A P.S. on our very fleeting interest in faraway places

In commenting on my Walesa post (Saturday, below), a very open minded reader writes the following: “I'm always very interested to hear perspectives on the fall of Communism from people who were on the receiving end.” She may be in the minority on this.

I have to say that mine was a strange personal history, since I criss-crossed the ocean too often to fully feel the impact of life under any system – capitalist, communist, or post-communist. My greatest emotional connection (to a country or a system) came during my adolescent years and all those were, indeed, spent in Warsaw (under communist governance). But I thought my 6 years of childhood in New York (during the 60s) were also significantly impressionable, especially as I experienced the American reaction to me (and to my family) at the time.

We were an anomaly in those years. Tourism between Poland and the US came to an almost complete halt after the war, since the US would not grant visas to Poles who hadn’t a plausible connection to someone in the States who could vouch for their financial solvency (and Americans were fearful of traveling to a country “behind an iron curtain,” as if, indeed, there was a real curtain and Poles held the key, to be used randomly for locking in visitors from the West). Of course, there always was that trickle of Polish immigrants, but we weren’t like them: we were regarded with suspicion because we weren’t seeking asylum. We intended to go back to Poland after my father’s work at the UN was finished. Why would anyone want to return to a country like Poland --was so often the unspoken question.

Or spoken. Because I did get this query upon occasion. The antipathy here toward all things associated with communism or socialism was unbelievable. Even at the UN school, of all places, I remember a classmate asking my teacher: “why do people hate communists?” and the teacher answering “how would you like it someone took away all your money?” Those were interesting times.

The end of Communist Party rule in Poland is a welcome relief, of course, greeted there with euphoria and incredible optimism (tainted now by the 20% - 25% unemployment rate and the collapse of the welfare safety nets, though flickering again with Poland’s entry into the EU). The sense of relief on this side of the ocean is palpable as well. Not so much because we (I speak now as an American – I flip flop in this way constantly) have such great empathy for the political climate of insignificant small states far far away, but because the imaginary threat they once posed has suddenly vanished and they again can become insignificant and irrelevant, while we focus our attention and interest on places that have greater economic linkages to us here.

The one final comment I have for now is that I think Americans would be surprised at the great love that Poles have always felt for this country, regardless of its political make up du jour, regardless of the on again off again interest that Americans have in Poland’s future. In this sense Lech Walesa was absolutely correct: Poles loved Reagan because for a moment, Reagan made them feel that the love affair was not one-sided. Few presidents before or after have given Poland and Eastern Europe more than a second glance.