SOLIDARITY WITH THE POPE
Alexander Sylvester hears
the Pope preach, then meets the riot police
Gdansk DURING the Pope's two previous visits to Poland the state prohibited him from coming to Gdansk. This time the Vatican insisted that it be included in the schedule; no Gdansk, no pilgrimage. So the Pope came armed with sheaves of politically relevant speeches and a timetable ambi- guous enough to allow him to meet Lech Walesa on home ground without breaking any rules.
When Wojciech Jaruzelski made an offi- cial visit to Gdansk a couple of weeks ago they just about managed to repaint the City centre pedestrian-crossing markings. When the Pope came last week everything was ri repainted. Colourful sashes bearing Vatican and Polish national colours pa- pered every grey block of flats; messages of welcome, biblical slogans and papal icon- ography appeared in every window in t°wn. Long queues, so familiar at the grocery stalls and bakeries, were found at the church bric-a-brac stalls where candles, bookmarks, badges, postcards and posters were on sale, each embossed with the papal portrait. Preparations for the visit (Church, state and underground) began long ago. Police and riot police manoeuvres have become a familiar sight. It has been estimated that 100,000 uniformed police and 60,000 plain clothes men massed in Gdansk alone One Policeman for every three citizens. Policing the pilgrimage accounted for half of the total state management cost. The Zomo men (a notoriously unpopular gang of conscript riot police) made their pre- sence felt, setting up conspicuous camps with rows of low-slung hessian tents in the city's suburban parks. As usual in the People's Republic of Poland the police were everywhere. There had been bad feeling between the Church and the authorities over the visit. Both Church and state engineers and architects priced independently the work involved in constructing barriers, land- scape gardening the papal route, refuelling the Popemobile etc. Each came up with vastly differing figures. For instance, the state estimated the cost of planting a few juvenile shrubs in the park where the main Mass took place at ten million zlotys while the Church put it at only seven million. Even though the Church has a ready pool of volunteer labour at its disposal, the state stands to make a considerable profit. When the final invoice is settled the money will come from collection box funds.
The underground network of com- munications, broken apart by police in- timidation during martial law, has been consolidated. The visit has offered the underground greater protection, and the church vestries are once again open to their meetings. Recently an international peace corps 200-strong met in a Warsaw church to discuss human rights and the nuclear arms race. This would have been impossi- ble without the promise of the Pope's visit.
Hats and badges have been run off on the underground presses. The lettering is the same as the charismatic calligraphy of the `Solidarnosc' emblem with its longer- stemmed letters swept back into a Polish national flag. The association is both too strong to be missed and too loose to be censored. Portraits of the Pope in gold lacquer have been distributed bearing the words in bold blood-red writing: 'We welcome you the father of Solidarity. The future is in your hands.'
Jaruzelski felt otherwise: that the future was in his hands. The government clearly wished to use the event, which received widespread international and internal tele- vision coverage, to demonstrate that the spirit of Solidarity was dead, to show that the only real residual support was among a minority of intellectuals and trouble- making thugs, that it was no longer of relevance to the national spirit.
The impression it should have given the West was that the people and govern- ment were once again united and that it was morally acceptable and financially viable for foreign banks to give Poland hard cash credit again; that the time for trade embargoes is over (Poland has a national debt of $35 billion). But things went awry. It became a campaign in favour of Solidarity and a manifestation of sup- port for the human rights movement from the highest Church authority. I was in the thick of the congregation and later in the march when it was broken up by truncheons and tear-gas. Some of the Solidarnosc banners were old, moth-eaten from bygone campaigns, some new. They were greeted by waves of applause and chanting. I watched while one was painted on a sheet spread out on the grass by a group of men using red lipstick. The two prune-faced pensioners who sat behind them on weekend fishermen's stools ex- pressed both support for their efforts and concern that there was not enough lipstick to hand. Plastic Solidarity or Vatican badges were distributed to everyone, leaf- lets in their thousands were thrown to the wind imploring us to march on the monu- ment to the massacred shipyard workers in central Gdansk.
In his sermon the Pope stressed that any kind of demonstration should be passive; that the people should not riot or demon- strate but pray. But there was an element of ambiguity and self-contradiction in his words when he said, to a thunderous ovation, 'You must let nothing and no one stand in the way of your cause.' The congregation were left to formulate their own course of action; passive or non- passive. Following the Pope's initial advice we were kneeling in prayer in the street when the first Zomo tear-gas canister landed.
We had marched for four kilometres before this rude halt, with not a policeman in sight. The balconies were full of smiling faces, people waving and singing, clapping their hands in rhythm to our chants and chanting with us. Pensioners applauding on the balconies above displayed their Soli- darity souvenirs and were in turn ap- plauded by those in the street below.
The militia, who had been waiting inside alleys, first of all split up the crowd of 50,000 or more into sections of a manage- able size (about 3-4,000) with what seemed like a ration of one militia man to one person. The jovial atmosphere of carnival celebration was quickly poisoned by their presence. One minute we were in prayer, the next in flight shouting 'Gestapo' at the approaching Zomo men. Later that even- ing, when the streets were once again quiet, I watched for two hours the police transports go by, the blue fluorescent strobes reflected on the wet cobbles.
So what are the implications of the Pope's visit? This is a complex question. Poland is a confusing country. Unlike the theorising academics gathered in comfy seats at Bush House I feel sure that Solidarity will be strengthened. The Church certainly will be. The Church is self-financing and self-governing; all Church activities are funded from the collection box and they have an ultimate leader who is not afraid to reflect the majority view. As the Pope said in Gdansk, 'I will speak for you because you cannot speak for yourself.' The Pope went on his factory walkabout and openly criti- cised their working conditions, when they could not. He stressed the need for a pluralist system of government, when they could not.
But in a Communist system change comes from the top and not from the people. Poland is too close to the Soviet Union, her industry and agriculture too subservient to Big Brother's needs to allow either any great social reform or talks between the Polish government and Soli- darity leaders. One thing at least is clear. Prayers alone are not enough to uproot the deeply ingrained social problems from Poland. Now that the Pope has gone, so too will the temporary alleviation from despair. Then the drunks will be drunk again; once more the cupboard shelf bare.
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