dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (12/19/83)
I think people are underestimating the ways in which the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites can harass those people who do not hew to a particular realization of the "good citizen". In visiting Poland this past August, I met a woman who had spent five years in the United States. Being deeply Polish, she returned to her country despite the obvious disadvantages of doing so. What should have been a plum, in terms of her career as an English translator/ interpreter, turned into a disaster when she was approached by the secret police to "spy" and report on the remarks and plans of foreign visitors to her plant--a kind of socialist industrial espionage. This was repugnant to her, and she refused, and asked only that she not be asked to perform such things, that she was happy with her job, and that others would probaly be able to do equally well. This was not acceptable, and she was visited by several increasingly threatening "heavies", until, one day, she simply disappeared from the job, since there seemed no other way out. For the next two years, she layed low, without seeking another official job, since she knew that she could expect renewed pressure if she did so. This, during the worst economic times, where every conceivable commodity was rationed, and ration cards were available only through one's place of work. She existed only through the close fellowship of several friends who appreciated her plight, and shared what was available with her. When she did finally attempt to find work two years later, the secret police again pressured her to work for them as a spy against her co-workers and any foreign contacts she might have. She again refused, and they finally gave up, and she was able to find a job on her own terms. However, whenever she has since applied for a passport to travel as a tourist, which is granted rather routinely to Polish citizens, she has been refused on obscure, unappealable grounds (essentially, a blanket clause which allows denial for "state reasons.") I would add as an aside that it's doubtful that the this woman's case would have been resolved so "happily" in the Soviet Union. Poland is not quite as heavy-handed as the USSR. It is not quite realistic to speak of the "common man in the street" having no problems with the Socialist hierarchy, since he never can know when his "common" situation suddenly, capriciously, becomes an object of attention. Steve Dyer decvax!bbncca!sdyer
colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (George Sicherman) (12/20/83)
Theogonius, an associate of Simon Magus, feigned idiocy to avert the attention of Caligula. I believe that Chinese history also offers examples of this ruse. Perhaps the day is near when we computer wonks will have to feign idiocy for the same reason. Uh, where was I?