Poles Apart

Twenty years ago today Poland went to the polls. It wasn't any ordinary election; it marked the end of a torturous (in more senses than one) process that had no single beginning. It might have begun in 1945 when Soviet imperialism was more-or-less established. Or the start may have been 1956 when worker revolts broke out, or 1970 when protests over food price increases ended with 40 people being killed by the security forces, or in 1980 when the Solidarity trade union was born.

No matter. The 4th June 1989 marked the day when Poles could legally say all of the things their forebears had tried to, that they no longer wanted to be part of the Soviet empire. And they were allowed to express that view in a semi-free election because the imperialists and their Polish bidders realised their time was up; the imperial game was over and the emperor was, indeed, naked.

They voted in droves and hardly any of them supported the so-called communists. Embolded by this they sought and won further concessions. The old regime was on its way out, and quicker than anyone expected it was gone. Elsewhere in the same socialist bloc they took their lead from the Poles. Some used elections, others people protests, and in a couple of cases violence ensued to topple the existing order.

Twenty years on, the events of that day are commemorated in a series of events across Poland. There are academic conferences, singing, rejoicing and solemn remembrance. There's also been a very traditional Polish way of remembering; politicians have fallen out over who should take the credit for those events.

But the one way Poles don't seem to want to mark the anniversary is going back to the polling booths. Indications are that turnout in Sunday's European Parliament election will be no higher or lower than in most other EU countries.

A sign perhaps that after twenty years Poland has become a 'normal' country concerned with the everyday, personal and private world of family and friends and no longer the nation that had to lead others in a crusade to change the shape of Europe.

Some will say 'Let them be', allow them to be just like us because, surely, that was what they wanted back in 1989; to be part of a western, democratic world where they could enjoy the fruits of a captialist, free-enterprise system.

Give them, then, the chance to be similarly apathetic about elections to a parliament that seems remote just like Britain, France, Germany. But what about those in the hard times who stuck their heads above the parapet ? Those who endured the prison, persecution and martial law ? Would they advocate apathy ?

When we were at school and reaching the age of democratic consent, it was always impressed on us how people had died in wars so we could vote in elections. Is a similarly impressive argument falling on the deaf ears of a nation that changed the world ?