SOLIDARITY: DOWN BUT NOT OUT
Wiosna, Eva
Solidarity: Down But Not Out On the walls of an underpass beneath a busy Warsaw street, the bright letters of an old Solidarity slogan still stand out against the pale brick. The words have been...
...No matter what the government does, however, the opposition never disappears...
...Whenever I try to conjure up an image of Warsaw in the wintertime, I remember the comment of one activist writer whom I met shortly before leaving Poland...
...A museum guard stopped us and asked in a hushed voice, "Do you want to hear about the real exhibit...
...When the government publicly denounces an artist, the effect is similar to that which follows a positive review in The New York Times...
...the trouble begins when artists try to sell or display their work in public...
...Predictably, it is one of the few papers published outside the Polish underground that people tend to read and trust...
...Not in the Lenin shipyard, but in other large plants where security is not so tight, managers know who they must talk to if they want an increase in production," says one Gdansk activist...
...My eyes fell on a gaudy necklace which had two ebony disks at its center and silver wings extended from both sides...
...The move was a tangible gain for the free press...
...One Pole whispers the news to another until most have a detailed description of the subversive artifact that has been banned...
...It is easy to interpret the faded graffiti and the tiny pins as proof of Jaruzelski's failure to crush Solidarity...
...The slogan, officially censored, remains legible...
...To any Pole, the caricature would have been immediately obvious: The twin circles represented General Jaruzelski's dark glasses, and the spread wings were the opposition's symbol for his Military Council of National Salvation, whose acronym, WRON, is close to the word for crow, wrona...
...In workplaces, too, Solidarity leaders report a remarkable level of union activity...
...Despair has taken its place beside hope in the hearts of the committed who, in one breath, assure Western visitors that their next trip will be "to a free Poland," and then, in the next, mourn the fate of this sad place where "there is no tomorrow...
...One of the most obvious indications of Solidarity's tenacity is the existence of the union's headquarters in Gdansk...
...Solidarity activists and dissident intellectuals are still meeting and organizing, still writing and educating...
...Although the possibility of radical change in their society has grown slim, Poles have not abandoned the struggle that produced a dramatic revolution at the beginning of this decade...
...But during my travels through Poland last summer, I was struck by the enormous effort required to sustain even such small signs of resistance...
...Within intellectual as well as worker circles, Solidarity supporters are fighting to hold the ground they gained through the free trade union movement, especially on such important issues as freedom of the press and public access to information...
...In Krakow, I wandered into a private shop set off from the marketplace and found some defiantJook-ing jewelry on display...
...Any independent publication is valuable, and Tygodnik Powszechny has a reputation for being at odds with the government...
...Through a liaison, they contact the head of the underground union," he explains, "and through him, an agreement will be worked out...
...Nonetheless, the significance of the government's concession—which diverted tightly rationed printing supplies from the official press to an independent outlet—cannot be measured in newsprint alone...
...But this may be a winter of discontent in Poland: The government's recent announcement of 15 to 20 per cent increases in the price of food generated vigorous protests, and some believe the season will see renewed strikes and demonstrations in industrial centers...
...The words have been blurred with an official coat of paint, but instead of blotting out the graffiti by one broad stroke, a government worker chose to cover each letter separately with a thin layer of whitewash...
...After a well-versed Polish guide and I had spent the better part of an afternoon at the exhibit, we headed toward the door...
...It is less difficult to paint subversive scenes of unrest than to rebuild a political movement and get the citizens back into the streets...
...They are waiting for their next opportunity, the next time the government pushes too hard and presses an experienced resistance movement back into action...
...We were talking about the prospect, always imminent under a system which has institutionalized repression, that he and his colleagues might be arrested...
...He said, calmly and quietly, "If we must all be put in prison, well, then the only thing that matters is that we go in the best company...
...The regime of General Wojciech Ja-ruzelski has tried its best to conceal evidence of continuing support for the free trade union movement in Poland...
...Still, enforcement of official cultural codes is mixed...
...But the opposition's admission of despair does not constitute an acceptance of defeat...
...Only subscribers can count on receiving a copy—and only after years of waiting to get on the paper's limited mailing list...
...Eva Wiosna (Eva Wiosna is the pseudonym of a writer in Detroit...
...The weekly Catholic publication 7> godnikPowszechny, for example, wrested an agreement from the Polish government during Solidarity's heyday that almost doubled the paper's circulation to 75,000...
...According to the museum guard, some paintings showed Mary holding her infant son atop the Polish eagle, some included portraits of Lech Walesa, and others depicted blue and white water tanks of the Polish militia spraying a crowd of unarmed demonstrators...
...The mood of this passionate land has grown strangely ambivalent...
...In addition to editors and journalists, dissident artists are trying to hold on to some "free space" and stave off post-Solidarity censors...
...Last summer, a museum in Warsaw held an impressive Black Madonna exhibit which included priceless folk paintings, dating back to the Thirteenth Century, of this traditionally Polish rendition of the Virgin Mary...
...He proceeded to describe paintings which the censors had removed...
...While official papers, such as Try-buna Ludu and Polityka, sit untouched at neighborhood newsstands, Tygodnik Powszechny is generally hard to find...
...Unlike the activists of the heady days of 1980 and 1981, who could tally long lists of political victories, today's Polish dissidents have mostly losses to count...
...Staff members continue to report to work each day to answer Lech Walesa's mail and do whatever else is possible to keep their leader in touch with the Polish people...
...Apparently, the most controversial pieces portrayed the Black Madonna as a Solidarity supporter...
...In most cases, the Solidarity contact is the former chairman of the factory's 1980 strike committee...
...Though the dissident trade union has been banned, its lapel buttons can still be seen—bearing the name of Pope John Paul, written in the familiar Solidarity script...
...The authorities usually do not bother political jewelers or painters as long as they keep their work in their own homes...
Vol. 48 • February 1984 • No. 2
