DREAMS REVIVED
ALINA CZERNIAKOWSKA
While talking with people, one can feel joy, hope, content with a quick action of the new government, and we also became willing to cooperate, help with repairing the Polish Republic. The feeling of responsibility and national identity revived. We can hear words more and more: we will do something, we will win, we will succeed, as we are not worse than other European countries, but, on the contrary, as a nation, we can afford a lot. We hope and we believe that there can be normality, that our country can be governed by people who understand what responsibility for Homeland and its all citizens is. However, besides these sublime nationwide thoughts, everyone has his own dreams, awaiting peaceful life, good work and salary, possibilities for one’s own flat, without any dramatic concern about the future. Many Poles ask when the minimum rate of 12 zlotys per hour will be introduced, when the junk contracts will stop existing. Others are glad about the project of helping families with a lot of children (‘Family 500+’ project), changes in health service, in education and what is more important, they say that finally they can watch a different TVP. Even a young TV operator told me about interviews which he had recorded and which have been impossible recently. In fact there is no sphere in which we would not have expectations from the new government: everything will change, there will be controls on food in sale, there will not be any preservations coming from the West. Moreover, doctors will not prescribe medications of big pharmaceutical companies, not respecting our health. Finally, they will have courage to say what in vitro is and what consequences all contraceptives bring – these are only a few quotations from discussions held in various social groups now. After the elections, after the change of the government by the nation, it looks as if suddenly everyone revived, became more courageous and started believing that they have a possibility of creating and building their country, influencing the course of events. We started understanding that we do not have to be in the margin, unimportant people but we can be an important subject in our Homeland. I saw tears of emotions in elderly people, humiliated for years, and in young people – certainty that one can be proud of being a Pole. Recently I have talked with young people organizing the National Day of Memory of Cursed Soldiers (1 March) – was felt built with their knowledge, fervency with which they were speaking about heroism, honour and God, patriotism, without any inhibitions, courageously, calling things by name. Poland is awakening, there is hope that ‘we will reject husks, and a pure grain will give a good, abundant crop’ – as blessed priest Jerzy Popiełuszko used to say, our recent, great martyr for faith and Homeland.
AA
„Niedziela” 7/2016