Aftermath of corruption

...Every small village and wayside was adorned with beribboned shrines to the Virgin Mary, the icon of Polish Catholicism...

...We heard American, British, and German accents mingled with Polish ones as executives "networked" new business opportunities...

...In Poland, it has been elevated to an art form...

...are not necessarily the enemies of black South Africans...

...The other is abortion...

...The newly unfettered market has also created an image of Poland as one wild garage sale...

...Now there is MTV on the television and kiwi fruit in the market stalls, albeit at prices not many can afford...

...Horse-drawn carts lumbered along the byways and farmers toiled with hand scythes...

...Living such a lie, according to Michnik, means basing all relations on pretense...

...Some critics, including Walesa, have said the collapse of the Communist system and Poland's rush to create a private market economy have spawned a new nomenklatura of the wealthy elite, a kind of hybrid of the former privileged bureaucracy and the budding entrepreneurs...

...In the American context, for example, why acknowledge Fidel Castro as a "comrade-in-arms...

...Hope has been emblematic of Poland's history and inextricably linked to the past decade...

...Given the country's obviously inefficient and environmentally disastrous industries, no one, including the aggrieved rail workers, questions the need for a radical restructuring of the Polish economy...

...In Fabryka Samochodow, where sixty orange Zuk trucks roll off the assembly every day, there was obvious pride in the changes...

...The next issue will be dated August 10...

...When the Communists held sway, it was much easier to define where Solidarity stood...

...As we watched the workers tool auto parts with outmoded equipment, our trade-union guide told us anyone can make trucks with the technology available in the West...

...Kondziela said he feared a protracted debate would result in a "polarization of attitudes" that might destroy the public consensus needed to achieve economic and social reforms...

...Regarding Catholic instruction in schools, Kondziela said he feared it would cause "a new ideological isolation of non-believers...

...Abortion, relied upon in this overwhelmingly Catholic nation at a rate similar to that of the United States, is an incendiary issue in Poland as well...

...As for violence: It is the South On May 27, Lublin poll workers, reporting early to their precincts for Poland's first fully free elections since World War II, were confronted with a problem...

...Registering their fatigue and frustration with the general condition of their country, they stayed away in droves from May's local elections...

...until we recalled that in the past we had praised and laughed at our host's cunning ways of outwitting the system, a shrewd skill that, to our minds, now no longer seemed necessary...

...Bogdan Borusewicz, chairman of Solidarity in the Gdansk region, described the new challenge for the trade union as twofold: "To get control of the economy and to defend the weakest...

...Gone were the surly shop assistants and apathetic waiters...

...Notwithstanding serious concerns about pollution, it appears that abundant Poland could feed itself until one recalls that a third of the 38 million Poles live "in areas of ecological disorder," with some soils so contaminated that authorities have banned vegetable fanning...

...In other words, our lot now is freedom, but democracy is not yet our lot...

...When we visited, an international business conference was taking place...

...He advised the church not to expend its energy in issuing orders or setting restrictions but in educating and encouraging the public...

...In a democratic state, this priest observed, there is no need for the church to mediate between state and society...

...Borusewicz insisted that Solidarity does not take directions from the church...

...Solidarity maintains its own suite of offices in the factory, which now produces trucks according to market analysis rather than meaningless government quotas...

...At the Polish Aviation Works in Swidnik, we puzzled over the decor of another Solidarity office, which displayed a crucifix and photo of Pope John Paul II on one wall and a Playboy-style pinup calendar on another...

...national security advisor called for a new moral framework to undergird the restructured society...

...The apex of the entrepreneurial fever sweeping Poland is found at Warsaw's sparkling new Marriott Hotel...

...Mandela replied forthrightly: The enemies of the U.S...

...As Havel puts it, "The main pillar of the system [was] living a lie...

...One is an attempt to introduce Catholic religious education in the public schools...

...But it surprised us...

...What remains to be seen, however, is who will control this process...

...Blaming one's predecessors is an old political trick...

...tour he never forgot (or let anyone else forget) his objectives: to "keep the pressure on" the white minority government of South Africa, to raise money for the African National Congress...

...Today one can stroll in the shadow of Warsaw's garish Palace of Culture, a monument to Stalin's bad taste, to buy a bottle of milk here, a pork chop there...

...KUL is stepping up to that task, launching new courses in the ethics of entrepreneurship, marketing, and banking...

...Since President F. W. de Klerk has committed himself to negotiations on the future of South Africa, why does the ANC not renounce the use of violence...

...Why declare solidarity with the PLO...

...Their hopes that life would improve under democracy have been tempered with the reality of mounting unemployment, ever rising prices, and a decline in real wages...

...Westerners on expense accounts are accustomed to the cost of upscale accommodations, but at $160, a night in the Marriott is equivalent to three months' salary for the average Pole...

...Poles are tired of cleaning up the mess left by communism...

...Equally, he never downplayed his history or his principles to evade questions others might have found awkward...

...Given Poland's creaky communications systems, such a call is a tedious process that involves making a reservation hours in advance...

...Indignant election volunteers spent the morning painstakingly penciling in lines to mark the distinctions...

...They reminded us that the Polish press, literature, and theater have been far freer than their counterparts in the Soviet Union or the rest of Central Europe...

...In no special hurry, the caller was amazed when our Polish friend lied to the operator: the call must be connected immediately because the caller's infant son was ill...

...Adam Michnik, editor of Poland's first independent daily and a member of Parliament, says that while the old order no longer exists, the new order does not exist...

...A tangible result of Communist oppression is that Poles have learned to compartmentalize their public and private lives...

...It was a small thing: telling a tiny "white lie" so that a phone call could be placed more quickly...

...Private lives were the universe of family and friends...

...Asked whether Solidarity wishes to be a union or a political party, he told us the only issue is for it to remain a political force...

...In fact, as election day neared Lech Walesa had been sent scrambling to avert a crippling strike by rail workers...

...Life in Poland hasn't changed that much, insisted some old friends and new acquaintances...

...Two different moralities existed, side by side, so that what might be legal might not be considered moral...

...We watched Zbigniew Brzezinski, dressed in medieval garb, accept an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL...

...Whether the ballot was the work of an inept printer or a sly, last-gasp attempt at deception by the dying regime, it was just one more affront to Poles who for forty-five years have been at the mercy of clumsy and contemptuous bureaucrats...

...Engaged in a life-and-death struggle in which some of his opponents represent the darkest aspects of human nature, he avoids labels, incitement, polemics...

...Poles reportedly now purchase half their food from impresarios doing business from the backs of pickups...

...In keeping with Commonweal's usual summer schedule, only one issue is published each month during July and August...

...Walesa writes that there was always a religious relevance to the struggle for democracy since the union never advanced an economic or institutional theory...

...There is no place for hatred or bias, he said, because "mutual profits are more valuable than former prejudices...

...But the excitement of the revolution in Poland and throughout the former East Bloc has now given way to the mundane routine of making it work, even in the small task of making a ballot readable...

...Boxes to check were next to the names, but the small typeface and lack of margins made it difficult to discern which box went with which candidate...

...During his U.S...

...Others fear the creation of a new "capital-friendly" economy will encourage German designs on Poland's western boundaries...

...When asked when it will get better, some reply with sarcasm: "It already was...

...Public lives, which included jobs or any interaction with the government, were conducted relative to the corrupt system...

...It simply sought human dignity...

...It means I look a person in the eye while actually watching his hands...

...Those open-air markets are not new...

...But capitalism has supplied a new vigor...

...The Palestinians, like Mandela's people, are not free citizens in their own land, and the government of Israel has seen fit to cooperate with the government of South Africa in ways that serve apartheid...

...A champion of democracy and of the oppressed, he brings to the hustings a courtly, even regal bearing...

...Said to be the third most popular Polish personality, after Walesa and the pope, the former U.S...

...Edward Schau is a clinical psychologist in Seattle.linical psychologist in Seattle...

...It means that I assume him capable of cheating...

...The confusing layout was particularly nettlesome because Communist functionaries running for reelection were placed side-by-side with the overwhelmingly more popular Solidarity slate...

...Everything from car parts to produce to family heirlooms is peddled by entrepreneurs who spread out a blanket and open shop...

...Employees who drink on the job will be sacked immediately...

...With Polish machines it is an art," he said...

...From Gdansk to Lublin to Poznan, the countryside was a field in flower in the first true "Polish spring...

...Election day in Lublin was one stop on our Polish pilgrimage, a twelve-day tour retracing our steps from a similar journey two years ago, working on a research project on the nature of hope...

...It also means that I have the same opinion of humanity in general and of myself...

...Several days into our stay, one of us asked our host for assistance in placing an international phone call...

...What may be most impressive about Mandela, however, is his refusal to pander...

...Decades ago, when agents of the ANC first sought international support, the U.S...

...It inspired Walesa to subtitle his autobiography "A Way of Hope," and the Gdansk shipyard workers to memorialize their murdered colleagues with anchors affixed to crosses hope crucified...

...It must assume a new role, he said, helping people learn to integrate the sometimes conflicting spheres of national and everyday values...

...What isn't openly acknowledged is Czechoslovakian President Havel's persistent theme that Eastern Europeans shared responsibility for maintaining totalitarianism, if only by outwardly giving in to conformity and hypocrisy...

...technically illegal, they were nonetheless tolerated under the old system...

...The ballots they were expected to hand out were oversized sheets of paper on which the candidates for local offices had been reduced to fine print in cramped, narrow columns...

...Joachim Kondziela, chairman of the Department of Social Sciences at KUL, elaborated by discussing two issues being fiercely debated within Polish society, issues that reflect the wide range of personal beliefs...

...Political posters were plastered everywhere...

...Take the image of Poland as a garden...

...When people find it necessary to subvert a system in order to survive, the borders between the moral and amoral are understandably hazy...

...It listens but takes its own course, he said...

...Nelson Mandela's record compels admiration and his presence commands respect: responses that, in an era of small expectations from public figures, easily turn into something warmer...

...One Polish friend told us, "The German economic invasion has already begun...

...would not give them the time of day, while Cuba gave instant encouragement and practical help...

...Hope is one of many characteristically Polish paradoxes...

...and what was illegal might often be considered moral...

...Heated political debates, which can extend far into the night, now include jovial arguments about whether the Solidarity press spokeswoman is too biased or whether Jacek Kuron, the founding father of Polish dissent, should button up his shirt to look more professional...

...In Lublin and throughout Poland, voters threw out the Communist officials to reinstate autonomous local governments...

...But from our admittedly narrow Western perspective, we sensed a difference...

...MARY ROTHSCHILD & EDWARD SCHAU Mary Rothschild is a reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer...

...Most of all, we felt the absence of uncertainty, the equivocal atmosphere that two years ago seemed saturated with fear and danger...