We have Marcy – Poland has Marzi

If you take time to talk to old people who experienced inter-war Poland (1919-1939) or Soviet dominated Poland (1946-1989) you usually come away with a story framed in the context of their life’s sculpted worldview.
However, wisdom is not the sole providence of the old. The colloquial idiom “Out of the mouths of babes (oft times come gems)” reminds us children occasionally say remarkable or insightful things.

A brand new book just translated into English titled Marzi is based on recollections of a little girl growing up in communist controlled Poland. Memoirs pertaining to quality of life, economic turmoil and government oppression seem less tainted when it is expressed through the eyes of a child rather than the opinions held by mature adults.

Chronicling her experiences by processing the meaning of everyday life and the events that unfold are presented as a series of vignettes using cartoon panels. It’s not a kid’s comic book, but rather intended for grown up readers.

From an interview with Cafébabel (a European magazine) the author Marzena Sowa explains, “Sometimes readers find it surprising that besides strikes, usually associated with ‘Solidarity’, people also had a regular life. I mean, going to school and to work, children playing in the courtyards, holidays. My comics won’t age. Even twenty years on you will find something new, something for yourself. We were all children, and we all had some wishes that never came true; I was always dreaming about getting a Barbie doll from Pewex (communist-era stores which sold Western goods in exchange for Western currencies).”

She also dreamed about living in France, free from communist rule.

The purity of a child’s unadulterated innocence is perfectly captured in drawings and words as Marzi struggles to understand what is going on in her country and what her parents are talking about. The little girl is illustrated with huge eyes, which reflects her innocent perspective and is much more engaging than could ever be expected from a plain text book.

From birth through fifth grade Marzi is a witness to Solidarność and the revolutionary reawakening of freedom that made it successfully through a terrible period of martial law.

Aside from what was happening politically, there is a private peek into Marzi's demanding relationship with her mom, and what was expected of children in Poland during the 80s.

Kids at a young age are not equipped to understand the consequences of or make conclusions on the human condition. Prior to defeating socialism fruit, candy and sugar were so rare that when a store took delivery of such items, she and her family would wait hours in line hoping by the time they got served there was still some left for them to buy.

Marzi doesn't really understand why things are the way they are. She can tell the adults are unhappy, but no one will bother to explain what's really going on.

As a sensitive only child, she tried to make a pet of the carp her father bought and kept in the bathtub of her crowded apartment until it was time to kill it so the family could feast on it for days.

It was poles apart from the world that we as Americans experienced as children. Wishing for a color TV, working in farm fields with her grandparents and chewing on window putty because she couldn’t get gum makes you stop and think how incredibly different it really was.

The shortages, brute force of government and frightened parents crowding the hospital with their children as radioactive contamination spread to Poland from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster are just part of Marzi’s memories.

Though her childhood is filled with adversity, other recollections are happier. There was joy in tagging along with her father at demonstrations and the hope raised by a state visit from native son Pope John Paul II.

Marzi observes that adults really don’t talk about the fall of Communism even though it was Poland that first broke the grip of Soviet tyranny. It was accomplished without a single windowpane being broke. Maybe that’s because in Poland it was done with finesse, quietly and nonviolently unlike the dramatic breaking down of the Berlin Wall in neighboring Germany.

Marzi was born at a time when Poland was undergoing some big changes. She watched it rebel. She watched it dream. And she saw its dreams come true.

Given the current climate of turmoil in our country, I can’t help but wonder if 20 years from now there will be another Marzi painting a picture of how thing were in 2012 - Trying to make sense out of how adults could have screwed everything up.

A quick way to buy this book is to click on Marzi at PolishToledo.com.

Polish Political Roulette: A winner every time?

You might say that Polish voters are a fickle group. At least seemingly more so than Polish-American voters with their entrenched voting habits.

Not once have Poles given any political party a second term of power since throwing off the yoke of socialism and the misery that 60 years of tyrannical communism brought them.

Poles’ yearning for freedom and liberty is hardwired into their DNA.

Kosciuszko & Pulaski

Kosciuszko and Pulaski didn’t have a stake in whether our American revolution was successful or not. Yet, they came here serving as generals on their own volition, where freedom was being defended, to serve it, and to live or die for it.

Stubborn and strong-minded? Do you know any dyed in wool Poles who are not?

During the communist era, one might imagine Poles were as weary as Colonial Americans at the Boston Tea Party struggling against the brute force of a much too powerful government. The socialist regime in Poland was intervening in daily life and taking away incentives for rugged individual entrepeurship by bulldozing the playing field with Politburo machinery and redistributing wealth within the dictated parameters of Marxist philosophy that was detested by most Poles.

Since crushing the Iron Curtain in 1989, they voted for a different government each time parliamentary elections were held insuring by fiat that no political party got too entrenched in power.

In spite of revolving door politics, Poland shot straight up the economic ladder, from an also ran country to rank 18 in terms of GDP across the globe.

Fresh ideas and policies came with each election. Perhaps that is one of the leading factors why Poland was the only EU country to dodge the economic meltdown.  They were the only EU country to have back-to-back years of positive economic growth and never having a down year.

Most spectators say on October 9, the incumbent Civic Platform party is likely to be returned as the majority or leader of a coalition government breaking the one term tradition when voters choose expanding prosperity over policies thereby rewarding Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s party with victory.



Andrew Michta



"If you look at the moving sands of the Polish political scene since 1989, a victory for the current governing party would show a continuity that hasn't been seen since the beginning of the transformation," said Andrew Michta, head of the German Marshall Fund's Warsaw office. A Tusk win "would mean people were responding to how full their purses are rather than reacting to ideological issues."

Maciej Krzak

Impervious to global financial catastrophes, living standards in Poland continue to rapidly advance unlike the recent massive loss of individual wealth in America. "The Polish economy really is in pretty good shape -- that's not just some kind of government propaganda," said Maciej Krzak, head of macroeconomics at the Warsaw-based Center for Social and Economic Research. "Poland can aspire, with time, to become one of the EU's largest economies."

Even though Tusk’s party lacks substance and ambition, Poland’s economy grew 4.4% from 2007 to 2010 while the EU average was barely one-tenth of one percent.

The reasons why Poland kept its economy growing right through the thick of the Great Recession has been discussed in previous columns. One could reasonably argue that Tusk holds a fist full of aces dealt by the practicality and common sense embraced by Poles with their reborn liberty.

After Poles freed themselves from a society of socialist dependency, it did not matter who was in office. Nobody in power could diminish the individual’s determination to prosper under newfound freedom. They molded their hills and mountains on that once desolate playing field by the sweat of their ingenuity and enterprise.

The political pundits in Warsaw predict Civil Platform will be the first party to achieve back-to-back wins in parliamentary elections. However, I’m a bit hesitant to go along.

At least now you have Huggies

I contend that if voters in their twenties who at best were in diapers during the Communist Era, are not represented in large numbers at the polls, there’s a chance that the tradition of not re-electing the incumbent government will stand.

Tusk’s party has become increasingly “content-free”, just like the MTV generation. They realize if they stand for something they might offend somebody. So, they mumble vaguely, promise to work hard, and all the while get less and less specific about issues. Finding a position paper from them is next to impossible.

With the lack of principles and conviction, the centrist party is hoping to win by presenting themselves as a “safe pair of hands” to keep steering Poland around Europe’s economic crisis.

Now, there’s a good question for fickle American voters.

Are you in good hands?

$$ BE NOT AFRAID $$

Polish businesses are not afraid of economic crisis! What crisis?

Polish entrepreneurs view 2009 with much hope. They plan further investments and anticipate job reductions will not exceed 1-2%.

This optimism is reflected in a recent survey by the Marketing Research Center showing that the majority of managers positively assess the condition of their companies. 70% of those polled expect a repeat or even an improvement of the results from 2008, while every seventh entrepreneur even plans to increase employment.

Mateusz Szczurek, head analyst at the ING bank, says the results of the poll augur well for the state of the economy: `Cutting interest rates, greater optimism among entrepreneurs, consumption demand - all these factors can help ease the problems facing Poland's economy.'

According to the poll, every fourth company plans new investments for 2009 and only 2%consider suspending open projects.

Source: Polish Radio 03.01.2009