THE
SUMMIT TIMESTHE
SUMMIT TIMESA variety of matters were raised during the proceedings in the form
of resolutions or general demands. They included issues of local or regional
scope:
- Germany should honor the treaty it signed with Poland a decade ago
and stop discriminating Germany's Polish minority;
- The authorities of Belarus should allow Polish schools to be established
in the cities of Lida, Grodno and Nowogrodek;
- The Lithuanian government should observe the provisions of the Polish-Lithuanian
Treaty on returning land to Lithuanian Poles.
Other issues were directed to the authorities of the Republic of Poland:
- The Sejm (parliament) should enact a Pole's Charter, a document granting
people of Polish descent privileges not enjoyed by ordinary foreigners,
including the right to unlimited, visa-free border crossings and stays
in Poland as well as access to the educational opportunities and medical
care to which Polish citizens are entitled;
- Polonians should have the right of dual citizenship and should be
able to come to Poland on a Polish passport or the passport of their country
of residence as they prefer;
- In view of the negligible knowledge that today's Poles have about
Polish communities abroad, Polonian Studies chairs should be established
at Polish universities.
- Polish society should have the right to know that Polonians around
the world think of the situation in Poland.
- The Polish authorities should swiftly and decisively react to all
instances of anti-Polonism in foreign media and public institutions and
should work together with Polonia in that area.
The congress felt that many of those issues could be dealt with better
by breathing new life into the rather inactive World Polonia Council, which
should become an international pro-Polish lobby. A resolution to that effect
was signed by delegates from North and South America, Europe and Australia,
representing the world¹s largest Polish communities. The Council¹s organizational
details and scope of activities are to be worked out over the next six
months.
The only unpleasant dissonance was the luckily failed attempt to have
the congress dominated by a dispute between Polish-American Congress President
Edward Moskal and the former director of Radio Free Europe's Polish Section,
Jan Nowak-Jezioranski. Annoyed by Nowak-Jezioranski's constant urging that
Poles apologize to the Jewish nation for the 1941 Jedwabne massacre, Moskal
asked whether he might not have something on his own conscience. Nowak-Jezioranski
had lost a libel suit in Germany some time ago against someone who had
identified him as a Nazi collaborator. Nowak-Jezioranski admitted he had
worked for the Germans during the war but on orders from the Polish underground
in order to gain an alibi for his courier activities.
The matter might have ended right there if Poland's largest daily had
not launched a veritable anti-Moskal crusade. For an entire week preceding
the congress 'Gazeta Wyborcza' mobilized politicians, intellectuals, obliging
clergymen and anyone else they could against the PAC president. Since controversies
sell newspapers and improve ratings, other media jumped on the bandwagon.
When Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek said on TV that he was planning to meet
with delegates to the Polonia Congress, the well-known political interviewer
Monika Olejnik asked with indignation: 'Even with Mr. Moskal?'
Despite these concerted efforts, the congress did not get derailed nor
were Poland's leading politicians persuaded to boycott the proceedings.
The gathering was ignored only by foreign minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski
who had already been irritated by Polonia for daring to criticize his allegedly
pro-Jewish policies. The viewpoint of most delegates was summed up by an
elderly British Polonian who said on Polish network TV: 'Both those gentlemen
- Moskal and Nowak-Jezioranski - have done a great deal for Poland. It's
too bad they cannot get along.' It is true that several people left the
hall when Moskal began to speak, but many times that number enthusiastically
chanted ŒMos-kal, Mos-kalŠ¹ when he entered the hall. And outside Holy
Cross Church, where Primate Jozef Glemp was about the celebrate the inaugural
mass, a crowd of Polonians broke into a round of 'Sto lat' for the PAC
president. Naturally, such demonstrations would not have occurred were
it not for the above-mentioned anti-Moskal campaign.
Regardless of whom they tended to side with or their total indifference
to the quarrel, the Polonian delegates did not like the idea of outsiders
trying to impose their agenda on the congress. The Polonians had come to
Poland to discuss issues of common interest, and these did not include
a row between the two Pol-Ams nor the outcry certain circles had had tried
to stir up. Upon taking the floor, Moskal did not allude to the media-driven
controversy, but he did win the support of the congress when he said. ŒWhen
the initial enthusiasm had subsided (after 1989 - RS), time and again we
felt that to Warsaw we had not ceased being an object. An object-like relationship
means treating the other side as an applicant (...) I do not conceal the
fact that the past 12 years have given us many uplifting and beautiful
moments, but they have not spared us many bitter disappointments and disenchantment
(...) Administrative governing has never built bonds nor bridges between
Polonia and the ancestral homeland; it has only caused resentment and resistance.
The time has truly come to abandon such dogmatic thinking in the new Poland.'
Moskal also complained that the old-country authorities react to every
critical remark or suggestion from Polonia with Œofficial ostracism, mobilizing
opposition and deploying repressive diplomatic measures'. That latter charge
apparently referred to stripping Latin American Polonia leader Jan Kobylanski
of honorary consul status for criticizing Polish government policy.
Helena Miziniak representing the British Polonia addressed the gathering
in a similar vein saying: 'Our congress resolutions and suggestions vanish
among the mounds of official papers or land in the waste basket and have
always gone unanswered. AT every congress we repeat the words: "Nothing
about us without us" (...) In Poland there are many government and civic
bodies dealing with Polonian affairs. Has a member of Polonia ever been
on even one of them? Can one discuss Polonia and take decisions in its
behalf without previously analyzing a given community? That is how things
were in the case of the citizenship law, the Pole¹s Charter and reprivatization
(property restitution--RS).'
Prof. Andrzej Stelmachowski, the president of the Polish Commonwealth
Association that organized the congress, told the delegates: "The Polish
authorities are doing too little to win the sympathy and support of Polonian
organizations (...) We have noted unnecessary irritation in relations with
the top leaders of Polonian organizations (...) Living as we do under different
social, economic and political conditions, of necessity we differ amongst
ourselves, but we have too much in common to underscore and magnify those
differences. And in no wise can the interests of our (Polonian) compatriots
be sacrificed on the altar of good relations with other countries or other
influential groups." Those remarks were enthusiastically applauded by the
delegates who resent world-wide Jewry meddling in the internal affairs
of the independent and sovereign Polish Republic.
The Second World Polonia Congress has set an ambitious program. Let
us hope that this time the entire matter will not end with that typically
Polish straw-fire enthusiasm and wishful thinking. It should be added that
a shortcoming of the congress was a failure to adequately publicize it
abroad. Many Polish Americans with whom I regularly communicate knew nothing
about it. In fact, I¹ll wager that many readers are learning about the
event in this column for the first time. Despite several attempts before
and during the congress, I could not get the Polish Commonwealth Association
to fax me the agenda of the proceedings.
Another problem was the lack of young Polonians at the congress, which
was dominated by delegates of pre-retirement age and older. Conspicuously
absent were younger US-born Pol-Ams who are obviously the future of the
world¹s largest Polonia. Since for the overwhelming majority of the latter
the normal means of communication is English, let's hope that future deliberations
will be conducted at least bilingual. The chance to remedy that shortcoming
will arise five years from now when the Third World Polonia Congress is
due to convene.