==================================================================== P I G U L K I an occasional electronic collection of news analysis, press reviews, and humor from/about Poland and the Polish community abroad ____________________________________________________________________ December 13 1994 ISSN 1060-9288 Number 18 ____________________________________________________________________ In this issue: Editorial THIRTEEN AFTER THIRTEEN Polish Affairs ELA WASIUTYNSKI: STILL PART OF THE DIALOGUE ... interwiewed by Dave Phillips POLES REMEMBER MARTIAL LAW: JUSTIFY OR CONDEMN? Marek Cypryk APPEASEMENT REVISITED ......................... Radek Sikorski Networks 1995: TRENDS AND PROGNOSTICATIONS.............. Zbigniew Tyrlik / Jacek Walicki POLAND-ELECTRONIC CONTACTS..................... Rafal Maszkowski / Marek Zieliski Po Prostu FOLLOWING UP (1993-4).......................... Dave Phillips The back page TRAVELOG: La vie en rose....................... Jurek Klimkowski Notes on Contributors About PIGULKI ======================================================================== Editorial THIRTEEN AFTER THIRTEEN Thirteen years ago, on Sunday, December 13, 1981, the "Open Period" which began in northern Poland in August of 1980 was brought to a sharp end by the WRON, headed by Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, and forces under his command. Tens of thousands of Solidarnosc, NZS and Rural Solidarnosc activists and leaders were seized and interned in concentration camps and jails, factories were placed under military control, and in places where workers occupied mines and factories the ZOMO motorized militia were deployed with lethal force. The country was cut off from the outside world, and Western powers were stumped: NATO had contingency plans for a Soviet invasion of Poland, but not for an "internal invasion" with a Polish face. The coup was massive and extensive, but even so regular army units could not be relied upon in many cases, and so thugs were used instead. As one can imagine, the West was hardly the symbol of resistance to Soviet oppression. Canada's Trudeau regretted in early 1982 that Martial Law had "become necessary," and a top executive at Citibank stated quite honestly that the financial community cared little about who ran countries like Poland, so long as they paid their bills. U.S. President Reagan, as usual more style than substance, asked Americans to light candles in their windows for "the brave Polish people," and imposed some sanctions against the Peoples Republic of Poland which were applauded by the Poles - indeed, Reagan may have been more popular among Polish workers by 1982 and 1983 than among American workers. By late 1984, State Department pressure inside the Reagan Administration for "normalization" with the junta in Warsaw was so great that the U.S. Government agreed to allow Poland into the International Monetary Fund, in exchange for the release of two political prisoners (one of whom was rearrested a few months later). The de jure and de facto martial law that Poland survived from 1981-1989 is really a story of small people acting larger than life. History will record Big Names, the Walesas, Geremeks, Michniks, Bujaks - the people sought after by the media and by Western diplomats with their own agendas. But the heroes of that period were large numbers of second- and third-line leadership, activists who picked up the ball and reestablished the underground trade union, social and cultural movements in the 1982-1986 period (Many of these people suffered worse than the interned activists, because the original internees were seized and detained but the underground organizers were charged and sentenced with violating martial law regulations.) The people who kept the "S" locals alive, and the printing presses going; the kids who put resistors in their lapels until they were banned; the people who took walks outside during the hour that the regime broadcast its TV news show; the people who turned out for "S" May Day demonstrations despite the ZOMO and the relative coolness of Western support. History, however, will depict a Polish nativity scene, with Lech in the manger, surrounded by the Warsaw intelligentsia, bearing spice boxes full of their wisdom, under a bright star of Thatcherite free-market glory, while the U.S. State Department, that sheep in wolf's clothing, looked on. In the West, support came oddly enough from small people too. It was only in the late 1980s that the US Congress voted some money for NSZZ "Solidarnosc" and until that time fundraising drives, especially early on in France, and later throughout the world, raised money for the underground union, and support from the trade union confederations (ICFTU and WCL) and their internationals (e.g., the AFL-CIO) were important as well. There were about fifty organizations around the world which formed the Conference of Solidarity Support Organizations, which provided a base of visible public support for the underground union and its Temporary Coordinating Commission (TKK) and its representative office in the West (the BK in Brussels). History probably won't report that either; instead, people are now writing that the CIA funded the union, which is absurd to any of the activists who tried to work either in Poland or from outside Poland looking in. Another part of history that will probably never be reported correctly is the smuggling operation run to supply NSZZ "Solidarnosc" underground. This was done by amateurs, volunteers, some of whom were caught. Fortunately historians haven't gotten around to this part yet. Perhaps Hollywood ought to get involved to do full injustice to these people. Historians will probably also downplay the importance of the overall resistance of Poland's people to the regime, and attribute the breakup of the Soviet Empire largely to (choose one or more ): Reagan, Gorbachev, Afghanistan, inner contradictions in the Soviet system, internal ethnic conflicts, sunspots, etc. etc. Well, let them. History is not made by Great Individuals and large forces per se. People make daily decisions which produce and reinforce "large forces" and which provide "great individuals" their leverage. But they don't document their individual actions and are thus hard to study, and for some historians they are probably not of interest in the first place (or at least not of interest to their dissertation committees). Most of us who were involved in the Eighties are fascinated with the willful amnesia of people both inside and outside of Poland. In some discussions, some Poles talk as if the world began in 1989 or 1990. It's not surprising, nor is it necessarily wrong, but it is interesting. The task now, for Poles, for Poles abroad, and for others who have come to value Poland's contribution to the world, is to encourage the internal development of the country, to encourage the development of its trade abroad, and to improve its national security, which is perhaps its most difficult task, given that the European governments which took a soft line on Jaruzelski's junta have had even more practice with sophisticated foreign policy in Bosnia. We cannot expect Western Europe to be more sympathetic to Poland without a real change in the internal politics of France and the UK. It's time for some regular Polonians and their friends in these countries to make themselves heard, and to make Poland's situation better understood in the foreign policy discussions in these countries. Don't worry, history will probably ignore you too, but that isn't the point. For the editors, -Dave Phillips ======================================================================== Polish Affairs Elizabeth Wasiutynski ELA WASIUTYNSKI: STILL PART OF THE DIALOGUE Interviewed by Dave Phillips Introduction Elizabeth Wasiutynski was born in Italy in 1946, the daughter of two soldiers in the NSZ, part of the Polish resistance, who had made their way West. Her family went to Wales to a displaced persons camp, then to Scotland, then to London, and from London they arrived on the quota system to the United States. Her father, Leonard Zub-Zdanowicz, had parachuted into Poland early in the war from England, and in the NSZ he and his wife fought not only against the Germans, but also against the Russians. For this reason, he was condemned to death by the communist authorities, and thus, Elizabeth was unable to travel to Poland until 1984. She has the equivalent of a masters in sociology from the Sorbonne and a B.A. from the University of Connecticut, and worked in the mental health field until 1982. Beginning in that year, she began what has so far been thirteen years of service to Poland and Polonia, first as a volunteer in the creation of the Coordinating Office Abroad of NSZZ "Solidarnosc" in Brussels, then as the de facto representative of that office (and hence of the leadership of the Solidarity union's underground leadership) in the USA, as an active member of Solidarity International of Connecticut, Inc., and as an advisor and friend to the numerous groups supporting Solidarnosc around the world, which formed the Conference of Solidarity Support Organizations (CSSO) in early 1983. Active in the Connecticut Polish American Congress, she is presently Vice-President of that Division and in October of 1994 challenged unsuccessfully Edward Moskal for the national Presidency of the PAC. DP: How did you get involved in helping Solidarnosc? EW: In early 1982 I lost my job as a regional director for the Connecticut Dept. of Mental Health. It was an appointed position and a new Commissioner made some sweeping changes, and I found myself out of a job. At this point, I heard from Irena Dubicka, who was just on her way to Brussels at Jerzy Milewski's request to help set up an office to coordinate aid to Solidarnosc. I mentioned to Irena that I could offer my knowledge of three languages, English, Polish and French, the latter being important in Belgium. Within a couple of weeks Irena called and asked me to come help, and we worked to set up the office which became known later as the Coordinating Office Abroad of NSZZ Solidarnosc. DP: When you returned from Brussels, you became in effect the representative of NSZZ Solidarnosc in the United States. EW: That grew over time. My family agreed that something had to be done for Poland, and they supported my work with the Brussels Office, and I went there often for three to six weeks at a time and then returned to husband and children. Irena was instrumental in the early days of the office, and we recruited a number of volunteers who staffed the office over the years. DP: I remember a running controversy in some parts of Polonia over the credentials and mission of the Coordinating Office. Could you clarify its purpose and authorization? EW: The Coordinating Office came into being because the leadership of Solidarnosc reconstituted itself underground in Poland after the horror of martial law, which was declared on December 13, 1981. Even though the leadership was interned, there were people in the leadership structure who avoided capture, regrouped and continued to direct resistance from the population. In July 1982, the TKK requested Jerzy Milewski in writing to head up an office to coordinate aid from the West and officially to represent the union abroad, with the assistance of several other Solidarnosc National Commission members who had been in the West during the imposition of martial law. The TKK directed the office to be placed in Belgium, because Brussels was the headquarters for two trade union federations: one, to which the AFL-CIO is affiliated, the ICFTU [1], and the smaller, the WCL [2]. Both of these international offices did accept the task of welcoming such an office to represent Solidarity. The first location of our office in fact was in a building associated with the WCL. The task that the TKK [3] placed before the Coordinating Office Abroad of NSZZ Solidarnosc was to gather moral, political and financial support for the trade union in Poland, a very tall order. But it also meant that our work consisted of information, education, responses to inquiries, and fundraising. One of the notable achievements of the Office in the early years was a report prepared and accepted by the International Labour Organization in Geneva; another notable achievement was work done with the Madrid CSCE conference, where our most staunch supporter was Max Kampelman, head of the US delegation. Our third notable achievement was our ability in 1987 to convince the U.S. Congress to earmark contributions to NSZZ Solidarnosc to the tune of $1 milion annually, that legislation passed in 1987 and was followed up in fiscal years 1988 and 1989. The reason the Office was mandated into existence was to become the funnel for financial assistance - it was not only responsible to get the assistance but it was also designated as the institution which could be held accountable both to Solidarnosc's leadership for money received, and to Western donors. I don't wish to disparage the fact that there was a plethora of actions to aid Poland, from packages sent to Solidarnosc activists by individuals and groups, nor do I wish to disparage amounts of money smuggled in for various purposes, such as publications. In these important but decentralized actions, the decisionmaking as to recipient and purpose was made in the West. With the Coordinating Office, decisions as to how funds were to be spent were made by the underground leadership of NSZZ Solidarnosc, strengthening this leadership and allowing it to do its job. So the Coordinating Office was very grateful for any and all assistance to Poland, but our consistent message was: small amounts of money and related decisionmaking can be made in the West, but the decisionmaking concerning large amounts of money should be made in Poland. Hence there was no conflict between, for example, union locals adopting a local in Poland and the support by larger amounts of money for Solidarnosc which allocations were made in Poland by the TKK. DP: So aid being collected and sent on two levels, community and institutional? EW: All over the world, esp. in North America, there were groups of people, some of Polish descent, who were tremendously moved by events in Poland, and within their own communities had decided to help the interned families, or that they wanted to do protest actions, or somehow get involved to help the situation in Poland. Here in Connecticut we recognized a growth of grass-roots efforts that was taking place, there was a need and opportunity to provide a framework for these folks to talk with each other, and that became the CSSO [4], to which in later years European and Latin American groups also joined. The need for such a structure was felt within these organizations, and the CSSO was able to fill this need, and the Coordinating Office Abroad was happy to have such a structure with which to work, because it provided an opportunity to spread the message of Solidarnosc that much more efficiently across the world. One mechanism to spread this information, was a twice-monthly publication, "Solidarnosc News," that originated at the Office, and was prepared and mailed out in English and French around the world. Specifically in the USA, when I was doing the lobbying for the appropriation, I found that the CSSO activists in the US were particularly willing to do the letterwriting and telephoning necessary to various key Congresspeople at important moments while legislation was going through. "Solidarnosc News" was the broadsheet which informed on events, and it reported on individuals who were arrested, and on the continuation of the trade union structures in Poland, on human rights abuses, and which trade unions in the West and private groups were responding to requests within Poland. It gave play to relationships being built between Poland and the West. DP: How did the landmark million-dollar appropriation come about? EW: In addition to this information and support structure we just talked about, Jerzy Milewski would come quarterly to the USA, and spread the message of Solidarnosc with special attention to Washington DC, the Administration, and the Congress. We would knock on doors and hope people would listen. As Jerzy made the rounds, the inevitable response would be of interest, and the phrase most often heard was about the 'brave Polish people,' but in terms of dollars for Solidarnosc thru the Coordinating Office, we receivd no more than $200 thousand annually through first unused Department of Labor appropriation through the AFL-CIO (unspent year-end money), and later some grants through the National Endowment for Democracy. In early 1987, Jerzy Milewski was invited to address the Stanton Group, a biweekly information sharing meeting of conservative staffers associated with Congresspeople, and after Jerzy's pitch to the meeting, we were approached by Michael Hammond, a staffer for the Republican Steering Committee, who told us that it would be doable to get a $1 million appropriation for Solidarnosc. He is individually responsible for designing the method and for allowing us to implement it. The word "earmark" is very important, because it means that NSZZ "Solidarnosc" was stipulated by name to receive funds. Jerzy insisted on this because it deflected claims of secret funding sources and showed that it was the American taxpayers deciding to help the Polish nationals. DP: Some recent writers claim the CIA helped Solidarity, and thus helped win the cold war... EW: Balderdash. There were no large or even small amounts of money I'm aware of funneled to the Solidarnosc leadership from the CIA. Nor is there an echo of any such activity since Poland's independence was regained in 1989. And I think the CIA is taking credit for something it did not do. Had the CIA indeed been involved in funneling money to Solidarnosc, we would have had some sort of more fertile ground in Washington in getting the appropriation through. In fact it was very difficult in getting the earmarked appropriation through, and it took an individual by individual effort to convince a bipartisan Congressional leadership and individual members to sponsor the bill. Had there been an indication by the CIA that they were taking care of it, we'd have had less difficulty. We used up a *lot* of shoe leather getting this appropriation through, and no one greased the skids or made it any easier - except for Michael Hammond. DP: We had a joke amongst ourselves in the Eighties that if the CIA is helping Solidarnosc, where's the money? I think for the record it would be interesting to hear your impression of the major sources of funds prior to the U.S. Congress allocating money for the union. EW: Shortly after martial law at the end of 1981, there was an appeal across France, in which the equivalent of one million US dollars was raised from everyday people across the country. The other large amounts I've already mentioned, Department of Labor and NED funds, which averaged about $200,000 per year. Apart from these there were no major chunks of funds through the Coordinating Office until the US Congress' appropriations in 1987-89. When I speak of large amounts of money, the important thing is the decisionmaking process. Within the decisionmaking process, the TKK instructed the office that some funds be spent in the West for printing equipment, radio equipment, and computer equipment, which supplies had to be smuggled into Poland. There were also cash amounts brought into Poland for ongoing expenses of the trade union structures, including fines which had to be paid by jailed trade union activists, and help to their families. There also was a small amount allowed by the TKK for the costs of the Brussels Office, within which was the cost of transportation of the smuggled equipment. Every month Jerzy Milewski reported to the TKK and received instructions from it, so that at no time was the Office operating in a vacuum, lacking instructions or directions. Jerzy's reports were addressed to the TKK as a whole, and there was a distribution of tasks within the TKK - for example, Bogdan Lis at one point was responsible for contacts with trade unions in the West, Jacek Merkel was point man for equipment deliveries, Zbigniew Romaszewski at one time was point man for human rights issues, and so on. Finally, at the Second Congress of NSZZ "Solidarnosc" in 1990, Jerzy Milewski presented a long report which included the financial information to the entire delegate assembly of Solidarnosc. There were no questions raised as to the appropriateness of the expenditures, and Solidarnosc itself accepted the activity report of the Coordinating Office without question. DP: What are the biggest challenges for us today? EW: The challenge on the Polish side is to use freedom wisely, and to build and shelter democracy, and especially to convince the populace that the most effective weapon they have to ensure their freedom is the vote. On our side, for those of us involved in the Solidarnosc adventure in the 80s, we need to continue to be interested in what is happening in Poland, and to be aware that we can be helpful...be that from the US, Canada, England, France... to maintain a level of interest in Poland in the local press, and to maintain some visible presence as supporters of Poland vis a vis local politicians. The issue which comes to mind immediately is Poland's NATO membership. If we believe, as does the Polish government, that Poland should be a fullfledged NATO member (as opposed to an associate), then we as Americans should continue to press this issue with our Administration, and similarly those in France and England should continue to mobilize their political structures on behalf of Poland's membership. We living in the West should continue to be part of the dialogue. ------------------------- Interviewer's NOTES: [1] ICFTU: International Confederation of Free Trade Unions [2] WCL: World Confederation of Labour [3] TKK: Temporary Coordinating Commission, the underground leadership of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarnosc," formed after the imposition of martial law in Dec. 1981. [4] CSSO: Conference of Solidarity Support Organizations, officially first convened in Buffalo NY in Jan. 1983. By the mid-late Eighties there were regional conferences within the CSSO: the North American CSSO, European CSSO and Latin American CSSO. There was also a Solidarnosc support organization in Japan, which was also affiliated with the CSSO. ======================================================================== Polish Affairs Marek Cypryk Poles Remember Martial Law: JUSTIFY OR CONDEMN? Comments on the results of the martial law poll, performed by the Center of Social Studies at the beginning of December 1994. THE RESULTS OF THE POLL 1. In general 1994 1992 1989 Believed Jaruzelski acted in a patriotic ---------------- fashion when he introduced martial law.... 47% 58% 44% Called Jaruzelski's imposition of martial law treason....................... 23% 15% 35% Had no opinion............................ 30% 27% 21% 2. What do we remember from that period: 89% Remembers in general the Martial Law 55% Gave the exact date: 13 December 1981, Sunday 70% Remembers the curfew 53% - Difficulties in traveling between cities (a pass was required) 14% - Coupons for various goods 8% - Ban on meetings (To defend my doctoral thesis I needed a special permit from the District office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs 6% Remembers that the streets were patrolled, letters censored and telephone calls monitored. (I remember a warning at the beginning of every telephone call: "conversation is monitored". In the first days it was announced by an army officer sitting at the switchboard, and one could even get into a conversation with him, later the warning was recorded) 3. The purpose of Martial Law Martial Law was introduced against: 48% Solidarity 14% The Nation 8% All fighting against Communism 4. Why? 25% To avoid Soviet intervention 17% To avert Civil War 16% To maintain power and Communism By groups: Unskilled workers believed most that the introduction of Martial Law was justified; farmers and skilled workers less, entrepreneurs, students, intelligentsia - the least. By party: Among the political parties only those identifying themselves as SLD voters had a uniformly positive opinion of Martial Law; those who voted for other parties were divided in their responses. ANALYSIS 1. The approximately constant percentage of those approving the Martial Law in (the period 1989-94) suggests that discouragement with the reforms (which is generally believed to have given power to the post- communists) plays only a secondary role in their motivation. 2. To discuss the evaluation of the Martial Law in terms of "treason" or a "reason of State," one needs to formulate the political goals of this operation. I believe there were two: a) To retain Communism, or rather the power of the Communist Party and the control of Soviet Union over Poland. This goal was parallel with Moscow's wishes (but not with Polish "raison d'etat"). In a short term perspective, this goal was achieved. b) To avert the intervention of Soviet Union. The results of such "fraternal assistance" can easily be imagined by observing the razing of Chechnia (See Note). If the Soviet intervention was really imminent, I would have no problem in accepting the Martial Law, simply as the lesser evil. The problem is that historians still cannot agree whether the Martial Law saved us from attack. Partly this is due to the lack of documentation, partly because political decisions are always based on incomplete information, and historical judgment rarely can be unequivocal. Perhaps even the Russians did not know then, if the intervention was possible. (Sometimes another suggestion is put forward - that Jaruzelski's goal was to perform a economic reform, modeled on Hungary's Janos Kadar, but this thesis is not defensible. In the next 7 years nothing was done in this direction.) The question of justification of the final condemnation of the Martial Law will most likely remain unanswered. Still, I cannot easily reconcile myself with the fact that 50% of Poles accept it. It is difficult to suspect that most of those people are sympathetic to Communism - our society was traditionally anticommunist (what does not mean that Communism did not leave its impression). Is it a pragmatic acceptance of the lesser evil, or a lack of developed citizen's consciousness? I do not know... Marek Cypryk Translated by Marek Zielinski (Note:) The present Russian action in Chechna inclines me to believe that neither Russian nor Western politicians have learned anything from history. The first still treat the conquered nations as colonies without rights, the others tolerate it, never batting an eyelid. It is quite probable that they would behave the same if the victim were Poland. It was definitely easier to put sanctions against Jaruzelski's junta than against Russia, were it to have come to an armed attack. The West would have stood to lose more then. ======================================================================== Polish Affairs Radek Sikorski APPEASEMENT REVISITED Churchill was not the only European politician who warned about Hitler in the 1930s. Poland's pre-war leader, Jozef Pilsudski, was also a Cassandra figure. He even proposed a preventive war against Germany, as early as 1934. For his trouble, he was dismissed as a Polish panic- monger. That is our Central European fate. Whenever we sound the alarm bells about one of our overbearing neighbours - once Germany, today Russia - our warnings are scorned. Being closer and weaker, we pick up the intimations of danger earlier, and inevitably commit the fatal error of being right before others are ready to accept the bad news. It is particularly frustrating to argue with most educated Englishmen. People who until recently thought that Tashkent was an ancient Russian city, and who had never heard of Ukraine until 1990, think themselves experts on Russia because they read Tolstoy at school or attended a performance Swan Lake nevertheless feel perfectly justified in accusing Poles and Czechs of unreasonable hysteria. Most British, in fact, still express a pro-Russian bias, born of great power solidarity and the memory of successive Russian alliances from the Napoleonic wars through 1945. They also have the luxury of distance. As my grandmother used to say: 'The English won't understand what Russia stands for until a troop of Russian soldiers gang-rapes the Princes of Wales in the courtyard of Buckingham Palace.' Today it is again the Central Europeans who are likely to get it right about Russia. So we ought to. We Poles have been fighting Russia for half a millennium. We have seen Muscovy grow from a small barbaric satrapy on our Eastern marches into a superpower. We occupied and burnt the Kremlin; they partitioned us for a century. In 1920, we won the only full scale war the Soviet Union ever lost. They got their own back in 1939 by invading together with Hitler. They re-occupied us in 1945 and imposed a Communist regime; we repaid by starting Solidarity. Proximity makes for better understanding. Not only do we have a better feel for Russian nationalism; we have our own experience of a post- Communist society. Feeling the fragility of our own democratic institutions, we have fewer illusions about their chances of success in Russia. When we and everyone else in Central Europe - from the moderate right-wing to former prominent Communists such as Algirdas Brazauskas of Lithuania and our own new Polish government - are sounding the same warning about Russia, the West should for once perk up and listen. Just like Germany after 1918, Russia is racked by hyperinflation and economic collapse. Just like German veterans, Russian veterans cannot reconcile themselves to defeat and its elites keenly feel their loss of standing in the world. Just like the Germans in Central Europe, the Russians in the former Soviet republics cannot accept minority status in upstart new states. Just like in Germany, political convulsions shake Russia every few months. Most of all - just like Germany after 1918 but unlike Germany after 1945, Russia has been humiliated after defeat in the Cold War, but not humiliated enough. Its institutions and its mentality have not been refashioned by the victors - in fact, western attitudes to Russia bear a striking resemblance to western attitudes towards Germany in the 1930s. So far, the most eloquent expression of the West's attitude was a Newsweek cover of a few weeks ago commenting on the proposed Central European accession to NATO. The cover showed a perturbed little Russian bear - a mascot from the Moscow Olympics - standing in the midst of dozens of nasty black guns aimed at him from all directions. The little bear is frightened; we mustn't do anything to increase his anxiety. But there was no caption explaining who threatens him with all those nasty guns: the West? Central Europe? Estonia? The compassion for the little bear is laced with fear. He does, we are told, still own 30,000 nuclear warheads and if angered can pulverize any country on the globe. So we mustn't do anything that might annoy him. Better to talk to him gently and feed him lots of honey. This mix of sentimentality, naivete and fear is exactly what drove appeasement in the 1930s. The establishment felt a sense of noblesse oblige towards a vanquished foe: Germany was a great nation that had been excessively humiliated at Versailles. She should be allowed to resume its just place among the great powers. She was reasonable in wanting to protect Germans in the new upstart states. Standing up to her was in any case impossible: the British public had been brought up on stories predicting that the next war would open with a 'knock-out' aerial blow against London. War in which mass weapons such as poison gas might be used was simply unthinkable. Besides, the only 'modern' way of dealing with conflict was through international institutions. If only Germany could be enticed to pull its weight in the League of Nations, it was argued, she would get a stake in the maintenance of status quo and her just aspirations could be accommodated peacefully. In any case, the economic cost of alternative policy was prohibitive - particularly at a time of recession. Lastly and perhaps decisively, there was wishful thinking and institutional intellectual inertia: as long as Herr Hitler cloaked his actions in the rhetoric of peace, one could hope that the worst would not materialize. Britain led in appeasement in the 1930s and it is leading today. It was principally Britain that blocked proposals for standing up to Serb aggression, even limited ones such as air-strikes or allowing Bosnians to arm themselves. Yugoslavia was always going to be a dress rehearsal for the former Soviet Union, and Britain looks set to play the same role. The Financial Times of 14th December 1993 brought an inkling of things to come. Douglas Hurd and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian foreign minister, published a joint article entitled Challenge of Peacekeeping, arguing that the Russians are the nation best equipped to patrol the former Soviet Union. Douglas Hurd diplomatically omitted to point out that the Russians are the last people on earth to make good peacekeepers in the former USSR. A good peacekeeper must be seen to be disinterested. Otherwise, he will get into the sort of trouble that the British are in in Ulster: being seen as aggressors even when they mean well. The Russians, far from being a neutral party, have been stoking up most of the conflicts in the former USSR. In Tajikistan, up to 50,000 were killed when Russian- sponsored Communists drove out a nationalist government; in Georgia Russian army supported sometimes this side, sometimes the other, until Eduard Schevardnadze capitulated by taking the country into the Commonwealth of Independent States; in Moldova, the Russian 14th Army has incited a Russian minority into carving out a breakaway republic. Moreover, Douglas Hurd is no fool and has no doubt been fully briefed as to what Andrei Kozyrev means by 'peacekeeping.' Kozyrev has, for example, reaffirmed Russia's territorial claims against Ukraine. His ambassador in that country has described Ukraine's independence as 'transitory' and has advised foreign diplomats in Kiev 'not to bother to build large embassies because they would soon be downgraded to consular sections.' In an interview in Izvestiya on 8th October 1993, Kozyrev said that using peacekeeping forces in the 'near abroad' would prevent 'losing the geopolitical positions that took centuries to conquer.' The Russians are clearly back in the game of using protection for Russians abroad as a pretexts to restore their influence in the former empire. The West appears to have taken it in even though most alleged cases of discrimination against Russians - such as Estonian and Latvian citizenship laws - have been proven groundless by successive international commissions. We in Central Europe have longer memories. It was on the pretext of defending the Orthodox that Catherine the Great annexed most of Poland in the three 18th century partitions. It was again on the pretence of defending the Ukrainian minority in Poland that the Red Army marched in September 1939. This was particularly rich just a couple of years after Stalin had scorched Ukraine with a genocidal famine. It is possible that Russian officers - most of whom have voted for Zyrynovsky - carry the Queensberry rules of fair play in their bones. It is also possible that some unruly elements will enforce an earlier Russian peacekeeping doctrine. In January 1881, having just butchered over 20,000 Turkomans, mostly civilians, at Geok Tepe near the Caspian, general O.M. 'Bloody Eyes' Skobelev declared that 'in Asia the duration of peace is in direct proportion to the slaughter you inflict on the enemy.' In that case, there will be much egg on Douglas Hurd's distinguished face. A joint article by Halifax and Ribbentrop on the 'challenge of peacekeeping' in the Sudetenland would not read well today. Lecturing Russia on the proper way of conducting its peacekeeping operations no doubt gives the foreign secretary a pleasant sense of shaping global events. Thanks to the skill of its diplomats, Britain is punching above its weight yet again. But what, might one ask in the name of those who will be on the receiving end of Russian peacekeeping, will Douglas Hurd commit Britain to do if the Russians fail to conform to the high principles which he has laid down? Most probably - not very much. Britain will not stand up to Russia over some dead Tajiks or Ukrainians and when pushed to defend their principles of good peacekeeping, Britain's true weight will be exposed. But if the British are not prepared to object when peace-keeping turns into war- mongering, why legitimize the concept of 'peace-keeping' at all? Douglas Hurd is only depriving his successors of the moral authority to criticize the Russian peace-keepers. It is worth remembering that the agreements signed at Yalta between the Atlantic powers and Stalin were also full of high principles, promising free elections and sovereignty to Central Europe. Yet the West was not willing to lift a finger when the elections were rigged and sovereignty was violated, even though it held the nuclear monopoly. In the end, the content of the Yalta agreement was forgotten; what mattered was only that the principle of Soviet domination over half of Europe was conceded, legitimized by the West. The legitimization of Russian interference In addition to granting Russia a free hand in the former USSR, today's appeasers would also exclude Central Europe from NATO. The primary emotion behind this policy is fear, together with a failure to understand that Central Europe's interests can sometimes be British interests too: Douglas Hurd has said he is determined not to repeat the mistake of giving the guarantee to Poland, which dragged Britain into war in 1939. But Mr Hurd is misreading the lesson of 1939: it was not for the sake of our blue eyes, as we say in Poland, that Britain gave us the guarantee, but because Hitler threatened the balance of power on the continent and, therefore, Britain herself. If Hitler were to swallow up Central Europe unopposed, many believed, he would be unstoppable in the rest of Europe. Spurred by promises of military assistance, Poland fought, and Britain gained several vital months for rearmament. Britain got the better end of the deal. After the war, the same precedent held true. The West was perfectly happy to sell out Central Europe to Stalin in 1945, trusting Uncle Joe to keep his word and behave like a gentleman. Russia was so exhausted economically, it was argued, that the West would continue to have plenty of leverage over her for decades to come. Within three years, Stalin tightened his grip over her new satellites and became a mortal threat to the West. Because of its refusal to stand up for a sovereign Central Europe, the West spent the following forty years living in the shadow of a Soviet offensive, wasting much of its wealth on armaments. The lesson of both the Second World War and the Cold War is that the sovereignty of the states of Central Europe is essential, in order to provide checks against both Germany and Russia. Leaving fear and misunderstood geography aside, the new appeasers also provide a second argument: namely, that by agreeing to a Russian sphere of influence in the former USSR and by excluding Central Europe from NATO the cause of Russian reforms will be strengthened. But far from encouraging reformers, Western appeasers are egging on the worst sort of Russian nationalists. Douglas Hurd thinks he is sending Moscow the signal that Russia should be the guarantor of stability in the former USSR. What the Russian generals are hearing is that the he will do nothing when they start sorting out the troublesome nations in their back yard. It is precisely the message which Serb general heard at about the time when Yugoslavia was breaking up. The results are still with us. There is, of course, an alternative. The West simply needs to make sympathy and aid to Russia conditional upon Russia's behaviour towards her neighbours. If she really wants to join the club of the civilized world, she should know her place on the waiting list and welcome the accession of Central Europe into NATO - as a prelude, perhaps, to her own acceptance. And if Russian is keen on peacekeeping, there are plenty of troublespots outside the former USSR that need attention. In Poland we feel that none of this should be objectionable to a reasonable, patriotic Russian. After all, America, which won the Cold War, has had to withdraw somewhat from foreign affairs, in order to attend to its domestic economy. Why should Russia not do the same? The last thing Russia needs is to conduct expensive military operations in countries even poorer than herself. But just in case Russian patriots refuse to be reasonable, the West should warn Russia that it reserves the right to support countries whose sovereignty she violates. While continuing to give Russia plenty of carrot, this is the time to show her the stick. Radek Sikorski The article originally appeared in London "Spectator". ======================================================================== Networks Zbigniew Tyrlik and Jacek Walicki 1995: TRENDS AND PROGNOSTICATIONS Pigulki's editors asked Zbigniew Tyrlik and Jacek Walicki to speculate on what 1995 will bring to the computer industry and to the Net. They agreed. The following is based on a New Year's Day conversation held on IRC's #polska channel between Tyrlik, Walicki, and Pigulki's Dave Phillips, and tongues were planted firmly in cheek: Zbig Tyrlik: ============ 1) Bill Gates will become the main name on the Internet; [Walicki: He IS the main name already. Will he leverage his investments into real gains? What will Microsoft's impact on the Net? It is hard to predict.] [Tyrlik: The impact IMHO is that: 1) M$0ft is pouring marketing money into promotion of online services & Internet; thus he on one hand gives his blessing to the Inet, 2) availa-bility of software to access Internet in NT & Win95 will creates healthy market demand.] 2) Usenet will lose all value as result of Canterism&Siegelism [1], newgrouping, spamming and lawyering everywhere... (Sue me! Sue him!!) [Walicki: Agreed. The bell curve is flattening..] 3) One will need a midrange graphics system to access the Internet via ANS/AOL/Prodigy/Compu$pend/AD?AT?IBM-net/Ge-NIE/DE... [Walicki: Well...that's what the pushers will want you to believe. Reality will not change dramatically. With one possible exception - if Mosaic truly delivers then it will be necessary to move to true graphics.] 4) Countries of the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth worlds will request free access to the Internet as a medium to fight neocolonialism; the contract for manufacturing handheld units with 28.8[kbps] modems to be delivered for this purpose will be won by Motorola division in China. [Walicki: Absolutely!] 5) The proliferation of encryption software will make money laundering, espionage, and pornography untraceable. As a result highes paying computer jobs will be financed by organised crime from Russia.. [Walicki: Yep. See my comments on the sentiments for net censorship.] 6) Memory prices won't fall - they may in fact rise slightly with growing demand, and only Intel or Matsushita will have some free capacity.... [Walicki: Perhaps, but the cpu wars will start again at the end of the year.] 7) Israel will become a major player in European software industry.. [Walicki: Nah...] 8) Europe will announce the design of Euronet - a high speed Fiber backbone augmented by ISDN connections to homes. Groupe Bull, Siemens and Amdahl/ICL will be operating such a backbone.... [Walicki: Europeans doing something pragmatic? You must be joking, Zbig!] 9) Novell will convert itself into a support shop for Windows NT. [Walicki: And it will sell Unix to Microsoft] 10) Re: software.... NO big breaks in software: generally longer delays and more fixes; Generally, hardware is underpowered for today's software; large projects are way behind schedule, and industry is slowing down new implementation because of U ( user ) factor. Check how many folks run one or two software releases behind... [Walicki: Very true.] 11) Folks will [continue to] add hardware (can you say MEMORY) to run existing software.. ie: a 486/33 with 32 MB is soso for Win3.5 ; Lotus Disksuite takes 200 MB of disk space.. [Walicki: Depressingly true.] 12) There will be lot of continued development in the laptop market. My personal favorite is Dell's Lattitude XS (if only they would cut its price in half :) In any case, laptop prices will finally come down to be competitive with those of desktop systems. [Walicki: Not yet.. new screen technologies will keep prices in the current range] 13) Digital will buy Dell or hire Michael dell to run PC division... [Walicki: No, DEC will go into Ch.11 protection] 14) Re: services... because of the human capital problem, we will see more localised companies with lots of additional services - for example, I am starting training in association with one training center here. [Walicki: Good!] 15) Internet Services: (a) Heavyweights will finally offer it as part of their phone services (ATT, MCI, Sprint & others will consider that connectivity is not limited to voice, image and cable, but includes data services as well); (b) There will be a growing demand for IP connectivity; (c) The training & services markets will be booming - Joe Smith will be learning how to use the Internet. [Walicki: Good, even if not true...] 16) Mergers: (a) Novell - Lotus - Oracle - ? 2 or 3 together ? (b) Who will buy Borland ? IBM was interested for some time, but with Borland slicing off parts and pieces (Quattro to Novell, killing DOSbased database development) - who else might be interestd ?? (c) Symantec? They have tools (Norton & PC Tools); compilers; Watcom; now they need wordprocessor & spreadsheet - what about Symantec-Novell or Symantec-Borland ?? My guess is the latter - we may see Novell bidding against Symantec going after Borland.. (d) BBN (Bolt, Beranek & Newman) is buying regional Internet providers -latest was Suranet I belive. Now, we may see another of the Online services going after BBN; I would say Compu$erve will rather work with Microsoft, so it leaves GEnie or Delphi.. [Walicki: No comment, I got dizzy...] [Tyrlik: I'm positive on BBN. Presently they have a presence in 22 states. Looks like someone will give PSI and UUNET a run for their money...] Jacek Walicki: ============== 1) The Net will collapse under the weight of them Gates'es, Motorolas, RSAs etc.. [Tyrlik: The net as we know it, that comfy & nice club, will collapse. Welcome to the machine - soon you will feel on Internet like in Central Park after dark.. ] 2) PCs will become indistinguishable... [Tyrlik: Agreed. Instead of chip type, more important is what functionality your computer provides (single user, multiuser, or server.] 3) Intel will lose 20% of the market share... [Tyrlik: Or more. Still, they have deep pockets. Also, competitors? Who ? PowerPC ? Alpha ? Mips ? Ultrasparc ? Wannabe's (AMD, Cyrix ?) I would say that Apple has the best chance, if they would stop being so jealous.] 4) IBM will kill Sun [Tyrlik: or IBM will buy Sun...then in 4th quarter ATT will buy IBM :)] 5) The Net will become a battleground for "family values". Governments will try setting up "net borders" to protect the innocence of their citizens. [Tyrlik: Also, watch for net-terrorism; so far there were few successfull attacks against commercial providers in 94 (Pipeline, Netcom) where the purpose was not to gain access but to create damage - abnoxious posts from Pipeline, disturbing the news system on Netcom. Next year we will see attacks against corporations and government institutions. Computer security will be a nice field to be in...] 6) The rapid spread of the Internet into the general population will flatten by the summer, and it will remain flat for several years (repeating the story of PC adoption). [Tyrlik: Not. Access prices are on steady downslide; we will see many 10-minute-bussinesspeople trying to become providers by offering rock-bottom prices and going broke in 6 months. For me it rather looks like the PC-clone manufacturing market in the 90's.] 7) In spite of a lot of talk about creating a two-tiered society - those who have access to the net and "knowledge" and those that do not, this division _will_ occur in form, but will have no real consequences (other than becoming 'a fashion statement'). [Tyrlik: Agreed. Access to the Internet does not change IQ.] 8) The Polish Net will undergo changes similar to those mentioned above, with the exception of moral censorship. However, NASK and TP SA. will continue to dominate the scene and dictate the prices. [Tyrlik: We will see a Holy Mess on WWW from Jasna Gora.] 9) Lublin will start attracting young polish hackers, due to the good state of its net, and a relatively large population of eligible net- females. In a few years Lublin will become a Polish "silicon ravine"... [Tyrlik: Correct. Because of lack of security, Poland will become a nice distribution point for Bulgarian viruses, and a jumping-off place for the datanet underground.] 10) This year we will witness in the US the first legal case of "irc rape". [Tyrlik: With remotely-operated joy-stick?] ======================================================================== Networks Rafal Maszkowski and Marek Zielinski POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS 13 December 1994 BITNET and its sisters Netnorth and EARN are disappearing very rapidly. Once a standalone network of RSCS- and JNET-running systems linked by 9600 bps bisync modems on leased lines, Bitnet evolved to Bitnet II, which ran on top of the TCP/IP-based Internet. More and more institutions which are full-square on the Internet are dropping Bitnet as redundant or otherwise not worth the extra cost. Some of us will miss the ease of sending files that Bitnet offered, but Internet gives us so much that there is a "net improvement." The number of the network nodes is growing very fast in Poland, reaching some 10,000 now. Listing them all here exceeds the capacity of the magazine. In this issue we include "POLAND - ELECTRONIC CONTACTS" in a short version. The complete list of electronic contacts in Poland is available via WWW at http://www.pdi.lodz.pl. It can also be retrieved as file 'contacts.txt' from the same places that archive Pigulki (see "About Pigulki"). The list below is designed as an aid in locating E-mail contacts. In general, the most direct way of finding somebody's E-mail address is to ask him or her. Telephone and Snail-mail also work wonders. There are several tools available on the network (notably netfind), which, with more or less success, attempt to locate the person given name and approximate location. When all else fails, drop a note to the contact person listed below. The institutions with network connections are listed, together with names and addresses of contact persons. For nodes stil in EARN network, domain addresses are given when established, in preference to one-word Bitnet addresses. 1. Internet Addresses #################################################### -------------------------- CITY ----------------------------------------- |INSTITUTION: | | Division: Contact Person | |_________________________________________________________________________| --------------------------- BIALYSTOK --------------------------------------- BIALYSTOK TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Arkadiusz Galicki --------------------------- BYDGOSZCZ --------------------------------------- ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE Inst. of Mathematics and Physics: Janusz Szykowny MEDICAL ACADEMY: Piotr Cysewski PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Slawomir Grondkowski TECHNICAL ELECTRONIC SCHOOL: Jerzy Pilat --------------------------- GDANSK ------------------------------------------ MEDICAL ACADEMY OF GDANSK Computer Center: postmaster@amed01.amg.gda.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Hydroengineering: Jaroslaw Androsiuk Inst. of Fluid-Flow Machinery: Tadeusz Jankowski TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK: Piotr Maj Computer Center: postmaster@pg.gda.pl Fac. of Architecture: W. Leszkiewicz Fac. of Chemistry: Mariusz Krawczyk Fac. of Civil Engineering: Wladyslaw Grzesiak Fac. of Electrical Engineering: Krzysztof Snopek Dept. of Electronic Circuits: postmaster@gumbeers.elka.pg.gda.pl Fac. of Electronics: W.J.Martin Fac. of Hydrotechnics: Krzysztof Sass Fac. of Mechanical Engineering: Lech Skrzynecki Fac. of Oceanology: Hanna Czerniak Fac. of Technical Physics and Applied Mathematics: Ryszard Jan Barczynski UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK: Marek Karkowski Dept. of Biology, Geography and Oceanology: Adam Krezel Dept. of Molecular Biology: Bogdan Banecki --------------------------- GLIWICE ----------------------------------------- SILESIAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: postmaster@gleto2.gliwice.edu.pl Computer Center: postmaster@gleto2.gliwice.edu.pl Inst. of Automation, Industrial Control Group: Jurek Moscinski Inst. of Computer Sci.: Piotr Sasiedzki Inst. of Electronics: Witold Baran --------------------------- KATOWICE ---------------------------------------- ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS Computing Center: Aleksander Chrzan SILESIAN UNIVERSITY: Maciek Uhlig Computer Center: Maciek Uhlig Inst. of Chemistry --------------------------- KEDZIERZYN-KOZLE -------------------------------- INST. OF HEAVY ORGANIC SYNTHESIS "BLACHOWNIA": jsk@icso.com.pl info@icso.com.pl --------------------------- KIELCE ------------------------------------------ TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Marek Zwierzyk --------------------------- KRAKOW ------------------------------------------ KRAKOW: Jerzy Pawlus ACADEMIC COMPUTER CENTRE "CYFRONET": Jerzy Pawlus INSTITUTE OF ZOOTECHNICS: postmaster@izoo.krakow.pl JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY: Roman Markowski Administration Office: Mariusz Korzel Astronomical Observatory: Marian Soida Dept. of Chemistry: Janusz Mrozek Dep. of Philology: Lukasz Bienkowski Inst. of Computer Science: Adam Kleiner Inst. of Environmental Biology: postmaster@eko.uj.edu.pl Inst. of Geological Sciences: Janusz Slezak Inst. of Mathematics: postmaster@im.uj.edu.pl Inst. of Molecular Biology: Jan Ilnicki Inst. of Physics: Robert Niemiec Inst. of Zoology: postmaster@iz.uj.edu.pl Jagiellonian Library: Ewa Bozejewicz NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: Ireneusz Neska NUCLEAR PHYSICS INST.: Andrzej Sobala PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Wojciech Folta Central Library: Gabriel Pajdosz Dept. of Astronomy: Gabriel Pajdosz Dept. of Computer Science: Jaroslaw Rafa SOLIDEX LTD.: postmaster@solidex.krakow.pl TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CRACOW: Krzysztof Rozycki Administration: postmaster@admin.pk.edu.pl Computer Center: Krzysztof Rozycki Dep. of Chemical Engineering: Marek Bobrowski Dept. of Civil Engineering: Bogdan Przebinda Dept. of Electrical Engineering: postmaster@edison.pk.edu.pl Dept. of Environmental Engineering: Leszek Kaptur Dept. of Mechanical Engineering: Slawomir Szlezak Inst. of Computational Methods in Civil Engineering: Grzegorz Mucha Inst. of Physics: Jerzy Sanetra Library: postmaster@biblos.pk.edu.pl UNIVERSITY OF MINING AND METALLURGY: Szymon Sokol Central Library: Ewa Lankosz Dept. of Drive Automation: Grzegorz Wrobel Dept. of Electrical Machines: Grzegorz Krawczyk Dept. of Electronics: Roman Rumian Dept. of Mechanics and Acoustics: Jacek Cieslik Dept. of Telecommunication: Miroslaw Gajda Dept. of the Theory of Metalurgic Process Engineering: Marcin Zembura Fac. of Geology, Geophysics and Environment: Tomasz Ulatowski Fac. of Materials Engineering and Ceramics: Stanislaw Komornicki Fac. of Physics and Nuclear Techiques: Marek Ciechanowski Financial Dept.: Artur Surowka Inst. of Automatics: Wojciech Chmiel Inst. of Computer Science: Andrzej Krol Inst. of Design and Construction of Mines: Jan Jasiewicz Inst. of Elektrotechnics: Maciej Ogorzalek Inst. of Metallurgy: Krzysztof Wilk Inst. of Underground Mining: Marian Branny University Computer Center: Szymon Sokol --------------------------- LODZ -------------------------------------------- LODZ: Piotr Wilk MAGNUM: Piotr Sroczynski MEDICAL ACADEMY: jkkjasio@psk2.am.lod.edu.pl NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.lodz.pl PUBLIC INTERNET ACCESS (PDI) Ltd. Rafal Maszkowski TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF LODZ: Piotr Wilk Computer Center: Andrzej Bednarek Laboratory of Computer Networks: Piotr Wilk UNIVERSITY OF LODZ: miller@zpk.u.lod.edu.pl Dept. of Crystallography: Piotr Sobczynski Dept. of Solid State Physics: Marian Bieniecki Inst. of Cosmic Radiation: miller@zpk.u.lod.edu.pl --------------------------- LUBLIN ------------------------------------------ LUBLIN: postmaster@golem.umcs.lublin.pl ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LUBLIN LUBLIN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: morys@archimedes.pol.lublin.pl Computer Center: admin@pluton.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Civil and Sanitary Engineering: supervisor@akropolis.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Electrical Engineering: supervisor@elektron.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Management Science: supervisor@antenor.pol.lublin.pl Dept. of Mechanical Engineering: morys@archimedes.pol.lublin.pl MARIA CURIE SKLODOWSKA UNIVERSITY: Piotr Rozmej POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Agrophysics: admin@demeter.ipan.lublin.pl --------------------------- OLSZTYN ----------------------------------------- ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE: Wieslaw Poszewiecki PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Wieslaw Poszewiecki POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Agrotechny: Wieslaw Poszewiecki --------------------------- OPOLE ------------------------------------------- PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Andrzej Czainski --------------------------- OTWOCK - SWIERK --------------------------------- INST. OF ATOMIC ENERGY, COMPUTER CENTRE CYFRONET: office@cyf.gov.pl cyfronet@plearn.edu.pl --------------------------- POZNAN ------------------------------------------ ADAM MICKIEWICZ UNIVERSITY Computer Center: Dorota Nicewicz Dept. of Theoretical Chemistry: Adam Gnabasik Fac. of Mathematics and Informatics: Roman Bednarek AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY: Tomasz Niewiedzial FRANCO-POLISH SCHOOL OF NEW INFORMATION AND COMM. TECHNOLOGIES: Janusz.Krzysztofik@efp.poznan.pl INST. OF NATURAL FIBRES: Dobroslawa Gucia MINISTRY OF INDUSTRY Inst. of Heavy Organic Synthesis NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.poznan.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Molecular Physics: Wojciech L. Malinowski POZNAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Mikolaj Lubiatowski Computer Network: Bartlomiej Woyke Fac. of Electrical Eng., Dept. of Control, Robotics and Comp. Sci.: Krzysztof Kosarzycki Fac. of Electrical Eng., Inst. of Electronics & Communications: Rafal Krenz Fac. of Electrical Eng., Inst. of Informatics: Ryszard Jezierski Inst. of Applied Mechanics: Jerzy Lewinski Inst. of Chemistry and Technical Electrochemistry: Andrzej Suszka Inst. of Computing Science: Janusz.Kaczmarek@cs.put.poznan.pl Inst. of Computing Science (Science Center): Janusz.Kaczmarek@cs.put.poznan.pl Inst. of Electrical Power Engineering: Bogdan Staszak Inst. of Electronics & Communications: Dawid Staskiewicz Inst. of Environment Engineering: Marek Sowinski Inst. of Industrial Electrotechnics: Pawel Sniatala Inst. of Internal Combustion Engines and Elements of Machine: M. Morzynski Inst. of Mathematics: Henryk Gorka Inst. of Mechanical Engineering Technology: Robert Cieslinski Inst. of Physics: L. Kruszewska Inst. of Technology and Building Structure: Witold Kakol Inst. of Working Machines: prof. Osmolski Office of the Dean of Chemical Technology Fac.: Bartlomiej Woyke Office of the Dean of Electrical Enginering Fac.: Bartlomiej Woyke University Computing Center: Bartlomiej Woyke SUPERCOMPUTING AND NETWORKING CENTER POZNAN: Cezary Mazurek, Janusz Kaczmarek UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS: Michal Walczak UNIVERSITY OF FINE ARTS: bind@pozman.edu.pl --------------------------- RZESZOW ----------------------------------------- RZESZOW PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY: Piotr Forys Inst. of Mathematics: ziim@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl Inst. of Physics: insfizrz@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl Inst. of Technics: lpyzik@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl Library: bibwyprz@plumcs11.umcs.lublin.pl RZESZOW TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY: Jerzy Kus RZESZOW BRANCH OF MARIA CURIE SKLODOWSKA UNIVERSITY: umcsrze@frodo.nask.org.pl RZESZOW BRANCH OF KRAKOW ACADEMY OF AGRICULTURE: arrze@frodo.nask.org.pl --------------------------- SOPOT ------------------------------------------- POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. of Oceanology: Jacek Piskozub UNIVERSITY OF GDANSK Main Library: Waldemar Chrzan --------------------------- SZCZECIN ---------------------------------------- UNIVERSITY OF SZCZECIN University Computing Center: Roman Kruszynski --------------------------- TORUN ------------------------------------------- GEOPHYSICS: Waldemar Ogonowski HIGH SCHOOL #4 NASK - RES. AND ACAD. COMPUTER NETWORK: Zbigniew S. Szewczak NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY: Zbyszek Szewczak Astronomical Observatories:: Andrzej Marecki Computer Center: Maja Gorecka Inst. of Astronomy: Jerzy Borkowski Inst. of Mathematics: Tomasz Wolniewicz Inst. of Physics: Jacek Kobus University Library: Andrzej Kaczor University President's Computerization Team: Jerzy B. Ludwichowski POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Astrophysics Lab. I: postmaster@ncac.torun.pl, hostmaster@ncac.torun.pl POWER AND HEAT PLANT: Grzegorz Kopcewicz --------------------------- WARSZAWA ---------------------------------------- ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING INC., (ATM): customer@atm.com.pl ATM - Comercial Internet in Poland: Darek Wichniewicz CENTRAL INST. FOR LABOUR PROTECTION: postmaster@ciop.waw.pl CENTRAL PLANNING OFFICE Data Processing Center MILITARY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Computer Centre: Jacek Wisniewski MINISTRY OF FINANCE Dept. of Informatics: NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.org.pl Domain used for commercial users: hostmaster@nask.com.pl NASK in Warsaw area: Irek Neska PALACE OF YOUTH: postmaster@pm.waw.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES High Pressure Research Centre "Unipress": marcin@iris.unipreess.waw.pl Inst. of Biochemistry and Biophysics Inst. of Computer Science: Krzysztof Anacki Inst. of Fundamental Technological Research: Marek Pokulniewicz Inst. of Mathematics Inst. of Physical Chemistry Inst. of Physics: Jacek Madajczyk Nencki Inst. of Experimental Biology: msikora@nencki.gov.pl Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center: postmaster@camk.edu.pl Space Research Centre: Krystyna Hulewicz SOLIDEX LTD.: Marek Cyzio STATE COMMITTEE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: postmaster@kbn.gov.pl TVP S.A.: Micha/l P/egierski UNIV-COMP LTD. Telecomunications Dept.: Zbigniew Kobylski WARSAW AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY - SGGW: Piotr Wroblewski Fac. of Land Reclamation and Environmental Engineering.: Roman Kaminski Inst. of Computer Science and Econometrics: Piotr Wroblewski WARSAW UNIVERSITY Astronomical Observatory: Andrzej Udalski Dept. of Biophysics and Biochemistry: Antek Laczkowski Dept. of Chemistry: Pawel Lukomski Dept. of Psychology: supervisor@psych2.psych.uw.edu.pl Fac. of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics: Staszek Kurpiewski Heavy Ion Laboratory: postmaster@slcj.uw.edu.pl Informatics Centre of Warsaw Uniwersity: Leszek Imielski Inst. of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics: hostmast@appli.mimuw.edu.pl Inst. of Botany, Dept. of Phytosociology and Plant Ecology: Tomek Wyszomirski Inst. of Botany, Dept. of Plant Taxonomy & Geography: Wojciech Borkowski Inst. of Physics: Rafal Pietrak Inst. for Social Studies: Jacek Szamrej Interdisciplinary Centre for Math. and Comput. Modelling: Wojtek Sylwestrzak WARSAW UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY: Roman Adamiec Central Administration Computing Center: Roman Adamiec Dept. of Technical Physics and Applied Mathematics: Piotr Zemlo Fac. of Chemistry Fac. of Civil Engineering Fac. of Electronic Engineering (administration): whois@elka.pw.edu.pl (preferred - a program) Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Automatic Control: whois@ia.pw.edu.pl (preferred - program) Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Computer Science: Rafal Bajorek Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Electronic Fundamentals: postmaster@ipe.pw.edu.pl Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Micro- and Optoelectronics: postmaster@imio.pw.edu.pl Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Radioelectronics: Janusz Marzec Fac. of Electronic Engineering, Inst. of Telecommunication: Leszek Wronski Fac. of Geodesy and Cartography Fac. of Power and Aeronautical Eng. Inst. of Electron Technology: Wojciech Lewandowski Inst. of Transportation Riviera - Students' Hostel: postmaster@riviera.pw.edu.pl --------------------------- WROCLAW ----------------------------------------- NASK - RES. AND ACAD. NETWORKS IN POLAND: hostmaster@nask.wroc.pl POLISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Inst. for Low Temperature & Structure Research: Ludwik Biegala TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW: Jarek Kurowski Dept. of Architecture: Sergiusz Pawlowicz Dept. of Computer Science: Jarek Kurowski Inst. of Control and Systems Engineering: mszr@i17unixB.ists-pwr.wroc.edu.pl Inst. of Electronic Technology: Zbigniew Helak Inst. of Engineering Cybernetics: Witold Paluszynski Inst. of Materials Science and Technical Mechanics: Wojciech Myszka Inst. of Mathematics: Krzysztof Szajowski Inst. of Mechanical Engineering and Automation: Wieslaw Caban Inst. of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry: postmaster@kchf.ch.pwr.wroc.pl Inst. of Telecommunication and Acoustics: Zygmunt Krawczyk UNIVERSITY OF WROCLAW Dept. of Theoretical Physics: Inst. of Computer Science: root@ii.uni.wroc.pl Inst. of Mathematics: Kryspin Porembski ACADEMY OF ECONOMICS: root@unix.ok.ae.wroc.pl BRANCH OF T.U. WROCLAW IN JELENIA GORA: Maciej Pawlowski ENGINEERING COLLEGE IN ZIELONA GORA: Waldemar Wozniak 2. Fidonet ############################################################### ___________________________________________________________________________ |Node: Name: Location: Sysop: Phone: | |___________________________________________________________________________| 2:481/11 LOCKIE_BBS Brzeg_Dolny Remigiusz Pokucinski 48-71-195808 2:481/15 EAGLE_BBS Brzeg_Dolny Mariusz Ptasznik 48-71-192818 2:481/1 SM-Net_BBS Bydgoszcz Mariusz Boronski 48-52-411222 2:481/4 ATR_BBS Bydgoszcz Piotr Michal Kruza 48-52-438629 2:481/2 Technical_University Gdansk Mariusz Matuszek 48-58-472109 2:481/13 ASTOR_BBS Gdansk Marek Kalmarczyk 48-58-572599 2:481/14 Rat_BBS Gdansk Daniel Dubielski 48-58-322900 2:480/25 PiK'us_BBS Gliwice Wojciech Apel 48-32-374144 2:481/17 Test_BBS Gorzow_Wlkp Mariusz Dziakowicz 48-95-26924 2:480/34 The_Verbum_BBS Katowice Marek Gorny 48-32-586903 2:480/42 Nexter_BBS Katowice Klaudiusz Staniek 48-3-1537033 2:480/46 OTA_PSS Katowice Jacek Przybylo 48-32-597178 2:486/1 MULTISOFT_BBS Krakow Maciej Piotrowski 48-12-217620 2:486/3 Torreadore_BBS Krakow Miroslaw Majorek 48-12-367949 2:486/6 QUMAK_BBS Krakow Maciej Piotrowski 48-12-216273 2:486/7 LAVA_BBS Krakow Karol Olszanski 48-12-129534 2:486/9 ALF_BOARD Krakow Piotr Mamak 48-12-379066 2:486/18 Pc_duo_BBS Krakow Marek Sobol 48-12-214631 2:481/12 OCB283_BBS Legnica Marek Szenkaryk 48-76-541150 2:480/48 Fido_Lodz Lodz Radoslaw Machala 48-42-864647 2:480/8 WiRuSat_BBS Opole Piotr Rutkowski 48-77-39224 2:481/6 RBMeteo_BBS Poznan Jaroslaw Bernatowicz 48-61-496107 2:481/7 Apexim_BBS Poznan Mariusz Gieparda 48-61-771433 2:481/10 WSOSK_BBS Poznan Ireneusz Lupa 48-61-494719 2:480/4 Month_BBS Warszawa Andrzej Bursztynski 48-22-291578 2:480/10 Home_of_PCQ Warszawa Jan Stozek 48-22-410374 2:480/13 Spectrum_BBS Warszawa Tomasz Bursze 48-22-256965 2:480/14 Z-BBS Warszawa Andrzej Bursztynski 48-22-276333 2:480/19 Bajtek_BBS Warszawa Michal Szokolo 48-2-6284594 2:480/23 Galaxy_BBS Warszawa Jarek Wojcik 48-2-6431010 2:480/30 Imperial_BBS Warszawa Krzysztof Mlynarski 48-2-6176658 2:480/31 High_Quality_#1_BBS Warszawa Piotr Kaczorowski 48-22-250263 2:480/32 Acces_BBS Warszawa Darek Pruchniak 48-22-580417 2:480/33 Home_of_AMiga Warszawa Rafal Wiosna 48-22-339649 2:480/35 Post_Box_No.1_BBS Warszawa Tomasz Kepinski 48-22-424599 2:480/36 ZWK@LAB_BBS Warszawa Zbigniew W.Kaminski 48-22-465692 2:480/37 Time_BBS_Node_1 Warszawa Sebastian Streich 48-2-6796457 2:480/38 Opus_BBS Warszawa Robert Trzeciak 48-22-188465 2:480/39 Rainbow_BBS Warszawa Krzysztof Korczak 48-2-6198337 2:480/40 The_Palace_of_Youth Warszawa Krzysztof Halasa 48-22-203372 2:480/41 Time_BBS_Node_2 Warszawa Radoslaw Labanowski 48-22-188048 2:480/43 Fanatic_BBS Warszawa Ireneusz Lapinski 48-22-261983 2:480/44 Mamba_BBS Warszawa Wojtek Gorzkowski 48-22-367443 2:480/45 ICYE_BBS Warszawa Piotr Adamiak 48-22-409566 2:480/49 First_Aid_BBS Warszawa Krzysztof Szczepansk 48-2-6427851 2:480/50 PIKON Warszawa Piotr Konczewski 48-2-6350380 2:480/51 Sofcon_Mail Warszawa Artur Jerzy Olszewsk 48-22-475081 2:481/9 OWL_BBS Wroclaw Andrzej Zurakowski 48-71-448820 2:481/16 ALEX_BBS Wroclaw Alex Sell 48-71-686362 2:481/20 Ultimate_BBS Wroclaw Julia Woronkow 48-71-484191 The node addressing is given in Fido style, . Mail is gatewayed to Internet, and the equivalent domain style address is where a,b,c,d are the corresponding point, fidonode, network and zone numbers. The point is optional and defaults to p0 if not specified. For example an address to the user Jan Kowalski with an account in BitART BBS in Krakow is: . 3. Public sites and servers ############################################## You can access most WWW sites in Poland through http://www.fuw.edu.pl. A sample of about 30 existing gophers: gopher.cyfronet.krakow.pl - Akademickie Centrum Komputerowe "Cyfronet", Krakow gopher.fuw.edu.pl - Physics Department, Warsaw University, Warsaw gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl - Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun gopher.uci.agh.edu.pl - University of Mining and Metalurgy, Krakow mvax.ci.pwr.wroc.pl - Technical University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw plearn.edu.pl - Warsaw University, Warszawa prelude.iss.uw.edu.pl - Institute for Social Studies, Warsaw University usctoux1.cto.us.edu.pl - Centrum Techniki Obliczeniowej Uniwersytetu Slaskiego w Katowicach Some ftp sites with contents: alfa.camk.edu.pl - PIGULKI, dir: pub/pigulki; GUST clipper.psych.uw.edu.pl - Clipper archive, Novell - ftp.novell.felk.cz mirror, Antyvirus copernicus.astro.uni.torun.p - European VLBI Newsletter, Images of the strongest celestial radio sources ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl - several mirrors, including SimTel ftp.elka.pw.edu.pl - PLOTKI - archiwum ftp.fuw.edu.pl - ftp.icm.edu.pl - X11R6 distribution, GNU mirror, FBPNews, satellite weather images, netlib mirror, tex mirror, sun public patches, RFC mirror ftp.ict.pwr.wroc.pl - Linux (Slackware, SLS), Gnu, X11, elm, tin, zip, less, some RFC, etc. Local lists, humour ftp.immt.pwr.wroc.pl - CD (1992) with Simtel, Windows (cica), GNU, X11, Simtel(source), Prime Time Freeware (1993) TeX (MeX, LaMeX, *.sty) ftp.mimuw.edu.pl - MksVir Demo ftp.nask.org.pl - main Internet router statistics ftp.pg.gda.pl - 750 MB - TeX, GNU, Linux (Slackware) ftp.uci.agh.edu.pl - Linux, X11, Polish electronic press, 'religia' list, GNU (binaries for SCO), X11, security related docs, irc gifs laserspark.anu.edu.au - Mleczko pictures, konkordat poniecki.berkeley.edu - Polish Archives sirius.astrouw.edu.pl - Acta Astronomica archive sprocket.ict.pwr.wroc.pl - Linux Slackware 2.x mirror zfja-gate.fuw.edu.pl - PA0GRI zsku.p.lodz.pl - Pigulki A complete listing of "Polish Interest Network Resources" (PZS) by Rafal Maszkowski is posted irregularily to PZS distribution list located on vm.cc.uni.torun.pl and can be retrieved by anonymous ftp and by gopher at poniecki.berkeley.edu and gopher.mat.uni.torun.pl/ftp.mat.uni.torun.pl. HTML version is available at URL=http://www.ict.pwr.wroc.pl/pzs/pzs.html, http://info.fuw.edu.pl/pzs/pzs.html, http://www.uci.agh.edu.pl/pzs/pzs.html, http://zsku.p.lodz.pl/pzs/pzs.html or http://laserspark.anu.edu.au/pzs.html. ----------------- Many thanks to Ludwik Biegala, Szymon Brandt, Janusz Kaczmarek, Zbigniew Kobylski, Tomasz Krupa, Roman Kruszynski, Beata Los, Mail_4_CBK_PAN, Wojtek Malinowski, Tomek Motylewski (several domains in Krakow), Wojciech Myszka, Sergiusz W. Pawlowicz, Jaroslaw Rafa, root@ciop.waw.pl, Krzysztof Rozycki, Piotr Sroczynski, Kristina Stoewa, Janusz Szykowny, Darek Wichniewicz, Jacek Wisniewski, Bartlomiej Woyke, Marcin Zawierucha, for help in updating the Internet list. Please send changes and corrections to Rafal Maszkowski . ======================================================================= Po prostu Dave Phillips FOLLOWING UP (1993-4) I have some follow-up comments and updates to past Po Prostu articles.... BOSNIA Recently NATO has launched airstrikes against Serb militia airstrips in retaliation for the Serbs' rather blithe indifference to UN declared safe-havens such as Bihac. The world has never bothered to punish Serbia or its militias for its genocide. On a recent "Meet the Press" (Nov. 27, 1994) both US Sec. of Defense William Perry and Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole were asked: "Hasn't Serbia already won the war?" Perry hemmed and hawed, acknowledging that the Serbs were already in firm control of 70% of Bosnia. Dole agreed with the question without repeating the words, adding that the world had stood by and watched while the Serbs had their way. Meanwhile, the mayor of Bihac called for help (Nov 27 94) from the world: "I beg of you in the outside world to do something because you are about to witness a massacre, a genocide...." and the media carried agonizing but rather obvious appraisals of the failure of the UN to accomplish anything. Debate over lifting the arms embargo by the US (unilaterally) continues. Clinton had ordered the pathetic equivalent of a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy to the naval forces under his command in the Adriatic blockade. The world has not only allowed the rape and death of Bosnia, but it tied Bosnia's hands and claimed it was in the interest of preventing bloodshed. I wrote 17 months ago: There may not be a permanent peace in the Bosnia/Croatia/Serbia- Montenegro region. Like Lebanon, peoples were cobbled together by outside forces and held in place until the bonding agents were catalyzed, and war resulted. The one thing the world must not stand by and watch is continued genocide. To my mind, a peace plan that everyone can agree to is secondary. The primary goal of the world community should be to *punish and stop* the commission of genocide, which in this case means the elimination of the means by which a "Greater Serbia" may be imposed by force. Destruction of Rump Yugoslavia's air force and landing strips, missile sites, and major highway links to "Serbian" Bosnia can be done without a massive commitment of ground forces. Serbian continued supply of the Bosnian rebels should be met with targeting of civilian infrastructure in Serbia and in Serbian-controlled Bosnia. Arming the Bosnians to defend themselves against the Serbs and Croats also appears necessary ("Never Again, and Again and Again," Pigulki No. 14, July 1, 1993). In a different vein, I wrote 14 months ago: We will pay for this complacency [disinterest in understanding the full dimensions of the Holocaust]; the payment has begun in the Balkans -again - and we allow the rest of Europe and America to do nothing to stop it. The next generation is being told simple stories, easy answers, the kind you get graded on. Will they be the generation that allows things far worse than the Balkans to occur? What will their comforting prejudices be? What will they teach their kids? ("It's a big elephant," Pigulki No. 15, Oct.25, 1993) In those months, the revived civil war in Rwanda made the Balkans look placid. The United States decided not to be the world's policeman in this case, a wise decision given the lack of oil or American garment sweatshops in that nation. By the way, do Pigulki readers remember the Public Relations campaign run by the Government of Kuwait during Operation Desert Shield, depicting that emirate as a nation transforming and modernizing itself, democratizing itself, and therefore clearly in need of world (i.e., American) help? What changes have occurred in that country, a country in which the Emir would not return to rule until the US Army Corps of Engineers fixed up his palace? Perhaps oil rich Kuwait should be asked to take guest workers from Rwanda as a humanitarian gesture and as repayment to the Alliance for repulsing Iraq? What about at least fellow Muslims from Bosnia? See my point? RUSSIA I wrote in Pigulki No. 16 after the Clinton Administration postponed Poland's admission into NATO: Can Americans (for example) fully appreciate Polish feelings of betrayal, and talk of "Yalta II?" Perhaps not. We Americans tend to believe that everyone around the world is just like us, from the safety of two oceans and relatively peaceful neighbors on our borders (excluding Canadian drivers, of course). And, of course, if *we* are not worried about a fascistic dinosaur like Zhirinovsky from the relative safety of our shores, neither should the Poles. ("Zhirinovsky: out of the collectives' unconscious," Pigulki 16, Feb 15, 1994). The US Congress has since reacted with legislation to provide Poland U.S. aid it would otherwise be entitled to as a NATO member. This aid could actually help Poland attain the stated requirements for NATO membership. Good job. A relatively small number of Polish American researchers and activists deserve credit for this, in addition to the prime legislative movers. You wouldn't believe how few people have made such large differences in the past 12 or 13 years. None of these folks, unfortunately, usually make the history books. It's been an education for me, and makes me wonder about the history that is being taught in the schools and even the universities. POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS I wrote in Pigulki No. 15: My feeling about this was reinforced by an organization set up by a Rabbi Schulweis on the West Coast about 6 or 7 years ago: his members believed that there were many more righteous gentiles than had been documented, that of those surviving most were destitute; Schulweis' group aimed to help these people financially. His group got merged into the Anti-Defamation League, which held a gala shindig with celebrities and honored a few of these good people. It's been quiet ever since. ("It's a big elephant," Pigulki No. 15, Oct. 25, 1993) I'm happy to say I was wrong on this point. A fairly recent book by committee members Gay Block and Malka Drucker, titled Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1992), profiles a number of such righteous gentiles. The existence of and quality of this book suggest that there is indeed some hope for mutual understanding between Poles and Jews. Let's hope both Polonia and Jewish-Americans pay attention to the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers and its efforts. For more information write the Foundation c/o the Anti-Defamation League, 823 United Nations Plaza, New York NY 10018. ======================================================================= The Back Page Jurek Klimkowski TRAVELOG: La vie en rose. The back seat of our VW had its latch bolts broken. Hans was driving, Yoannis was sitting in the passenger seat. (They were engaged in an argument about the European politics.) Behind them, almost flat on my back and my female companion, B., lying next to me, I wanted so bad to participate in their discussion. The roar of an air-cooled engine, more or less directly under our heads, drowned their voices, but not enough to shut us off from what was going on. Hans was simultaneously speeding, getting mad at the Greek fellow and looking at me via the back view mirror. There was an overt command for me in his grey-blue eyes: "Get involved, you, SOB.". Whereas I, looking at him in-between my own knees, was trying to send a message: "You have to stop speeding so that I could somehow control the yawing and rolling motions of my body and help you!" Unfortunately, the madder Hans was getting, the faster he was driving. All I was able to do was to utter some vile comments about the car which nobody could hear, anyway. My anger was growing. With all the great things I wanted to say - mine being the voice of the unappreciated Slavs - rolled and bounced on the back of a dilapidated automobile. Yet, just as I was finally able to "shout-in" just a few of my opinions, our road turned to a winding, narrow strip of patched asphalt. Yupi! There we went! Due to abrupt swerves of the car, the girl, which I hardly knew before this trip, was thrown at me with a gusto. Then, in a sequence of uncontrollable events, like some human pendulum, she bounced against the wall of the Bug, and on rebound, her bony elbows were planted, or perhaps, replanted into my rib cage. These blows became quite regular making my eyes bulge and my tongue to stick out. I must have looked like some mechanical cricket. Considering my participation in this discourse to be essential I decided to act. First, by kicking and scratching the driver's "derriere" with my bare feet some crude form of cruise control was accomplished. (His grey- blue eyes, for a moment, carried a notion of wounded Teutonic pride, but soon reverted to their previous S.O.S mode.) Satisfied, I offered my arm so that B. could lay her head on it. She eagerly accepted and even upped the ante by pushing her nylon sleeping bag under my back. My entry spun the exchange into a very hot debate. Now Yoannis became very angry. He had to confront Hans and me, as well as his own, slightly deficient English. Eventually, furious and unable to break our united front, he begun provoking us by making statements worthy of a true Atlanticist. He actually professed an unshakable faith in the importance of NATO. Flabbergasted, we appealed to his European better-self which was actually a wrong thing to do. His retort was very condescending. He did let us know that he considered us to be some lesser-Europeans. He followed with his lopsided view, that most of the entire history was encapsulated in the Golden Age of Athens and everything since has been but a long stretch of nothingness which has led to the presence of the U.S. soldiers in Western Europe and the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. In a curious way, he plainly didn't consider the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment, Gothic and Baroque Art, which passed Greece by, to be any part of his heritage. Furthermore, as he freely admitted, there was some "personalized" logic to his line of thinking. He got his engineering B.S. and M.S. at an U.S. military base in Germany; by implication: if American G.I.s were stationed in Germany, then Germany was not much. Similarly, all Greeks knew that one of their kings, a cacique as I actually have read somewhere, was known in history as The Bulgarokiller [1], therefore Slavs are not much. When we objected, Yoannis, feeling that his arguments were not strong enough to keep his place in our discussion, "reloaded" for an all-out assault. His English became purely American slang. He said it slowly: "Lets not wrap it all up in some f... nuances, OK? Americans keep Turks from butching Greeks on the coast and the Greek Air Force from flying over Cyprus and shooting every Turk in sight through the ass. I'd be damned if it wasn't because of Russians and Americans coming in that you three now travel in the same car. Otherwise, you, the eloquent, smart- ass Europeans, would be still pounding each other ... with sticks and stones if necessary. I'll tell you more, folks, so you'd know how common people feel about you. If you were given a free hand, from Caucasus to Normandy, most of you, the sophisticated ones, would be trying to pick each other's brains with rusted steel." Only the engine cut the uneasy silence that followed the Greek engineer's statement. We all became painfully aware that the car carrying us through these beautiful mountains was "the People's Car" of Adolf Hitler's dreams. It was a turning point. If we were to carry on, toward a truly heated argument, we were putting jeopardy all the pleasures our great trip held in promise. Yet another fruitless political debate could turn really ugly. Hans opened the side window. Fresh air seemed to breathe some new ideas into our heads. My own thoughts were already far away. I was determined to have a good time, consistently throughout the entire summer. Besides, the girl next to me smelled so fresh. Parallel to my body there was this heap of long, light blond hair, well exercised muscles covered with pink skin: a rather appetizing compact of a "crunchy", sunbaked German girl. As if I were some Roman legionnaire, I wanted to shout: "Take us across the Rhine, Caesar, into this dreary forest. There must be more where this one came from!" I looked at her and she smiled back to me. My reaction to her smile was another torrent of thoughts. While my back kept slowly sliding down the slippery sleeping bag, putting me once again in a near-perfect horizontal position, I remained puzzled by the precarious situation I was in. Yoannis was in my way. Why? Because, I was driven, belly up, girl in tow, where once Bacchus reigned over similar processions. "Oh ancient Gods", I thought, "whenever you amused yourselves, the way only you knew how, there had to be this stupid peasant appearing out of nowhere, with his simpleton mind and dirty, smelly sheep and... spoiling all the fun!" It was time to get rid of the peasant. "Yoannis", said I, "How could Greeks have cast their votes against President Nixon? After all, almost everybody here blames his Secretary of State for the Cyprus debacle." "You know damned well that we couldn't have." he replied. "That's strange because any alligator wrestler in Florida and any Black Muslim from Detroit could have and finally most of them did participate in forcing their president out." "That's it." growled Hans strait into Yoannis face. "Whose politics do you support?" B. wouldn't be herself without adding her bit: "American and European cultures are forking away, as our interests are already distinct. I had an American boyfriend for a couple of years and I saw it all very clearly." * Like in Fellini's movies the trip itself rather then reaching the destination acquired independent and profound meaning. With Yoannis and B. gone we felt relaxed and free. Because our sponsors paid for our gasoline according to the regular price, while we had our tourist visas which entitled us to buy gasoline at 40% reduction. So the further we went the more money we could spend on pleasure. (Not that we were that short of "money and pleasure" before this trip begun.) Determined to enjoy ourselves as much as we could before returning to our universities, we feasted on the exquisite local food: grilled mouton and goat meat rollades, followed by country bread, figs, olives. Greek salads became our standard. We annihilated souvlaki and gyros, drowned ourselves in wine and retsina. We talked a lot, swam, sunbathed, camped out. Near Corinth we met some very funny Norwegian girls and we tagged along for a couple of days. All the time I felt some incredible kinship with Hans. We were becoming great friends. His inhibitions were gone during the first conversation, early in the morning, the very first day out of Thessalonica. "Your friends tell some unbelievable stories about you and an English girl." Was his initial shot. "How was she?" "Pretty." I replied."Is that what you wanted to know?" "No." said he. "I meant: 'how was she?'" "Pretty nice." I answered, avoiding the subliminal message of his question. "We were all fairly tipsy during our stay in the Cyclades, things slightly got out of hand. So what do you know?" "Rumor has it, that you laid a text on her and she was shocked, awed and dumbstruck. Someone said that this was 'a catch of the day'." Hans was smiling. "They say that you ripped her tee-shirt, is that true?" "Oh, you mean the Tale of the Tassle." I laughed heartily. "Hans, this was a riot, but I really didn't force myself upon her, or anything like that. It's just a gossip growing and drowning an otherwise funny story." We were shaving over the same sink, a bottle of wine between the taps. Hans uncorked the bottle, drunk a good gulp and said: "From the horses mouth", and it was my turn to take a swig and tell the story. "Prosit", said I, took a gulp and gave him my cherub smile. "OK, but I am telling you this only to clear the record. I continued: "She was tall and very pretty, some London girl from AISEC(2a). As you know, we met these people on a ferry. They asked us to come along because we were IAESTE(2b). We eventually ended up at some open-air cafe on some island and talked until two or three in the morning." Hans was impatient, "That I know, what happened to the tee-shirt?" "It was still on her at that time.", I snapped back, "Look, she was one of no more then three native English speakers in our group. She was speaking louder then most of us, trying to fit somehow. I just sat at the same table and ..." "Where was this tassle? Was it still on her at that time ?" Hans was getting desperate. "Oh, the tassle, or tassles to be exact, were part of her tee-shirt, still on her at that time. She had a string of tassles attached mid- height of her garment, the Native American style, so that some of them hanged loose up front." "How far away from her body were these tassles at that time?" Hans had to know, in case tassles were to become more common attribute of ladies' apparel. "Hans, some three to four centimeters at their loose ends!" "OK, I understand. So they had to be attached somewhere on their other ends, at that time, correct?" I took a big swig of wine, trying to keep my cool. I virtually shouted: "Hans, that's the point! At that time, these tassles were attached exactly as the garment designer planned..." "Oh, I see. That is important. So where were you at that time?" "I was sitting across the table from her talking and laughing, but the we were all planning to leave soon, because people were getting sleepy. There was some red wine spilled on our table and I saw one or more, I really couldn't tell how many, of her tassles dipping in that red wine spill." "Did you behaved like a gentleman at that time?" Hans gave me look of a German grandmother. "Yes, obviously I did. I reached for the tassle (tassles), slowly and unoffensively and tried to lift it (perhaps, them, there could have been as much as three involved) out of wine." "That was a gallant thing to do. Did you offer to rinse them for the lady?" I made a "face" at him and continued. "At that time, I wasn't quite sure. People were sleepy, some forty of us planning to return to the beach real soon and it was a quiet night. This girl was talking to someone at another table when she realized where my hand was." "Did you explain to her your intentions, you naughty boy?" The grandma- look returned to his face. "I certainly intended to, but couldn't at that time." I continued: "No, because trying to be funny she said: 'I'd rather protect my tassles than my reputation'. So I was left gasping for air holding the free end of the tassle - tassles, there were probably four of them." Hans looked at me with an air of profound sympathy. "I presume you begun squeezing them starting from the attached ends until the wine dripped out, didn't you?" "Oh, no. We Poles are not that well programmed. We do things on the spur of the moment." "Don't tell me, you brute." He was laughing madly, while trying to wrinkle his brow in a mock disapproval. "So how did you disengage?" "Well," I felt my cheeks blushing, "I told her that there was a way to kill two birds with one stone, giving her tassles priority one." We finished our shaving, half finished our bottle of wine and walked toward our bungalow. Hans stopped suddenly: "So you didn't quite 'disengage', did you?" I only smiled in response avoiding any further embarrassment. He, on the other hand, went into a sort of a speech: "This is the way things were meant to be! The Moon, the beach, the summer... It is exactly what Ancient Greeks have written about. Think about it, Jurek, maybe we were brought for a purpose to this Ancestral European Land? What could be more exciting then a bunch of all of us making love on the beach?" I knew he didn't exactly meant me and him. He has used "us" as synonym for the heterosexually-paired sets of Europeans, better yet European students, well fed, bronzed, relatively trouble-free, exercising all the privileges of their youth. In this ancient land the biblical sense of "two of each kind" did not apply. We were of the same kind down to the hardware of our anatomies and the software of our brains. In short: a tribe. "Hans, are you awaiting a new beginning for the European tribe?" I asked, astonished by his comments. He was getting at least half-serious. He turned his head towards me and slowed down. Behind him there was this old Turkish coastal fortress and the blue sea. His pale blond hair stood out from that background, his reddish face had an unpenetrable look. With a grin he just said: "Darn contraceptives" and walked away. I could feel as the palm of my right hand begun sweating making a little tassle I kept hidden from Hans wet. * * Summer was almost over and it was time to go home. I was driving, Hans in the passenger seat seemed asleep. We were some four to five hours' drive from Athens. Our stay in Greece was coming to a close. "It's strange." said Hans, still looking as if he was asleep. "What?", I looked at the road, the car, than myself, trying to guess what he meant, couldn't find anything "strange." "I like you a lot. I have a Polish buddy now. This is incredible." "Oh, that." I said. "The fact is that once you manage to lure Poles down from tree tops, where they reside, they turn out to be nice and make great pets." "Yeah, but I grew up thinking that they needed to be washed and declawed, first." Hans tried to keep to the spirit of my earlier reply and it turned awful. "One never knows," I said noncomitantly. "besides, you don't know me all that well." "Yes I do." he was surprisingly emphatic. "I could work and play side- by-side with you all my life. We are very much alike." I felt uncomfortable with the direction our conversation was taking and decided to act. I gave him a look of a cow in heat: "Mooooo, kiss me Hans, I am special." "Stop this bull, I am serious now." His voice had a sharp, almost metallic tone to it. "You know that most of Polish students at the Center are lot less than advertised. You don't hang around them much, no does anyone else. All the Poles I've met were always somewhat different, weird, insecure... I couldn't quite put my finger on it." I shrugged in my seat. How could I discuss things that pained me so much throughout my entire life; just like that, in a casual conversation? I already felt an incredible sadness and some dull feeling in my head. "OK, lets get serious." Now my voice became dry and remote. "You said, we could 'work and play side-by-side,' didn't you?" "Uhm, I'd very much like that." He was tense. "So, do you believe that the majority of Poles could work side-by-side their Western counterparts? Just multiply me by some thirty million and voila, there will be someone to share Europe with. If so, Hans, just tell me, please, what were your earlier remarks all about? Are you saying that you just kept meeting only 'deficient' Poles?". I barked knowing that I was definitely getting hysterical. "No, but we are completely equal. Whatever your particular beef with other Poles is, face it, my friend, there is a price to be paid for being of any nationality. Can't you see that?" "Yeah? What's yours?", I was very mad. He was hitting very close. "Same as yours: DECEPTION?" I couldn't fathom this, what did he mean by "deception"? The fact that long ago I promised to myself not to talk about my national character with foreigners was not exactly a deceit. Or was it? Perhaps, there was some duplicity, at least in my own attitude, because of my refusal to talk about things I loathed. So is deceit an alternative to a surrender? Am I - are we all- putting a smoke screen on the fact that in the hidden part of our national culture there is this stubborn, earthy backwardness. O.K., slowly, the domino effect, patriotism implied a necessity for a quick and unequivocal identification. Precise identification, limited by the historic background, carried with it a monstrous deadweight of Sarmatian gung-ho and phony elegance, intolerance and moral relativity, primitivism and xenophobia. Funny things happened to the national mantra. Hans continued: "You see a nation, like a tribe, is a set of overt and hidden signals designed to amplify certain attitudes, even myths and fictitious stories are used to do that. We send these messages all the time, bonding as if we were some mountain gorillas. This is tragic. Look, at the end of the War when Germans were told to be democratic, understanding, quite apologetic and 'never again'-types, or else. As a result, we became exactly as we were told to be. Within a minuscule percentile, we came to be 100% liberal-democratic... and where do you find a population of tens of millions of people who are all exactly like that?" This was new to me. A thought of an economic monster having this kind of a hidden life frightened me. "And you can read well all these subliminal messages of old, can't you?" I asked. "Naturlich," he purposefully used German. "I am in the midst of it and cannot do anything. So there is always some deceit in what most of Germans are doing right now." "Poor Hans," I thought. "He can't lose, and yet he is so unhappy." "Let me make it easier for you." I heard him as through a fog. "You see things as they are, but you cannot do anything about it?" He kept looking at me and I kept postponing my reply to him. I feared that I could not lie to him, nor could I deflect his questions forever. Furthermore, what I have just discovered, that my beefwith my own nation could not come to pass, as long as Europe remains divided. Whereas, the opening of the gates, if at all possible, would leave most of them precious little time to adjust. This was making me numb. Either way we lose! "How true. You see, Hans, I just have my private crusade and I feel very lonely carrying it through." "Against what, Jurek? What is it?", I hated his sympathetic tone. "I am terrified with the price we pay for being Poles. Most people either gave up or don't want to know about it anymore." "So the grotesque we all see is only a part of it, isn't it?", he just made a discovery. "True." "But Poland is relatively free, you have your own institutions... there must be a chance?" "Well, not so fast. There is this official, programmaticaly progressive side to our national existence. It consists of lay institutions pretending to be modern and enlightened, but these edifices were built aside from the bonds of the nation, breeding double lives and deceit." Hans had a strange look about him: "So there is a price of to be paid. However, deceit and faith don't mix very well. How about the Church?" "There the price is counterreformation." I said. "But in case quasi-European armies finally leave us alone, Poland will spring to life. It must." He got idealistic. "I don't know whether we are going to see it soon, but the fact is that even now, whenever we reach for things and rights we should have had already decades ago, we're crude and maladapted. We come across, at best, as uppity Slavs. Once we become completely sovereign, we will have to deal with corrupt institutions, counterreformation and an overall lack of any support, systemic or social, for most of us, right off the bat." Hans looked at me for a while thinking about something. "So you are not escaping from it all to the US, this is actually something very patriotic that you're gonna do, isn't it?" "Wrong." I said. "My little crusade is a very private one and motivated by fear. I always felt no one around me cared anymore, nor did they want to know about things, while I knew exactly what was denied to us all. I want to have some campus life, an American degree and some fun." I tried to be matter-of-fact although my voice trembled. ... and by the end of the "Gierek decade" I took the plane ... jurek klimkowski ___________________________________________________________ NOTES: 1. Bulgarokiller - One Byzantine tyrant won a skirmish with Bulgars. He ordered all prisoners' eyes gouged out, except one prisoner had only one eye gouged out. He was the one told to lead Bulgars back to their homeland. This story is Greek national obsession. 2. International student exchange organizations: a. AISEC: for economy and business b. IAESTE: International Agency for the Exchange of Students of Technical Education ======================================================================== Notes on Contributors Marek Cypryk (mcypryk@lodz1.p.lodz.pl) is a scientist (polymer chemistry) in the Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Lodz, Poland and a contributing editor of PIGULKI. He was a co-founder and editor of POGLADY, Solidarity magazine of Lodz (1980-81). Jurek Klimkowski (jleleno@cabell.vcu.edu) lives in Glen Allen, VA. His "travelogues" graced the POLAND-L list in 1990. He is Pigulki's Back Page Editor. Rafal Maszkowski (rzm@mat.torun.edu.pl) graduated from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. His speciality is astronomy, his hobby - travelling the Netland. Presently he works at the Onsala Space Observatory at the Chalmers Polytechnic in Goteborg. Dave Phillips (davep@NiagaraCyber.com) of Kenmore NY was active in the movements to support NSZZ "Solidarnosc," was a cofounder of the EARN/ Poland Link Discussion Group, and is a cofounder and an editor of Pigulki. An economic geographer, he runs Niagara Cyber, a research and informatics consultancy in Western New York. Radek Sikorski (74157.1220@compuserve.com) was born in Bydgoszcz in 1963. Graduated from Oxford University, he was a foreign correspondent in Afganistan, Angola and Yugoslavia in 1986-89. Vice-Minister of Defense in Olszewski government, he writes for Rzeczpospolita, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Spectator, The Economist, and has a "Interview of the Month" program in Polish TV. Together with his parents and wife, Anne Applebaum, he is restoring an antique mansion in Chobielin. Zbigniew J. Tyrlik (zbig@apk.net) is a computer consultant in Cleveland Ohio. He has masters degrees in data processing and clinical psychology. His interests include motorcycling, hiking, travelling, and meeting interesting people. Jacek Walicki (jacek@hpfcbig.sde.hp.com), of Fort Collins, Colorado, works in software product development for a large high- tech firm. He has a PhD in engineering. His interests include "telemarking (not to be confused with telemarketing); other interests explained by request (preferably on IRC)." Elizabeth Wasiutynski, of Oakville Connecticut, represented in the US the Coordinating Office Abroad of NSZZ 'Solidarnosc' from 1982 through 1990. She has a graduate degree in sociology from the Sorbonne, and worked in the mental health field until 1982. Long active in the Connecticut Division of the Polish American Congress, she is presently Division Vice-President and in October challenged unsuccessfully Edward Moskal for the national Presidency of the PAC. Marek Zielinski (zielinski@acfcluster.nyu.edu) of Rego Park, NY is a chemist and a contributing editor of Pigulki. He was a founding member of the EARN-Poland link discussion group in 1987, and was co-founder and editor of POGLADY, Solidarity magazine of Lodz (1980-81). On IRC he is known as Pigularz. ========================================================================= ABOUT PIGULKI Editors EMAIL Marek Cypryk (Lodz, Poland) mcypryk@plearn.bitnet Jerzy Klimkowski (Glen Allen, VA, USA) jleleno@cabell.vcu.edu Dave Phillips (Kenmore, NY, USA) NiagaraCyb@aol.com Jacek Ulanski (Lodz, Poland) julanski@plearn.bitnet Marek Zielinski (Rego Park, NY, USA) zielinski@acfcluster.nyu.edu Production Editor, Postscript edition Wojtek Hempel (Rego Park, NY, USA) PIGULKI Authorized Distributors North America: Dave Phillips (NiagaraCyb@aol.com) Oceania: Marek Samoc (mjs111@phys.anu.edu.au) Europe, Africa: Marek Zielinski (zielinski@acfcluster.nyu.edu) WWW EDITION: PIGULKI is available in html format readable by the World Wide Web (WWW) browsers such as Lynx and Mosaic. Point your browser to html://www.pdi.lodz.pl. POSTSCRIPT EDITION: PIGULKI issues 10 through 16 are available in printable Postscript form, by anonymous ftp, by E-mail and using Gopher. For instructions see below under Back Issues. BACK ISSUES: * ANONYMOUS FTP: The sites at alfa.camk.edu.pl, galaxy.uci.agh.edu.pl, ccpnxt7.in2p3.fr, laserspark.anu.edu.au, poniecki.berkeley.edu and zsku.p.lod.edu.pl store back issues in subdirectory /pub/pigulki. Log in as 'anonymous' and give your E-address as password. ASCII files have extension pub, Posctscript files have extension ps. * MAIL: Send mail to netlib@alfa.camk.edu.pl with the line 'send index from pigulki' to obtain the list of available files, and with the line 'send pigulk12.pub from pigulki' to obtain eg. Pigulki #12 in ASCII. For Postscript substitute ps for pub. * GOPHER: In your Gopher's list of Other Gophers locate "University of Mining and Metallurgy, Cracow", or "Uniwersytet Kalifornijski, Berkeley", and look for Pigulki. Or connect directly to , or using your gopher client. Pigulki archives are also mirrored in the CIC gopher together with all other E-periodicals and books. * GOPHER/VERONICA: to locate issue 12 of Pigulki, search using a keyword of pigulk12.pub (for ascii versions) or pigulk12.ps (for postscript). Issues 1 through 9 are stored as "pigulki4.pub" etc. PIGULKI's editors are grateful to the following people for making space available to archive Pigulki: * Andrzej Kaczorowski of the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw , * Jaroslaw Strzalkowski of the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow , * Wojtek Wojcik of the Centre de Calcul of Lyon , * Marek Samoc of the Australian National University in Canberra , * Darek Milewski of Poniecki Foundation in Berkeley , and * Piotr Wilk from Lodz Technical University . LEGAL BITS: PIGULKI is distributed electronically free of charge to masochistic readers who request it from an authorized distributor, bulletin board, or ftp site (above). Issues of Pigulki are also freely accessible in Gopherspace via Veronica searches. Signed articles are Copyright (c) 1994 by their authors. PIGULKI may not be copied or retransmitted without prior permission by the editors and notification of your local public health authorities. Your articles, letters, threats, denunciations are welcome; please send them to any editor you can find who'll admit being one. We reserve the right to edit for brevity. Readers, publishers, researchers, intelligence agents please note: FAIR USE: Permission to excerpt is granted in advance for academic use, provided there is full attribution and concurrent notification of the editors. REPRINTING: You must obtain permission to reprint a signed piece from the author(s), who must in turn notify a listed editor that they have so granted permission. Further, a reprinter must supply one copy of the reprinting to the Pigulki editors. Finally, the reprint must attribute the article's original appearance in (e.g.) Pigulki network magazine, ISSN 1060-9288, No. 18, Dec. 13, 1994. ========================================================================== .