Polish friends tell me. "I always wanted to live in a normal country and now I do." I'm not always sure that normal is really all it's cracked up to be but I get the point. It is a good thing that Poland now has the same kinds of problems and issues and successes, too, that other European countries experience. Witness today's news from Poland. E! Entertainment Television is being offered free to analog viewers this month. Normally it is only available to digital subscribers. E! Get your gossip here folks. Level 3 Communications are expanding their network in Poland. Level 3, that's a Denver company. Level 3. Wow. The little village of Podkowa Lesna, near Warsaw, where I lived during my first stay in Poland in 1980, had the highest percentage turn-out to vote in the European Parliamentary elections on June 7 -- 50.86% -- and has been awarded the title, "Bellybutton on Europe." The European average was only 24.5% so I'd say the good folks of Podkowa did themselves proud. And for this they get a commemorative plaque. I can't wait to see it. "Bellybutton of Europe." How can you get more normal than that? Ernst & Young -- yes, that Ernst & Young -- reports from their offices in Poland that foreign investors continue to find the country an attractive place for their investments, even during the recession. The price of mushrooms decreased last week. But the price of tomatoes went up. Newspapers are having a hard time. And you'll find lively discussions about cooking, sex, patriotism, money and banks and finance, and poets. Poland, thank heavens, is normal. And perhaps, we can hope, almost cheerful.

"Prepare thyself to live"

A flash of brilliance. Stunning insight that bursts open the mind of an artist. Inspiration that is nothing short of divine overwhelmed composer, Gustav Mahler, on the morning of his friend's memorial service. Within hours he was at his work table composing music and words to sum up his Second Symphony, "Resurrection." From the moment I first heard this piece I was moved to my core and especially struck by this passage, "Cease trembling! Prepare thyself to live!" How do we prepare to live? Coming back from death to life. How to prepare? I nearly died. Seven years ago I was close enough to death to feel its gravity pulling me down, enveloping me in the sweet potential of not feeling, not hurting, not agonizing any more over the unbearable question, "who would do this? why would anyone delliberately inflict this much damage on another human being?" It was an attack I didn't see coming, leveling me as quickly as I could whisper the word, "help." In the aftermath, the damage to my psyche and my soul was worse than other physical wounds. But even in the moments of deepest suffering, I knew I wanted to live. I knew I needed to live. And, somehow, I knew I would. But how to prepare, to live again? Honest acknowledgement of the worst of the damage was an early step. And rest. My soul needed rest. My body surely needed rest. And my mind, traumatized and injured to the point I couldn't add or subtract, couldn't focus on anything, could not read or write or even follow a simple television newscast, needed a lot of rest. The steps back into life were not linear. And the steps into life rarely are. For any of us. We try this, then that. We go this way, then that way. We organize, plan, execute -- but inevitably something happens and we change the plan, again. Chaos. I've learned to love chaos. The swirl of possibilities. The untidiness of potentialities. Taking this, and that, from here and there, creating a glorious mess that somehow yields a new insight, a moment of movement. One of the reasons I can appreciate the Polish struggle and history so much is that it feels familiar. Especially these days. I look to the Polish stories for more than just an interesting read. In their long, long and seemingly unending experience of dying and rising, I find clues to the way back, for myself. "Prepare thyself to live." It's really not a bad way to start the day, every day. If only I can remember every day to start there.

Chill

The icy vodka went down easy. Very sweet, very smooth. Stories were told. Photographs were studied. Questions asked. Imponderables thoughtfully discussed. History is in our hands. Not every detail, not every moment, but in ways large and small, we are the makers of our days and times. We are invited, challenged, urged to take up the tasks of changing and forging, of building and, sometimes, tearing down. Many friends emailed me with comments about the June 4 blog post. Again and again you wrote, "I had no idea." "Thanks for educating me." I've whined here about this story being lost in the other news of that day twenty years ago. But that's not the main point I hope to make. That main point is this, we can do something. We can do something important together. We can make change. We can change history. In fact, I'm pretty sure we did. The other comment I got from many of you was this, "if only the outcome for China had been so promising." The dangers in Poland and throughout Eastern Europe were serious in those days, perhaps less so by the last years of the 1980's, as the USSR was struggling under a staggering economic load and the "perestroika" and "glasnost" policies of Gorbachev were underway. But there were Soviet tanks on Polish soil the morning of that election and there had been Soviet tanks on the streets of Eastern European cities within the memory of most everyone alive. It wasn't nothing the people of Poland accomplished. It was a defiant and courageous act, built on the actions of thousands over a decade, the wisdom and patience of women and men who took time to carefully prepare for a new era. Providence and good fortune smiled. And June 4, 1989 was just the beginning.

20th Anniversary Celebrations: High Noon in Poland

It went almost unnoticed. Quietly, simply, and not quite believing they were doing it, Poles walked into their polling places on this date, twenty years ago, and elected a non-Communist majority to their Parliament. They picked up pencils, marked ballots and left them for counting. Their bloodless, stealth revolution was all but lost in the horrific news of the day, the massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In fact, I googled "June 4, 1989" several months ago, just for fun, and had to scroll through over 300 entries before getting to a mention of Poland's first free election. Today, I tried again and got an election anniversary story within the first 125. There is no story about the anniversary in the New York Times. The Washington Post is covering it. Polish friends of mine report going to vote with a sense of hopefulness but still not expecting a decisive result, certainly not the outcome achieved. Solidarity candidates won 99 out of the 100 seats in the upper house, the Senate, and won all 161 of the contested seats in the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament. Round Table Talks earlier in the spring, between the Communist government and Solidarity, set up the election, and reserved two-thirds of the seats in the Sejm for members of the Communist party and its affiliates. Nevertheless, the election was an overwhelming victory for the Solidarity and anti-communist movement and set up the official changes that continued to amend the constitution, to omit the "leading role of the Communist party" and to set up a Solidarity led government, with a non-communist Prime Minister. Posters appeared all over Poland in the run-up to election day. Gary Cooper in High Noon, hands on hips, ready for a showdown, with a Solidarity banner, made it clear that the stakes were as high as they could be. Something had to give. And now. It did. "It all began in Poland..." The Iron Curtain came down later in the year. Events in Poland provided the impetus for the sweeping, historic changes, for the end of the ugly divide in Europe. Angela Merkel, who grew up in the former East Germany, spoke at today's celebrations in Krakow, and credited the Poles for the "decisive victory of democracy in Poland and finally in all of Eastern Europe." She expressed gratitude on behalf of the Germans for the Poles' "courageous stands," that led to the end of communism in her country as well. Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright and leader of Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" later that year, also spoke at celebrations and praised the Polish leadership in the movement to bring down communist regimes and reunite a divided Europe. And George H. W. Bush, then President of the United States delivered a video greeting praising the Poles' "irrepressible spirit." It was high noon. The Polish people didn't blink. And that, in fairness, included the communist government. It was time. And they did what needed to be done. Historic, remarkable, and oh, what a gift to the world.

"Let's learn how to be cheerful"

It's true. Poles do need lessons in cheerfulness. Lech Walesa spoke today (3 June 2009) in the Polish Parliament and encouraged his compatriots to be cheerful and to "invite the society to be cheerful with us." Even as they celebrate today and tomorrow their 20 years of freedom, Poles are remarkably grumpy. In the same way that I confess to friends that, as a Swede, I am terminally nice, one of my good Polish friends laments that he is always irritable. Is it congenital? Who knows. Certainly their history gives reason to be almost permanently perturbed. If it wasn't one thing, it quite literally was another. They got it coming and going. I think I might understand this. How do you dare to relax, and be happy? The sky will surely fall in tomorrow. Or if not then, then the day after that. I do hope the Poles learn how to be cheerful. And it wouldn't hurt to start now. They did it! They did the unimaginable. They not only survived the Nazi's determination to wipe them out -- to wipe out not just the political state but the people themselves -- they strategized, got lucky, stuck with it and somehow managed to lead the way for all of Eastern Europe as it struggled to get free of the absurdities of Soviet Communism. Isn't that worthy of cheerfulness? I'd like to see my Polish friends go nuts today, get silly and even downright happy. To look up rather than always looking back, or over their shoulder. We've got vodka chilling and fresh strawberries and we're ready to party. Happy anniversary, friends, and cheer up!

Rubles? Who needs rubles?

The tiny white Polski Fiat with a lawn-mower motor putt-putted its way along the leafy lane and sputtered to a stop in front of the warehouse. Only then did we look at the gas gauge and see the needle hovering close to E. Neither of us said a word. It was one of the most humiliating ventures I'd ever been part of. Waiting in that prefab warehouse built with American money were soaps and meats and medicines, all sorts of necessities of life. My hard currency, American dollars, real money had been deposited into an account bearing my Polish friend's name. He could go in now and choose what he wanted, needed, had gone without for months, even years. My friend, a prominent and accomplished writer, with an earned doctorate and years of professional success, was thrilled beyond belief to find soap -- SOAP! -- and rice and tins of sardines. We left with good lean sausages, hams, some basic over-the-counter medicines like aspirin for his father, and probably even a few rolls of toilet paper, I don't quite remember. It was 1982. It was horrible. But wonderful. The Soviet-style and imposed, clunky economy in Poland in the 1980's failed. The country could not feed its people. "This is our last butter," he told me at dinner. And what he meant was, this is the end of the butter. For the month. Until I get more ration stamps. There is no more butter. At all. For two weeks. I stood one day in the market and cried. I wanted to buy bread. There wasn't any bread. Twenty years ago on Thursday, June 4, Poland voted for food. For bread. And butter. For dignity. Their money became real, convertible on the international market, useful. I read two articles today, June 2, 2009, from the Polish press, both from the same publication, Polityka. One is current. Poland is one of the three countries in the European Union with positive economic growth this year. They are struggling like the rest but surviving, holding their own. How ironic. The other article is from 1986. It laments Poland's debt crisis, even within the Soviet bloc. The Polish economy relied on the Russian ruble, and the community of other Socialist nations. I pasted a small part of it here, in translation... (The IBEC was the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, the Soviet bloc's financial connection to the 'outside' world and within its boundaries. CEMA referred to the community of Socialist nations within the Soviet bloc.) Here is an excerpt of an interview. [Question] "What credits has Poland obtained recently from IBEC and what is the role of the Bank in settling the Polish debt?" [Answer] "Because of the economic situation and particularly its complexity early in the 1980's, Poland was not able, and is still not able, to fully repay its indebtedness to its CEMA partners. Our bank assists importantly bygranting planned term credits to balance payments so that Poland's economict ies with its partners can develop normally. So that Polish import, which at the moment still exceeds export, can be paid for without hindrances. On anannual scale, credits for Poland make up 25 percent of the total sum of credits granted by us to CEMA countries. I would like to emphasize that recently, and especially this year, a favorable tendency has appeared, the tendency to reduce Poland's ruble debt to our bank. The basis of this tendency is the growth of export to CEMA countries due to the policy,conducted by the PZPR, of increasing Poland's share in the socialist international division of labor." Huh? That reads like ancient history now. It sounds like gobbledy-gook. To be honest, the response didn't exactly make any sense then either, despite the skill of the interviewer. How do you explain the inexplicable? These days, when I go to Poland, there are no humiliating trips to the warehouse. I buy all the butter I want, at the shop on the corner. (Don't tell my doctor.) The lawn-mower motors are saved for those machines used to cut grass. And the teeny tiny white Fiat has been replaced by a late model, sporty green Nissan with a gas tank that stays full. Happy anniversary, my friends! Ya done good!

Paging Dr. Nowatny

I spent the day today with a friend at the hospital. In less than ten years, a gazillion dollar state of the art medical center has grown up on the prairie near our home, with first-rate physicians and top notch medical care. My friend is gearing up for a new surgical procedure that makes use of technology and materials that have been created only in the last few years. We have got to the point of expecting, presuming to have this high standard of care. Of course, not all Americans can be so hopeful or confident. Or afford to pay. And this is a bad thing. We'd better get cracking and figure it out, soon. I can't imagine having to sit on the sidelines and watch, to see what is possible and not be able to touch it or get access to the life-saving surgeries, medicines, and treatments that are as close as the nearest hospital. It's infuriating, immoral, indecent. That's the way my Polish friends lived for a long time. On the outside looking in. So close, but not available. Medicine, food, homes, diapers, shoes. Socialism, Soviet style, didn't work. Life is not perfect now either, of course, but these same surgeries are as routine now in Warsaw as in Denver. I know a man in Warsaw who has the same kind of internal defibrillator - pacemaker as Dick Cheney. The hospital food is still terrible but the medical care is of the highest quality. When the Poles picked up their pencils on June 4, 1989, they set in motion the final phase of the revolution that changed their world and that of the rest of the Soviet bloc. I don't know if they were voting with pacemakers and CT scans and glucose monitors in mind, but these are just some of the benefits that have come along with the chaotic democracy and new economy. It's just not that far anymore, from here to there. Thank goodness.