Bedtime for Bonzo
The current international situation, which has made many Europeans think of the world's only superpower as 'the evil empire,' adds poignancy to the timing of the death of Ronald Reagan, one of the most controversial statesmen of the last century, who made that very phrase, referring at the time to the Soviet Union, a part of the political vocabulary.
On Saturday, June 5, the day Ronald Reagan died, two former Polish soldiers, subcontracted by U.S. mercenary firm Blackwater, were killed in an ambush in Iraq. The incumbent American president, whose policies are what led those two to being in that country in the first place, is often seen, rightly or wrongly, as "Reagan redux." And the Bush administration itself does not shrink from comparisons. Vice-President Dick Cheney's famous, and misguided, quip that "Reagan proved that [budget] deficits don't matter" is a case in point. And some would say that the current administration is also trying to fight another elusive 'evil empire,' only it cannot quite locate it - hence its troubles on the international stage.
Meanwhile, in this country, another event preceding Reagan's death by just a day also brought that famous U.S. president to mind, when Tomasz Lis, former anchor of TVN's flagship news show Fakty, was appointed to the board of another commercial TV station, Polsat, after being sacked from his previous job when it emerged he was second only to Jolanta Kwaśniewska (the president's wife) in the polls ahead of next year's presidential elections. And, while Kwaśniewska has ruled herself out of the chase, thus putting an end to speculations of a dynasty in some ways reminiscent of the one currently reigning in the USA, Lis has never done so in a straightforward manner.
To many in the West, Reagan's election was a tribute to the power of television and of the general 'dumbing down' of political debate in the free world's most powerful nation. Now the same is said about Lis' popularity here. (Although, to his credit, Lis has not, to this writer's knowledge, ever paraded in cowboy boots on screens across the nation or co-starred with a chimpanzee.)
But to Poles, Reagan has always represented something completely different from what he was to Americans or Western Europeans. While most Poles will name the Pope or Lech Wałęsa as the most influential figures in the defeat of communism, the late former U.S. president, who accelerated the arms race in a successful attempt to bankrupt the Soviet economy, must surely rank near the top of the list. And, to add to the nation's sentiment, Pope John Paul II himself sang the praises of the deceased American president on the news of his death.
Last week, Polish newspapers were full of quotes from Reagan's autobiography, in which he describes this nation as "courageous," and of tributes from all quarters. At the same time, they took pains to dismiss conspiracy theories about Solidarity being bankrolled by the CIA, which at the time was headed by the current U.S. president's father. Whatever financial help came was mostly from U.S. trade unions, they maintain. And, "had we had a million dollars, we would have overthrown communism even in China," said one Solidarity leader.
The fact remains, though, that in the 1980s, which to many in Western Europe were a time of American militarism, the Iran-Contra scandal and very bad pop musicians with terrible haircuts, millions of Poles were tuning in to jammed radio services from Radio Free Europe (which did in fact receive financial assistance from the CIA) and the Polish-language section of the BBC World Service to hear about Reagan's call to Mikhail Gorbachev "to bring down that wall at last."
And when, thinking that the microphones had been switched off, Reagan joked that he had just ordered a nuclear attack on Russia, political commentators were flabbergasted by his lack of tact. But in this country, people could not help jumping up and down. If only it were true, they thought, screaming with delight. Any news of America's anti-communist policy that reached this country gave people hope at a time when it was in extremely short supply.
Then, after Reagan's policy proved successful in ending the Soviet system, it was partly the success of his economic policy that inspired the authors of the reforms in this country. 'Reaganomics,' inspired by the likes of Milton Friedman, was in some ways similar to the policy that brought unprecedented prosperity to this country in the last decade. Yet the version failed to create any strong free market institutions, which is precisely what allowed for the success of the American economy in the last two decades and before. But that, however, is a wholly different story.
On Saturday, June 5, the day Ronald Reagan died, two former Polish soldiers, subcontracted by U.S. mercenary firm Blackwater, were killed in an ambush in Iraq. The incumbent American president, whose policies are what led those two to being in that country in the first place, is often seen, rightly or wrongly, as "Reagan redux." And the Bush administration itself does not shrink from comparisons. Vice-President Dick Cheney's famous, and misguided, quip that "Reagan proved that [budget] deficits don't matter" is a case in point. And some would say that the current administration is also trying to fight another elusive 'evil empire,' only it cannot quite locate it - hence its troubles on the international stage.
Meanwhile, in this country, another event preceding Reagan's death by just a day also brought that famous U.S. president to mind, when Tomasz Lis, former anchor of TVN's flagship news show Fakty, was appointed to the board of another commercial TV station, Polsat, after being sacked from his previous job when it emerged he was second only to Jolanta Kwaśniewska (the president's wife) in the polls ahead of next year's presidential elections. And, while Kwaśniewska has ruled herself out of the chase, thus putting an end to speculations of a dynasty in some ways reminiscent of the one currently reigning in the USA, Lis has never done so in a straightforward manner.
To many in the West, Reagan's election was a tribute to the power of television and of the general 'dumbing down' of political debate in the free world's most powerful nation. Now the same is said about Lis' popularity here. (Although, to his credit, Lis has not, to this writer's knowledge, ever paraded in cowboy boots on screens across the nation or co-starred with a chimpanzee.)
But to Poles, Reagan has always represented something completely different from what he was to Americans or Western Europeans. While most Poles will name the Pope or Lech Wałęsa as the most influential figures in the defeat of communism, the late former U.S. president, who accelerated the arms race in a successful attempt to bankrupt the Soviet economy, must surely rank near the top of the list. And, to add to the nation's sentiment, Pope John Paul II himself sang the praises of the deceased American president on the news of his death.
Last week, Polish newspapers were full of quotes from Reagan's autobiography, in which he describes this nation as "courageous," and of tributes from all quarters. At the same time, they took pains to dismiss conspiracy theories about Solidarity being bankrolled by the CIA, which at the time was headed by the current U.S. president's father. Whatever financial help came was mostly from U.S. trade unions, they maintain. And, "had we had a million dollars, we would have overthrown communism even in China," said one Solidarity leader.
The fact remains, though, that in the 1980s, which to many in Western Europe were a time of American militarism, the Iran-Contra scandal and very bad pop musicians with terrible haircuts, millions of Poles were tuning in to jammed radio services from Radio Free Europe (which did in fact receive financial assistance from the CIA) and the Polish-language section of the BBC World Service to hear about Reagan's call to Mikhail Gorbachev "to bring down that wall at last."
And when, thinking that the microphones had been switched off, Reagan joked that he had just ordered a nuclear attack on Russia, political commentators were flabbergasted by his lack of tact. But in this country, people could not help jumping up and down. If only it were true, they thought, screaming with delight. Any news of America's anti-communist policy that reached this country gave people hope at a time when it was in extremely short supply.
Then, after Reagan's policy proved successful in ending the Soviet system, it was partly the success of his economic policy that inspired the authors of the reforms in this country. 'Reaganomics,' inspired by the likes of Milton Friedman, was in some ways similar to the policy that brought unprecedented prosperity to this country in the last decade. Yet the version failed to create any strong free market institutions, which is precisely what allowed for the success of the American economy in the last two decades and before. But that, however, is a wholly different story.
