TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/122490/1224005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.8 KB | 130 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 44

EASTERN EUROPE

Populism on the March


A weakness for messianic leaders and ethnic mistrust, both
lethal to democracy, infect the region's new democracies

By JAMES WALSH -- Reported by Michal Donath/Prague, James P.
Fish/ Belgrade and James L. Graff/Warsaw


    If the age of miracles is over, no one has told Lech Walesa.
Poland's ruddy-cheeked hero of peasant origins rode to his
nation's highest office last week by a 3-to-1 popular vote. For
supporters, the former electrician's victory was -- well,
electrifying. As they greeted the President-elect in Gdansk
with sparklers and brass bands, Walesa took time to remind
Poles of what heroic struggles can accomplish. Declared the
country's first postcommunist choice as head of state: "Since
we defeated the system without one gunshot or one drop of
blood, we can dare to build a new system."

    Dare, yes -- but succeed? Adam Michnik had his doubts. In
his newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, the longtime Solidarity adviser
said he feared that his estranged former comrade, like the
sorcerer's apprentice, had conjured up baleful forces that
would have a life of their own. The campaign, Michnik wrote,
had unveiled a "society filled with mental chaos, xenophobia
and aggressive populism, and a longing for the strength of an
iron hand."

    It was a theme that reverberated last week across the Slavic
lands of Eastern Europe. In Serbia a vendetta-minded
super-patriot won voter endorsement as leader of Yugoslavia's
dominant republic, while in supposedly velvetized
Czechoslovakia ethnic jealousies threatened to split the
nation. In an emergency appeal, President Vaclav Havel cited
freedom's hazards. "The state," he said, "is not endangered
from outside, as has happened many times in the past, but from
within. We are putting it at risk by our own lack of political
culture, of democratic awareness and of mutual understanding."

    Havel's moral authority defused a crisis of faith in
Slovakia, the country's rustic eastern wing. But his remedy --
asking for the temporary right to rule by fiat if necessary --
differed only in degree from Walesa's ideal of an almost
mystically righteous ruler who, as Poland's new President put
it, can take "an ax" to obstacles. And Slobodan Milosevic, the
steely leader elected by Serbs, won by virtue of his frank
jingoism.

    Not only did Milosevic become the first holdover from the
communist past to retain the presidency of a Yugoslav republic
in an open election; his habit of waving the bloodied shirt of
ethnic grievances set Serbia on a course of imminent collision
with other Yugoslavs, notably Croats and Slovenes. Said
Aleksandar Baljak, a Serbian journalist: "Democracy came and
knocked at the door, but we weren't at home."

    Yet Serbia's balloting was an unmistakable act of
self-determination: despite charges of "Stalinist-style
propaganda" and spot vote rigging, Milosevic's landslide
appeared to be genuine. So it was democracy in one sense.
Liberal, however, it was not. "I'm for Slobo because he's for
Serbia," said a Belgrade voter exultantly, summing up the
ethnic antipathies.

    Whether Milosevic manages to retain control in Serbia's
parliament in upcoming elections may determine whether the
Yugoslav federation shatters. With a governing bloc, he could
more easily press territorial claims against Croatia and
grudges against Slovenia. Disintegration was not Poland's
problem, and Walesa, despite his affection for Poland's prewar
dictator, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, strikes few people as a
Volk-glorifying Fuhrer. But in trouncing candidate-come-lately
Stanislaw Tyminski, a returned emigre who offered a form of
national salvation as easy as a drug trip, Walesa himself could
not quite shake off charges of pandering to emotions.

    Poles smarting under shock-therapy economic reforms seemed
to look to their chief 1980s crusader against communism as an
overnight savior. Walesa adviser Andrzej Machalski cautioned,
"We have to get people to understand that reality consists of
many small problems, not just one big one named `the
government.'"

    In one especially repugnant way, Walesa's campaign smacked
of darker impulses. During the first round of voting, Walesa
boasted of being a "true Pole" with the "documents to prove
it." It sounded like a sly dig at Prime Minister Tadeusz
Mazowiecki, the target of whispers that he had Jewish
ancestors; he came in a poor third. Mazowiecki is not Jewish,
but Walesa made no effort to protest that such an issue had
even been raised. To show he is not anti-Semitic, a fairly
repentant Walesa last week agreed to sponsor a Holocaust museum
memorializing the Nazi killing ground of the old Warsaw Ghetto.

    Czechoslovakia's brief ethnic feud also illustrated the
hair-trigger sensitivities that vex Eastern Europe. Slovaks,
who account for a third of the nation's 15 million people, have
long nursed a sense of victimization. Wary of Czech domination,
Slovak leaders hinted at secession unless Prague agreed to
extensive decentralization of core institutions, from the
national bank to oil pipelines to management of minority
affairs.

    Though Havel cited a survey indicating that 70% of Slovaks
wanted to stay in the federation, he took no chances. Stepping
in with a request to rule by decree if necessary, Havel warned
that if democracy failed, "we would be cursed by future
generations." Negotiators took the hint and produced a
compromise: joint stock ownership of utilities and a rotating
chairmanship of the central bank. But a perverse question
continues to haunt the new democracies eager to join modern
Europe's mainstream: What if the right to choose translates
into the decision to say "No, thanks" to democracy?