I was in the back of the car, perched on a pile of bedding and blankets. My parents were sitting in front, glancing about anxiously. We were crossing the border.
We had left Poland a couple days before. Our visa to Holland was good for a vacation visit of a few weeks, but my parents–although I didn’t know it yet at the time–were planning to overstay it. They actively opposed the Communist government in Poland, and this was causing us more and more problems. So off we went, with a little bit of money in our pocket, our black cocker spaniel at my mother’s feet on the passenger side, and our green VW bug packed to the brim with our possessions. Funny thing is, at the time our Volkswagen seemed like a giant car compared to the little Fiats many Poles were driving.
And here we were, crossing from East Germany into the West, and it was scary. Our car was so overloaded that it crawled along, and we feared that it would overheat and die at the border crossing, which would have gotten us in serious trouble. It didn’t help that there were guard towers at the side of the road with armed soldiers inside of them. Our baggage was thoroughly searched, and then–with a huge sigh of relief–we were through.
Europe has come such a long way since then. I still remember how excited we were when Poland became a member nation of the European Union. Now it really felt like we would be a part of Europe, and hopefully wouldn’t go back to being one of Russia’s satellites. It was also a moment of pride for us when Donald Tusk, an ex-Prime Minister of Poland, was chosen to be President of the European Council.
The internal borders of Europe are now a different place. There is free movement between countries. The younger generation of Poland can live in Spain or Scotland if they so choose (and if they can find a job there). My uncle now lives and works in London. I would not want to go back to the severe restrictions of the past.
Yet the tragic events in Paris this week have sparked a conversation about precisely that. Some countries are discussing the possibility of changing the rules of the Schengen Treaty–which established freedom of movement in the European Union–and bringing back border checkpoints. I’ve also heard American journalists express surprise over the lack of border searches between, say, France and Belgium. I’m not sure those reporters understand how the concept of the EU is supposed to work. Europe is trying to be a united community–although this process has come with many problems–so what they are suggesting would be a bit like having checkpoints between American states. Sure, it might make things safer if we were searched when entering California from Oregon, but I suspect it would also change the way the people in different states view each other.
So will the terrorist attacks in France lead to a tightening of controls in Europe, much like the 9/11 attacks did in America? I would be sad to see this happen, especially if the European continent regressed to being a more divided place. Let’s hope we can find less drastic solutions to the terrorism question.
01/11/2015 at 4:14 pm
Thank you so much for sharing this touching personal story. There are a lot of things about the Paris incident that I find disturbing. First of all, the terrorists were shot and killed. I wish they could have been brought to justice and made to account for what they did. We do not martyr people who value death as a triumphant exit from life after violating others’ rights to life. The others issue is fifty world leaders looking very uncomfortable walking in Paris for freedom. This is the very thing that I’m against this willingness to jump on any bandwagon without thinking about exactly how the situation came into being. Whatever political strategist got this up is a buffoon and should be fired. It is haphazard and knee-jerk. Will also see that whoever is doing this is actually taking advantage of the situation to further a completely different political agenda. Very slick because when you’re dealing with the mediocre masses out there who are only attending to the superficial issues and not really thinking about what is going on behind the scenes you really get to do what ever you want and not be accountable. You know the group think quality of the public; you know that people don’t want a real discussion. Because you know the people will vote don’t care about the freedoms of others.
01/12/2015 at 7:18 pm
Thanks again for reading! See my more detailed response on your blog post 😉
01/13/2015 at 1:34 am
Hiya, I saw your comment on my black canvas painting. In glad you liked it. Thank you for adding your insight. For some reason it got filtered. I’ve only just seen it, and have added it to the post. I apologise for the oversight. I very much want to see some/a painting of yours in the near future. It’s a great resolution. I want to paint more, too. xxxx
01/13/2015 at 8:47 pm
Oh, not a problem! WordPress can be weird sometimes.
01/13/2015 at 8:50 pm
As long as they don’t send me any spam! Enjoy your news diet, one hundred percent less spam. xoxoxo
01/11/2015 at 4:26 pm
They had an over loaded VW, their dog and their kid…..and they still let your parents out on “vacation”???
Obviously the Polish government:
A) Really wanted you guys out for good.
B) Had no clue how to run a proper totalitarian state.
Jesus, Warsaw should have just let East Germany run the show. After all, Germans know how to make trains run on time and Poland is really just part of Germany (if only Bundesliga 2) 🙂
But I wouldn’t have been too worried about that East German border crossing. I got busted at Checkpoint Charlie at the height of the 80’s Cold War smuggling in “West German propaganda” (a few pamphlets describing how the West German democratic system worked that I picked up earlier that day at the Reichstag.) No sweat. The guard took it, smiled, and waived me through.
Quite honestly, I’m much more nervous about crossing into America in 2015. Checkpoint Charlie was a cakewalk in comparison. More dogs, more guns, more hassles, more intimidation, angrier border guards and way more cameras, x-rays and who knows what else.
And East German booze was way better than American pisswater.
01/12/2015 at 7:02 pm
Sedate Me, as you might have guessed, the answer was A. Our local Commie bureaucrat practically threw our passports at my parents. They were consistent troublemakers and it was much easier to let them leave. The officials who issued the visa knew exactly what our “vacation” was about. It was the East German guards that worried us–perhaps we had no reason to worry, but we were also not coming in to visit from the outside, we were trying to get out, and a lot of times that got treated differently. Anyway, we’d spent so much time living in the Soviet bloc that we were going to be nervous no matter what–it was our natural state of being 🙂
My entrances into the States flying back from Poland have usually been smooth (except that customs confiscated my birch branch from a religious ceremony because “invasive species,” dontcha know). I didn’t realize the Canadian border has become such a hairy place.
As far as beer, my perspective is skewed, because I live in Portland, the city of a thousand and one delicious microbrews 🙂 Anyone who lives in this town has NO EXCUSE for drinking Bud and Coors swill. NONE.
01/13/2015 at 3:23 pm
Sadly more & more Canadians (nay, wannabee Americans) drink those fucking so called “beers” of which you speak. It’s truly amazing the power of corporate propaganda! They can actually get Canadians to prefer drinking that American crap. I’d rather drink my own piss.
If the Warsaw Pact had just 1% of the propaganda capabilities of US corporations or the kind of surveillance technology that the US uses on its citizens, you’d probably be cleaning the floors of a state butcher in Danzig right now. Yeah, I said “Danzig” 😉 But if you’re cute and joined The Party, maybe you’d be working in the Polish version of an Intershop. But somewhere, there’s a former Stasi Captain drinking some schnapps with Vita Cola chasers who is cursing Zuckerberg for not
inventingstealing the idea for Loserbook a decade or so earlier.And the US border guards seized your birch branch? Aww! Jesus, the border guards pull out the rubber gloves every time I cross the border. You should try being a Canadian “smuggling” a Kinder Surprise into America http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/01/12/surprise_border_officials_seize_canadian_womans_kinder_egg.html
In 2011, about 60,000 Kinder Surprise eggs were seized at the border. Yeah, the nation where you can’t throw a bullet without hitting a gun doesn’t just ban Kinder Surprise eggs for being “too dangerous”, it aggressively searches Canadians for them at the border and treats them like they’re part of ISIS.
World’s longest undefended border my ass! (Literally.)
01/13/2015 at 8:38 pm
Oh dear Lord! Yeah, the Kinder eggs are proof that we’ve gone way overboard with our overprotective society–danger! We might unwittingly choke on them! Or perhaps they’re an invasive species, too?
Yeah, the Eastern bloc states definitely didn’t have today’s technological abilities. They had to spread their propaganda the old-fashioned way, through radio and newspapers–how quaint! It would be an interesting thought experiment to imagine what an old-style Communist version of Facebook would look like. It would probably be drab and depressing, and there would be a long line of people waiting to use it 😉
I’m surprised to hear that Canadians are getting talked into drinking the Budcoors swill. Somehow I expected more of you guys 🙂 But then again, I know next to nothing about Canadian beer. All I know is that you have that delicious cider–Grower’s. My friend from Vancouver brings it down with her once in a while. So yummy.
01/19/2015 at 11:39 am
Canadian beer is better, but is still only mediocre. But at least it’s stronger. For some odd reason, the way Canada measures our alcohol content is different than in America. In short, your 5% is about our 4%. I NEVER drink (mainstream) beer when in America. It tastes bad and it’s noticeably weaker. The idea anyone can get drunk on American light beer is absolutely laughable. You might as well drink a glass of water with a couple of grains of barley in the bottom of it.
Unfortunately, there are NO major Canadian beer brewers anymore. They’re all owned by foreign beer conglomerates who sell 90% of the beer brewed here. The top 2 selling brands (Budweiser & Coors Light) are both shitty American beers brewed here under licence. That’s how fucking sad it is!
Molson is owned by beer giant MolsonCoors, which explains why it only hypes the American brands it brews here (with one notable exception, Canadian) Labatt is owned by global mega-brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Disturbingly, it controls 25% of the global beer market! Sadly, most of that 25% is barely drinkable. Sleeman Brewery is owned by Sapporo of Japan. The biggest Canadian owned producer of beer, Moosehead, only sells about 5% of the beer. Even some of the bigger micro-brewers here are owned by these foreign giants. The foreign dominated ownership explains (at least in the “logic” of mega-multinationals) why they almost exclusively hype the American labels they brews here. Couldn’t we at least get some of the good foreign beers they make to drown our sorrows in? Fuck no! American beers are far easier to market in an American colony, don’t ya know?
Anheuser-Busch InBev brews over 200 brands of beer, so it “makes sense” that they hype 3 labels to the exclusion of all others; Corona, Stella Artois, and the King of Lousy Beers, Bud. They all have their unique brand image and target demographic. And if all the other brands they brew fade away and those 3 wind up being the only beers Anheuser-Busch InBev makes in the world, they’re fine with that. “Efficiencies of production”, “shareholder value” & whatnot.
Unfortunately, all this corporate jockeying results in nothing but vastly overrated, overhyped products whose quality is inversely proportionate to their sales.
Ahhh…All this multi-national, corporate, bullshit! I need a fucking drink…..Doh!
01/19/2015 at 7:00 pm
I remember hearing stories that the reason why American mainstream beer is so light is because the beer companies came up with the idea of marketing it to housewives in the 50s and 60s, and they thought women would prefer lighter beer. I’m a woman and I hate this crap, so I don’t get that part.
Then again, I never drink mainstream beer either and so the problem of its low quality is happily irrelevant to me. I feel fortunate 🙂