Exactly, keep your Belief and be happy!
May I ask you how old are you and for how many years have you been living in the PRL?
Polish Punk. You believe, I am an eye-witness.
Let me, Rybnik, go back 10-11 years earlier, pre-1989. This is related to the picture shown above.
Sometimes in Summer 1977, Wojciech Mann broadcast some punk-rock music on the Channel Three of Polskie Radio ("Trójka"). This was a single broadcast to which I and my pals listened with unbelievable interest (I was told Lech Janerka, the Wrocław-based musician, listened to the very same broadcast and after having heard Jean-Jacques Burnel of The Stranglers, Janerka picked up the bass guitar himself). Due to censorship, no more broadcasts of that type were allowed. In Autumn 1978, someone placed small had-made posters in Warsaw, announcing a "meeting of punks" at the Warsaw REMONT students' club. This was the beginning of the Warsaw punk-rock movement, "One Hundred Punks". A band called The Boors (later Kryzys, Brygada Kryzys) consisting of my mates started practicing. Early May 1979 saw the first Warsaw punk concert, The Boors et al., in Anin. People like Kazik Staszewski, Irek Wereński, and others to become leading musicians were there; in addition to other people who made career in photography or movie-making, all centered around alternative music and thinking. People such as Tomek Lipiński joined very soon after. bands such as Deadlock, Poland, Deuter, TILT and many other emerged in Warsaw soon, with bands such as KSU or Bikini in other places in Poland.
Here are three retrospectives, all based on original music recording by me and other people at that time:
Now, let us come to the Commie oppression of those times. Not only me and my mates started attending the school in (quite modest!) punk outfit but I also asked my Dad to photocopy two issues of my fanzin SZMATA at his workplace, which was absolutely forbidden. The director of our school was a Red Commie with links to the secret police. First, she was using girls of our school to spy on us, to steal "evidence" from us (such as copies of the fanzin). Next, she was anonymously informing the police we were a terrorist gang which resulted in visits of policemen at our homes and interrogations. I need to point out the regular policemen were OK people! They were real policemen, so after finding out the denunciation had no ground, they left us alone. Then, parents were called in by the director and the parents were threatened with losing their jobs, and we were threatened to be thrown out from the educational system...
Luckily, we were allowed to make Matura (it was already 1980) and then, just after the First New Wave Festival, the Solidarity emerged in Gdańsk and the life has changed very much, at least for next 1.5 years. And then we had the martial law. I actively participated in the NZS at that time, being a university student.
Now you may understand Rybnik: I know what oppression means and how hopeless life we all were living in pre-1989 Poland. Now, when I read the whining of the Believers, I can only laugh. They either don't know or they have already forgotten...
The last thing, before I forget.
In December 1981, just before the martial law, there were student strikes in Warsaw in which I participated. Adam Michnik
and Antoni Macierewicz were with us at Politechnika Warszawska, Jacek Kuroń too (and Janusz Korwin-Mikke was teaching students the principles of free economy soon after, already during the martial law).
Me and my friends were placing NZS posters on walls and lamp-posts on one very cold early December morning. Suddenly we reached a closed butcher-shop. There was a long line of almost frozen to death, zombie-like individuals waiting and hoping perhaps some meat would be delivered by chance. When they saw us, they loudly -- very aggressively -- demanded that we go away or "police comes and no chance for meat". Civilization and caves are two meals away... At that moment, I thought to myself: "I don't know what the future holds but I promise
never forget this sight".
I dedicate it to Ironside, Sokrates and other Believers.