Are you or have you ever been a Commie?

Polish Vetting Act

This is a question almost 700,000 Poles over 34 years old will have to answer after an amended 'Vetting Act' came into force through the Sejm (parliament) recently. According to Onet.pl news Article 4 of the act requires people born before August 1972 who "perform a public function," to submit a truthful vetting declaration to the National Remembrance Institute (INR).

Were you a public performer and Commie informer?

So who is deemed a person who performs 'a public function'? If you picked up litter on the street while you were walking your dog in December '71 will you have to put your hands up? Or if you were a priest giving confession to your flock of sinners are you now obliged to make transparent your murky past - for example, the tea and chocky biscuit session you had with a nosey member of "a managing, supervising or inspecting agency of the entity supervised by the Commission for Financial Supervision."

Are foreigners to request penance to?

The Chamber of Insurance and Pension Funds Association have requested for the PiS (Law and Justice gvt.) to specify whether foreigners must also submit details about their employment record. Possible consequences of not delivering the goods are also asked to be listed clearly - banishment to Siberia? holed up in a solitary cell forever bound to watch private TV stations never-ending advertisements? or the most unthinkable and unbearable: obligatory membership of the quasi-fascist League of Polish Families party to help you recondition from the left to the right political spectrum???

Purging the Left

By all accounts, the new Lustration amendment has divided Polish society. Radio Free Europe report that on the one hand there are people like Jan Litynski, former dissident founder-member of the anti-communist Workers Defense Committee and post-'89 parliamentarian, who are against the new attempt at purging. He is quoted as saying that "we should have limited ourselves to [vetting] people who hold public office -- MPs, ministers, directors who pursue national interests."

Whether it is possible to fairly assess a person collaborated with the secret services, even if their names are on scraps of paper in the INR archives, is a real concern for many. It's a given fact that many were forced to sign loyalty to the communist authorities but in reality never assisted the spy agency. The Polish Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that such people could not be accused of pro-active collaboration, but it looks like the new law will change that situation.

On the other hand, there are historians like Lukasz Kaminski, who works for the INR, and believes that a cleansing process is essential for the common good and for Poland's ability to move on from it's past. Opening up a red pandora's box and ousting teachers, journalists, university professors, corporate chiefs, etc. from positions of authority is the Kaczyinski twin utopia of a thoroughly decommunised Fourth Republic, and just another sign of how fucked the Polish political system is under these nutters.

Revenge is sweet
Polish political analyst,Wiktor Osiatynski, wrote in the New York Times at the end of January that the terrible duo are motivated by revenge. He wrote that, "when the twins decided to create the Law and Justice party, they turned to young people on the far right. Now, driven by resentment against an entire generation of older politicians, the Kaczynskis are happy to see them purged from offices and replaced by their own loyalists".

Round 1 - The Church fall foul!

Ironically, that purported bastion of opposition to Communism, the Catholic church , was the first to seek absolution for his former sins. It made world news when Archbishop Staislaw Wielgus admitted having collaborated with the authoritarian leftist power-mongers. His near-elevation to the highest throne in the Polish church was short-lived when the Vatican pushed him to own up and hand over the crozier. Interestingly, the INR believe that 10-15% of Poland's priests got their hands sticky in the Red pie; other commentators suggest it may be a lot higher. That's not to take away from the fact, however, that many brave priests like Jerzy Popieluszki fought tooth and nail against the oppressive system - and in Popieluszki's case, ultimately paying for his dissenting actions with his life.

Dissenters

Ewa Milewicz, a leading columnist for Poland's liberal Gazeta Wyborcza daily and former activist with the Solidarity movement, commented that her refusal to comply with the vetting law constituted an act of civil disobedience. In addition to this, one of the most respected TV and press journalists, Jacek Zakowski, has described the requirement for journalists as "paranoia."

Unfortunately I won't have the chance to dissent against this law as I was only born in 1980. Yet I think we should support people's right to prevent this ubiquitious vetting procedure from threatening their jobs and livelihoods. The real crooks in Polish society are currently donning ministerial and CEO corporate jackets - purging them out of powerful positions would be a healthy step for Polish democracy.