The Newswalkers of Swidnik

Lessons in waging a psychological war

One evening, just as the nightly television news came on, a Pole fed up with the daily dose of government propaganda got out of his chair, turned his TV set toward the window and went out for a stroll. No one in Swidnik, a factory town 100 miles southeast of Warsaw, claims to know just who made that first "news-walk," but within days almost the entire population of 30,000 began to crowd the tree-lined main street for an evening promenade during the 7:30 newscast. When local authorities clamped on a 7 o'clock curfew to counter the protest, the resourceful residents of Swidnik took a walk during the 5 o'clock news broadcast. Frustrated officials finally lifted the curfew, and after a month of newswalks, Swidnik's citizens decided they had made their point and stayed home--but not before their unique piece of resistance had spread to Olsztyn, Lublin, Bialystok, even Warsaw. Explained a Swidnik news-walker: "Every contact between the people and the authorities can be used to show dissatisfaction with martial law and everyone can do it in his own way."

With the same savvy that helped them endure past occupations, Poles are proving particularly ingenious in devising new stratagems in their psychological war with the martial-law regime. After pioneering the newswalk, Swidnik residents disrupted plans for a local May Day parade by announcing that they were going to show up barefoot. Many Poles with a flair for the dramatic still dress in black, or at least wear a black ribbon, as a sign of national mourning over freedom lost. Others flaunt plastic badges of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, the religious emblem associated with imprisoned Solidarity Leader Lech Walesa. To show they have not lost their sense of black humor, still others express resistance to martial law by quite literally wearing a resistor, a tiny radio part, as an ornament.

Occasionally a mock show of support is used to taunt the regime. Students who must take military courses at Warsaw University disturb lectures by applauding every mention of the Soviet Union. Theatergoers have proved more boisterous, hooting and clapping at the appearance of actors and musicians who have publicly expressed support for martial law. Many show-business professionals boycott official television broadcasts. Painters now consider public exhibitions to be in bad taste: when the Ministry of Culture mounted a retrospective show of modern Polish art last April, some angry artists demanded that their canvases not be hung.

The government has tried to stem the passive protest, claiming that the red and white background of the Black Madonna pins represents a misuse of Poland's national colors. The authorities have fined badge wearers as much as 5,000 zlotys ($60), or about half the average monthly wage. The same penalty applies to anyone caught organizing a newswalk. Some methods of retaliation are even harsher. Students arrested in demonstrations are routinely expelled from school. After workers at Swidnik's factory joined a 15-minute work stoppage on May 13, some strikers received pink slips. But the Poles show little sign of yielding to this kind of government pressure. Churches throughout Poland have become collection points for food and supplies for families of the unemployed and imprisoned. There have been no problems finding volunteers to make deliveries. One unemployed journalist with two small children opened his apartment door one day to find a total stranger bringing him a box of diapers, nursing bottles and baby powder. Said another intellectual, now out of work: "This aid is crucial since it means that we cannot be pressured into taking bad jobs."

Reflecting the restive national mood, the Experience and Future Group, an unofficial forum of intellectuals and liberal Communist Party members, sent a 67-page paper to General Wojciech Jaruzelski assessing military rule. Labeling martial law "an alien and unknown act in Polish traditions," the document called on the authorities to form a genuine partnership with society. Concluded the report: "After 100 days of martial law, it is evident that what happened between August 1980 and December 1981 cannot be erased from human memory and from the life of society." The newswalkers of Swidnik and millions of Poles like them seem determined not to forget.

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