OPINION Page 4 Sunday, March 29, 1981 The Michigan Daily ---e Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Vol. XCI, No. 145 420 Moynard St. Ann Arbor, M1 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Helping the 'truly poor' FA C- Z X r rvc-'/hI. ." ' . .-- 0 f - i iffer C-, 0r2 0 T'S DIFFICULT not to crack a smile at the idea of the ever- judicious Sen. Jesse Helms leading his Republican cohorts in a valiant struggle over the Democrats to in- crease federal funding for the school lunch program. The reality of the situation, however, is indicative not so much of joviality as it is of the realization - now dawning on Republicans - of the real poverty and impracticality of the Reagan budget proposals. What the Republicans did on Friday was to restore - at the expense of foreign aid - $200 million of the money President Reagan had cut from the school lunch program. Some Republicans admitted that their sud- den burst of generosity for the poor was, in fact, an effort to derail a Democratic move that sought to restore $400 million to the lunch program while keeping foreign aid in- tact. The fact that the $200 million will be taken from the already small amount allocated by the Reagan plan for foreign aid is further indication of the shallowness of the Republican action. $100 million of the restored funding for the lunch program will be hacked from the Food for Peace Program. The Republican position seems to ignore the importance of both the school lunch program and the foreign aid program. The school lunch program has been able to improve the diets of hundreds of thousands of-young Americans who otherwise would not be fed adequately. Besides being a noble humanitarian gesture, non-military foreign aid of the sort the Republicans are going to cut is valuable as a con- structivepolicy tool. Jesse Helms, who led the campaign in the Senate to get the Republican revisions passed, was perfectly frank about his efforts, but Senate Majority leader Howard Baker responded to Democratic criticism of the changes differently. "I believe," Baker said, "the poor of this country are being cruelly used in an attempt to restore to the budget full funding for programs that have failed." Ready? One can only hope that Baker and the other Republicans take the same view as the failure of their own program becomes more apparent. Perhaps then the nation could start making some real progress toward helping the "truly poor" both in this country and abroad. r y-- --- -- -3 f u _....,,, ..' . 49 'K)_ ~ . ;CSAN!t - "..) OINI stir ," . c Zc N A1v1A6r A(1J(0Y . 'A , ,w rx. v e s ft yplCl t'E 014'q "iltdS t ' 3-zw history of Polish revolution Improving ties with China T SEE1MS AS IF the Reagan administration, after all, may be concerned with maintaining' and strengthening U.S. ties with the People's Republic of China. Several indications of strengthening relations have surfaced due to talks with the two nations in recent weeks. Last fall then-presidential-candidate Reagan vowed to beef-up unofficial relations with Taiwan. Until recently, Chinese leaders were quite apprehen- sive about this defiance of the 1979 Chinese-American normalization ac- cords. Following a two-week trip by Former President Gerald Fort to China as an envoy for Reagan, and the president's meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to the United States, these apprehensions have been greatly quelled. The benefits of strong Sino-U.S. ties are numerous. It is important that the United States does not neglect the world's largest nation. For instance, the potential for increased trade is one that cannot be ignored. Already, possible long-range trade agreements are being discussed. David Tappan, chairman of the National Council for U.S.-China trade predicts "explosive growth" in Chinese-American trade within three to five years. Furthermore, it is important for Washington to develop a strong frien- dship with this eastern giant. As ten- sion mounts between the United States and the Soviet Union,-it is valuable to have support from Russia's eastern neighbor. Officials in Peking are encouraged by the past few week's developments. The Reagan administration should continue on this pattern, strengthening and adding to relations with the Chinese government. ' - "Polonism is revolution," said the 19th cen- tury Austrian Chancellor Metternich, in war- ning Russia's Tsar Alexander against political concessions to the Poles in 1815. The tsar ignored the advice and granted a liberal constitution to his part of Poland, with an elected parliament, independent courts, free speech, and a free press -all of which he denied to his own people. But the concessions not only failed to curb Polish nationalist aspirations; the Polish example also inspired the first Russian revolutionary movement, the Decembrists. AS POLAND TEETERS at the brink of full- scale revolt today, Russia's current leader, Leonid Brezhnev, must also be haunted by the spectre of "Polonism." And he is probably aware that, while the long national tradition of pluralism and political participation that has brought about the current crisis is uniquely Polishain Eastern Europe, the Polish example may spread dangerously today as it did in Alexander's time. Certainly, Poland''s tradition of indepen- dence and participation is not the only factor responsible for the fact that Poland, alone, has translated its economic and social grievances into a political revolution. The more common explanations are also impor- tant: Poland's relative openness to Western influences, the role of the Catholic church and the impact of the Polish Pope, and the historical dislike of the Poles for the Russians. But these aspects are not sufficient to ex- plain the political dimensions of the Polish crisis. For this, one must look to centuries-old political culture of Poland-a culture which has susvived many periods of repression. THE EXTENT to which political par- ticipation has long been a distinctive feature of that culture is especially evident in the con- trast with Russian experience. "No taxation without representation" became the law of Poland in 1374; no segment of the Russian people enjoyed a comparable right until after By Roman Szporluk 1905. In the 16th century, when the tsar was being worshipped as a divinely ordained being in Russia, subject to no legal restraints, the Poles were transforming their king into an elective president for life and closely scrutinizing his policies at national and regional representative assemblies. Admittedly, only the nobility (about one- tenth of the nation) enjoyed political rights in old Poland. But it was from the nobility that the masses Learned in the 19th century that being Polish means being entitled to certain civil and political rights. As they developed social or class consciousness, organized unions, demanded better wages, and land reforms, the workers and peasants of Poland cameto share withstherest of the nation the principle which says "Nic 0 Nas Bez Nas"-"nothing that concerns us is to be decided without us." IN THE EARLY 20th century, Poland, like so many other European nations, was in the hands of a dictator. In 1926 the parliamentary government was overthrown by Jozef Pilsud- ski. However, even he acknowledged publicly that it was not possible to govern Poland with a whip. Though burdened with unsolved social, economic and ethnic problems, and though certainly not a democracy, Pilsudski's Poland remained a pluralistic state. Op- position parties continued to function, as did an independent (albeit censored) press. There were pro-government labor unions, to be sure, but they existed alongside indepen- dent socialist, Christian-Democratic, and other unions. There was also a strong and vocal peasant movement in pre-1939 Poland, which sometimes erupted in strikes. The Rzeszow region, which was recently in the news in connection with peasant demands for the legalization of the "Rural Solidarity" union, had also been an area of peasant strike ac- tivity in the 1930s. r . Even under Hitler's terroristic regime, when no legal avenues of expression were allowed, the Poles organized not only a resistance force, but created an elaborater political structure in the underground, with political parties, newspapers and journals of, opinion which functioned completely freely -Uh so long as they escaped the Nazis. The peculiar instinct of the Poles for political freedom has also characterized the last 36 years of Polish history under com-0 munism. Between 1945-47 a peasant party en- joyed the support of all strata of the population. Even the socialist party, which cooperated with the Communists, tried to develop a Polish road to socialism that would allow some measure of political pluralism. Though all opposition was soon suppressed, the Poles did not give up; after Stalin's death their dogged spirit of independence asserted itself in new ways, with worker uprisings at Poznan in 1956.' At the time of the Poznan riots, Leck Walesa, the leader of today's independent worker's movement, was a child. Many of those now active in Solidarity had not yet been born. Yet there is a direct line of continuity between the events of the past nine months and those of 24 years ago. Indeed, the continuity - the uniquely Polish obsession with individual political rights - reaches back to the political demands of the late medieval period. Like Tsar Alexander, Brezhnev .must now" decide whether to once again attempt to sup- press that obsession called "Polonism," or to meet the pressures with timely concessions. Either way, Poland is again setting an exam- ple, providing a lesson that may resoun'd elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Roman Szporluk is a University history professor. He wrote this article for the Pacific News Service. 4 LET TERS TO THE DAILY: Witt should consider all issues MAO 0/ To the Daily: Howard Witt's plaintive question, "Why are blacks so unhappy?" would be less mad- dening were it not so familiar and less frustrating, did it not reveal a host of mistaken assumptions about the point and process of black solidarity and assimilation into the dominant society. Readily admitting that things look bleak on the political horizon, Mr. Witt says, in effect, "Come talk to me, black people. Tell me your problems, and let's see what we can do about them." But even overlooking such a patronizing overture, what is to be expected from such a dialogue? Whites have a dubious track record in undoing the power structures that exclude minorities and have been un- willing to concede that assertions of cultural values outside of the majority culture could be legitimate. It is hard to under- stand that the true source of sustenance and power for many minority group members is other members of the same group? For black students brought up in a black home, black neigh- borhoods, and with other black people entry into the almost ex- clusively white university is a change of life of no small propor- tinns Perhann it has never ne- places owned, run, and patronized mostly by whites. Mr. Witt's trepidation with going into Trotter House is the situation faced by black students every day at the University of Michigan, not just those who feel inclined to walk into the Michigan Daily office. But the problem is more than just one of devising coping strategies; it involves the means to support expressions of cultural diversity. White leaders and fair- minded individuals should be dis- abused of the notion that education as it is conceived at this university is value-free and unrelated to class and racial issues. It is not just "fear of assimilation" that you see in blacks, Mr. Witt, but a conscious rejection of values that deaden and structures that strangle. We needn't fear black cohesion, but we should fear the assumption that group identity is in- significant, that culture and heritage are individual and purely personal things. Human existence is social and we are all marked by the positive and negative elements of group experience. Blacks are coming to terms with their heritage. The tragedy is that many whites ap- nparentlv feel thev have no need to whites? As long as the University seeks blacks and other minorities are useful statistics rather than as people with an essential con- tribution to make, the recruit- ment of blacks is bound to be th- warted. As long at it dangles scholarship carrots to entice at- tendance, but questions the usefulness of black support programs, minority students will be mistrustful of the motives of University administrators. As long as every concerted black ac- tion is questioned or suspected as nefarious and every black group seen as an example of clan- nishness and conspiracy, Mr. Witt's question will remain unan- swered - by Valerie Mims or anyone else. Mr. Witt, our suggestion to you and the University is that we look at the "black problem" as our problem and that new efforts be made to ensure that the 10 per- cent commitment to black enrollment is achieved and that programs, supports and attitudes be developed to insure that the at- trition rate is drastically reduced. Your naive and ill-informed statement is clear evidence of the need for all University studenrts to confront in a serious and thoughtful manner the issue of racism in society at large, in the University and in interpersonal relations. Consideration of these issues ought to become an in- tegral and required part of a university education. -Pilot Program Staff Dick Brazee Joe Denny Josephine Hobson Jan Kralovec ' Cece Lobin Kathryn Miller Willa Pressman Tom Riis David Schoem Susan Sterner Beth Yakel March 28 I Letter policies Lette typed, ,,n. - ,_, rs to the Daily should be triple-spaced, with inch n A r j z in n ri n w m N o / tC t i a +