"Gazeta Wyborcza:Democracy's Troublemaker" 
Adam Michnik

Time flies: six years have already passed since the first slim and skimpy issue of Gazeta Wyborcza was published.

We are the same age as Polish democracy. From the very beginning we have been both a small part of, and an ally to, that democracy. Today Gazeta is changing its graphic design. From raw, black or gray with often unclear print, it will become an elegant, easy-to-read newspaper, with an attractive appearance.

This is the start of a new adventure for Gazeta and its readers. One of new questions, new challenges and new dilemmas. I have always emphasized that I personally take full responsibility for all the mistakes and failings of Gazeta; but I am reluctant to take responsibility for its successes. The success of Gazeta is the work of my colleagues, many women and men who were able to organize a modern editorial board and a well-functioning enterprise. My own input is limited to the fact that I didn't manage to ruin it all. Today, after six years, all those who jointly created Gazeta are taking accounts -- trying to weigh all of the paper's successes and failures; and take account of these few years of our own lives.

It is perhaps a good custom that at such a time the Editor-in-Chief -- though his role is often only a symbolic one -- should also present his personal evaluation.

How did we start? From the beginning Gazeta was to be a newspaper of the democratic opposition, which -- thanks to the Round-Table agreements in the spring of 1989 -- was then emerging from the underground, and from nonexistence. On the very first page we wrote, in the familiar letters of the "Solidarity" logo, "There is no freedom without solidarity!" ["Nie ma wolnoi bez solidarnoi!"].

A decision of the Solidarity's National Committee [NSZZ] in September of 1990 denied Gazeta the right to use this slogan. This in no way reduces the fact that up to now I still consider "Solidarity" to be an extremely important and valuable experience in my biography.

In July of 1989, Gazeta Wyborcza made the first call for a government with a Solidarity-backed Prime Minister. We did this of our own accord; and we took a lot of abuse for it -- from our enemies and also from our friends. And from that moment on it has always been that way. We have taken our share of beatings from everybody.

Along with the split taking place in the Solidarity camp, our editorial board became divided as well. Some came on, others left us. They left us for Solidarity Weekly [Tygodnika Solidarnosc], edited by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and for the daily paper The New World [Nowy Swiat], edited by Piotr Wierzbicki. The "war at the top", initiated by Lech Walsa and the leaders of the Center Alliance against Tadeusz Mazowiecki, also had repercussions within our editorial offices. During this dramatic conflict we did not remain neutral. We took a very strong and clear position, on the side of the Mazowiecki government -- in favor of the policies of Balcerowicz, Kuro and Skubiszewski. We accepted and supported the philosophy of the "thick line", in the meaning given it by Mazowiecki. We rejected -- and today we still reject -- the thesis that the "thick line" meant tolerance for criminals. The core of the Mazowiecki government's political philosophy was an open offer to all those who wanted to work loyally to build a new democratic order and a sovereign Poland. We supported this philosophy.

No government did as much for the real de-Communization of Poland as the government of Mazowiecki.

* * *

On the pages of Gazeta Wyborcza, as in Polish reality, a diversity of different expectations, interests and value systems have clashed. We grew out of Solidarity, whose ethos consisted of a faith in state sovereignty, in democracy, in human rights; in self-determination and religious tolerance; and in the emancipation of labor.

Yet, the implementation of the Balcerowicz program -- which was supported by Gazeta Wyborcza -- struck a heavy blow to the expectations which people had placed in the victory of Solidarity. We looked with great ambivalence on the protests of the strikers in 1991-1993. We recognized their irrationality; and yet we also saw the real drama of the Solidarity unionists in their factories and workplaces -- very frequently close personal friends of ours. Daily these people came face-to-face with incredible disappointment: instead of the Manna from Heaven which they had expected with the end of Communism, they received a decrease of their real wages, and unemployment. It is about these people -- from small enterprises, and from the Polish provinces far from Warsaw -- that our late friend Jzef Kumierek wrote in his articles. We tried very hard -- without hiding our own convictions -- also to reconstruct the point of view of those who had lost: of the impoverished, the unemployed, the frustrated. Though we understood the position taken by Solidarity, however, we believed the issue of systemic transformation had to take precedence.

Perhaps this is why one could accuse us of a lack of criticism towards Mazowiecki's government.

* * *

We were trying to write about the world as no one in Poland had written about it before -- and in particular, about countries of the so-called "socialist camp". We greeted with joy Vaclav Havel's release from prison, and the symbolic funeral of Imre Nagy. We were the first among the Polish media to support the right of the German people to live in one state. We welcomed enthusiastically the collapse of the Berlin wall, and the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. We dedicated a special issue to commentary on the insurrection in Romania.

We wrote quite a bit about Russia. Through the pen of our late colleague Leon Bojko, we were sketching a different picture of Russia, and a picture of different Russia -- thoughtful, democratic, and rebellious.

We followed carefully the regaining of sovereignty by all the post-Communist states; but a spirit of triumphant euphoria felt alien to us. We sensed threats, and warned against the spirit of revenge, and the explosion of nationalisms. For this we were often reproached; and nevertheless I believe that the bloody ethnic conflicts in the Caucasus and in the Balkans, the collapse of Czechoslovakia and the electoral success of Zhirinovsky in Russia show us that we were right, and not our adversaries.

After Mazowiecki's defeat in the presidential elections, we made the decision to support our new president, Walsa, and the new government of Jan Krzysztof Bielecki -- to the degree that they were willing to continue the transformation. We never subscribed to the Bolshevik philosophy "The worse for them, the better for us" ["Im gorzej, Tym lepiej"]. For this reason the Bielecki government and the successive Solidarity governments could always count on our friendly criticism. Principles were more important to us than political-personal games.

The Bielecki government had the support of Walsa. This meant support for the policy of continuing the reforms; and it was a bitter paradox that Walesa won the strength for such a policy only after a very brutal electoral campaign, dominated by populist struggles and empty promises. This paradox will now repeat itself in every election. In every election the victors will be those who promise an instant increase of wages and pensions, the lowering of taxes and the liquidation of unemployment. And it will be they who later become the very implementors of Balcerowicz's reform policies.

We were aware that this situation could bring grave consequences. This is why we followed very closely the debate around the idea of the "Pact for An Enterprise", formulated by Jacek Kuron and Jan Krzystof Bielecki. The very idea of a social pact during the time of transformation was close to our own thinking about social conflicts, and means of resolving them.

At the same time, we were critical of the invasion of populist language into political and economic spheres. We were aware that behind the noisy slogans about corruption and the crimes of those in government lay a refusal to think realistically -- an attitude common among those who are unhappy -- and the usual cynicism of second-rate wheeler-dealers, hungry for power. The electoral success of Tymiski proved to us that the susceptibility of society to the most stupid, populistic language can take on terrifying forms.

Among my personal failures as an editor and a journalist, I would like to count the lack of deeper reflection on the phenomenon of Tymiski. I don't want to demonize this miracle-worker from Peru and Canada. But I cannot make light of the existence of similar aggressive tendencies within Solidarity and outside it. The case of Wrzodak and Lepper illustrates well the danger of aggressive, xenophobic populism. At a time when, in France, the populists of the radical right are drawing 15% in presidential elections, we cannot afford to ignore any of the faces of extremism within our own country.

The language of populism has also appeared within the Church. Nothing is farther -- I think -- from the spirit of Gazeta Wyborcza than dull and primitive anti-clericalism. We have always understood the meaning and value of the Catholic Church in Poland. We have always also remembered the honorable and important role of the Church during the period of dictatorship.

Even so, we have also not avoided conflicts with a number of bishops. We have been cursed from the pulpit and compared to barking mutts; openly boycotted and stigmatized. I would guess that the reasons for this lie in the fact that we tried to write about the Church in a normal way: as one important institution functioning within a sovereign state, and in a pluralist society. We wrote about a Church which, like the whole of society, is having trouble finding its place in a new situation; about a Church which is internally quite diverse; about a Church which is being used by political parties which loudly proclaim their own Catholicism and religiosity. And it is through the pens of the most famous Polish essayists that we have written on these matters: Czeslaw Milosz and Leszek Koakowski; Tadeusz ychiewicz and Father Jzef Tischner. At the same time, we have covered more broadly than others the position of the Church hierarchy, publishing documents of the Episcopate and statements of the Bishops, and relating and commenting on the debates in which Church figures have participated.

I feel especially responsible for the tone of articles about the Church in Gazeta Wyborcza. I was always of the opinion that the Church is an unavoidable, necessary element of the Polish identity; and that today it should be the conscience of our democratic society. The Church was, for me, something natural as a symbol of protest -- but it was never to be accepted as a symbol of power.

This is why I have noted with uneasiness the progressive invasion of the Church into the secular sphere; the ever-stronger language of the crusade, and of unceremonial attacks on people who think differently. I know that this is not the voice of the Church. I also know, however, that it is a voice from the Church, with which many members of the Catholic clergy speak. Why is this so? After all, the Church has always been victorious when it has spoken with the language of forgiveness, and reconciliation. And it has always lost when it has used the language of triumphalism, and preached fear of the world.

* * *

During the "war at the top", Gazeta Wyborcza was accused of being "pink". At that time, in the spring of 1990, we believed -- naively, it is true -- that a division within the Solidarity camp could be avoided. We were afraid that such a division would bring horrible consequences. Today I believe that the Solidarity camp had to divide: the unity between Bujak and Wrzodak, or between Frasyniuk and Macierewicz, was fictional. Even so, I still think that this split could have happened in much better style, without the ocean of curses and mud the people of Solidarity slung at one another.

I am not without fault in this matter. I think that my careless language and the tone of some of my articles, saturated with ill-feeling and strong emotion, possibly contributed to the increase of tensions. I didn't spare any malice toward the politicians from the Center Alliance [PC] and the Christian National Alliance [ZChN]; and neither did I spare it toward Walsa. Honestly, today I feel pain for every injustice I committed with my words. And yet I must add that my friends and colleagues from Gazeta tried very hard to limit me in these polemics. I really owe it to them that I avoided mistakes which could have hurt many people.

* * *

We did not fully appreciate the possibility of the return of the post-Communist elites to power. By the beginning of 1990, we thought that this political formation had already landed on the trash heap of history. Yet after four years, they returned to power. What was at the root of our mistakes?

I think that we overestimated the strength of anti-Communist attitudes within Polish society. We didn't appreciate the real strength of post-Communist circles, and the power of nostalgia for an era which for us was a captivity -- but which for others was a time of social security. Finally, we did not appreciate the consequences of Solidarity's having compromised its own reputation.

Gazeta Wyborcza always spoke out against discrimination against people from the post-Communist camp. Often I myself spoke out more forcefully on this issue than my friends. I felt that Poland should pursue the path from dictatorship to democracy taken by Spain: without revenge, and without trying to settle the score.

For these reasons I have tried to avoid a triumphalist, revengeful tone in my writings. I have tried consistently to oppose the strong anti-Communist campaign launched by advocates of "acceleration" [of the transformation process]. With regard to reforms, I was always convinced that it is often easier to find a common language with a Kwasniewski or a Borowski than with fanatics espousing vulgar anti-Communism. And I still believe this.

I admit, however, to another mistake: I did not believe that within the anti-Communist formation the worst patterns of the Communist Nomenklatura could be revived so quickly.

This covetousness in giving all possible jobs to friends; this incredible greed in reaching to dominate television; the arrogance in the dividing up of booty by the ruling coalition -- these I did not foresee. This is why I have written so little about concrete events which illustrate the process of the apparatchiks' return to power -- those who "understood nothing, and learned nothing." This is certainly no (bloody or bloodless) "night of St. Bartholomew" for the post-Communists. In this sense they are not as dangerous for democracy as animators of the Olszewski government's "Night of the Long Files". And yet by transforming the administration into a government of former Nomenklatura, ignoring the principles of professionalism and the apolitical character of state bureaucracy, they may yet destroy Polish democracy.

This is something all independent newspapers should oppose.

* * *

Many of my friends are of the opinion that by not hiding my personal acquaintance with General Jaruzelski, I hurt Gazeta Wyborcza. Certainly this was not my intention. In my relations with Jaruzelski I wanted to behave normally: as a free person in a free and normal country. For many years I was a hard enemy of the General. I was also his prisoner. For both of us, to break this barrier was not an easy thing. The General saw in me a symbol of destruction and anarchy; and in him I saw a symbol of dictatorship.

To transcend the barriers of animosity does not mean to identify with one another's positions. It does mean, however, the replacing of mutual animosity by mutual respect. I observed Wojciech Jaruzelski when he was the President of Poland (1989-1990). I observed the way in which he resigned from his post; and later I saw the style with which he responded to aggressive and nasty attacks, of which there was no small number.

In large measure it was because of me that Gazeta Wyborcza did not participate in those attacks; and I feel no pangs of conscience about this.

Many times I myself attacked General Jaruzelski when he held dictatorial power. I would feel it dishonest and dishonorable, however, to attack him after he had become a co-architect of the dismantling of that dictatorship. Yet he is the object of many wicked attacks.

I think these acts of cruelty are an element of the process of transformation. People feel threatened, and they search out the guilty parties; they react aggressively toward that world which imposes on them new rules of conduct. Some throw stones at Bishop Zycinski and others -- at the General. I think that each of these stones contains a clot of hatred and aggression which is poisoning Polish public life -- for behind those who insult the Bishop it is not a secular world view we find, but rather madness. And behind those who insult the General we see frustration translated into the language of aggressive animosity.

Does this mean, then, that I want to equate the Bishop and the General?

No, I don't want to do that. I also do not want to place an equals sign between the People's Republic of Poland (PRL) and the sovereign, Third Republic. For me, the People's Republic of Poland will forever remain a time of statehood without sovereignty; of lies, captivity and violence. Nevertheless, by no means do I want to forget that for millions of people, the PRL was the only Poland they had. They were patriots of that Poland. It is for this Poland that they worked -- and often they worked well and at great sacrifice. We cannot strip them of the right to be proud of their work.

In other words, the responsibility of Gazeta Wyborcza is to write the truth -- but the whole truth. We have an obligation to write about the activity of Adam Humer in the criminal structure of the MPB [Ministry of Public Affairs during the Stalinist period 1940s-1950s]. We have an equally strong obligation to write about his father, murdered by members of the underground. Those people were fighting heroically for sovereignty; but one can debate whether a majority of Poland desired armed struggle, more than peace and quiet. Even in the shadow of the Soviet bayonets.

I do not want to invalidate or make light of this debate about the collective memory. I only want to emphasize that a democratic Poland -- if it is to be established -- must be built both by people who share the Bishop's memory, and my own, and also by people with a memory like Jaruzelski and Kwaniewski. Otherwise, thoughts about our common troubles and common responsibility may be replaced by a new, "cold civil war" -- in this case a civil war for collective memory. And in that case we would not be able to proceed with building a democratic order.

This is why I want to quarrel, but I do not want to throw stones -- at anyone.

* * *

It is difficult to change one's skin. It is difficult for a dissident, a man of the underground, to be transformed into the Editor-in-Chief of the biggest Polish newspaper in a democratic state. The reality of democracy is qualitatively different from the world of dictatorship -- that in which I had lived from birth. That other world was unavoidably black-and-white: Good struggled against Evil. The Whole Truth went into battle with the Full Lie; freedom waged war with captivity.

In the world of democracy, it is the color gray that dominates. This world is ruled by the law of incomplete and divided reason; of interests which are fragmentary and contradictory.

Then, the greatest threat was the deathly silence. Today, that threat is a cacophony of noises. Today, the truth is attacked in a different way. Today, we have freedom.

I still cannot believe it when I write these words. I never dreamt that I would live to see this time.

The second side of every freedom is responsibility -- legal and moral responsibility. Responsibility for the word; and for the man who could be destroyed by the word. We did not know such a responsibility before. We are now learning it, with difficulty. And yet words are like those stones which were thrown at Bishop Zyciynski and General Jaruzelski. By words too one can injure a man.

It is difficult to learn to live in a democracy. After all, the very bread and wine of democracy is one's adversary, and one's responsibility for his or her freedom. You can reject all arguments of the editors of NIE! and Gazeta Polska [publications of the extreme left and the extreme right]; but it is your absolute obligation to fight for their right to formulate their own arguments. When Jerzy Urban [Editor-in-Chief of NIE!] is taken to court for pornographic propaganda; when the UOP (the Office of State Security) enter the editorial offices of Piotrek Wierzbicki [of Gazeta Polska], it is your obligation to defend them -- even if the very next day one will accuse you of crypto-Communism, and the other will see in you the obsessive anti-Communist. And while you are defending them, remember about the language you are using. "Speech is more than blood". Remember: you fought for language, which was to be used for communication, and not for mutual slander.

* * *

The war in the Balkans exploded first in the newspapers, on radios and in TV stations. Later the bullets began to kill -- but first words were killing. Tadeusz Konwicki [a Polish writer] composed his own writer's oath: "I will never use my pen against people of other nations." It would make sense to listen carefully to Konwicki. And it is worth remembering the famous, already historic article of our late editorial colleague Leon Bojko, entitled "To Humiliate Russia" -- in which he warns us not to be led into anti-Russian obsession.

When we are writing about Ukrainians or Lithuanians, let us look at that difficult knot through the eye of our mutual Lithuanian or Ukrainian relation. Let us take an example from those Lithuanians (like my friend Thomas Venclova) and those Ukrainians (and I do know many...) who are courageous enough to explain to their compatriots the Polish point of view. Let us write about our neighbors with friendliness and competence. Through our little piece of writing, perhaps we can help only a little; but by it we certainly can do a lot of harm.

The most important politicians of Polish emigration, Jerzy Giedroyc and Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, always warned Poles against conflicts with neighboring nations. Let us not forget those warnings. In Poland there are relatively few national minorities -- yet enough that, with their participation, we can build either accord, reconciliation, or new conflicts. Gazeta Wyborcza will always choose reconciliation. This is why we will continue to invite to our pages authors Russian and Ukrainian, Belorussian and Lithuanian, Czech and Slovak, and also German. This is why the problems of the Vysehrad countries will have a permanent spot in our newspaper.

Our Gazeta Wyborcza is a newspaper, but it's also a business. It is the reader who will decide the fate of Gazeta Wyborcza -- the reader who makes a decision to buy it every day, taking some money from the household budget. Before, it was the Central Committee of the Communist Party who made such decisions, or a friendly sponsor of the underground press.

Today you have to win your reader. You have to convince him that it's worth investing in your newspaper; that he ought to buy it and to read it. In other words, you have to understand and respect the right of the market, but at the same time -- by winning the reader -- you have to know why you want to win him over.

It's clear and obvious: the reader needs vitamin "I" -- information. This is why we want to be a newspaper of the market, and why we devote so much space to the economy. We also want to be a city newspaper -- hence we dedicate so much space to the local and regional section inserts. We want to be a newspaper which is helping people to live better and with greater dignity, and this is why we dedicate so much attention to those needing help, to inform people about social security, or other initiatives such as "Humane Birthing".

Simply speaking, we want to be a newspaper that people will need.

But we do not want to flatter our readers too much. We have a sense that we should also have in us -- I apologize for too brave a comparison -- a spirit of the prophets of the Old Testament. We must at times speak bitter and shocking truths. We must somehow bring together in ourselves a business man and a real Jeremiah, who ceaselessly takes account of the weaknesses of his own nation. Jeremiah without the market: this would mean isolation, and the ivory tower; but the market without Jeremiah: this would mean cynicism.

I am aware that I'm actually much closer to Jeremiah than to the skillful expert who knows the demands of the media market. Many of the materials I have recommended -- the correspondence between Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, the difficult essays of Vaclav Havel, Leszek Kolakowski or Tzvetan Todorova -- were laughed at by my colleagues from Gazeta. I understand perfectly that a newspaper consisting exclusively of that kind of texts would not sell. Yet, if this kind of texts were missing entirely from our Gazeta, I could not be its Editor-in-Chief. This is because, as I see it, Gazeta has its own dual nature: it combines lively information, a light, not-too-serious tone, with serious journalism, in keeping with the best and most respected European dailies.

I always wished that Gazeta would be a newspaper with a clear, easy-to-read face. That face would contain the identity of the Solidarity-rooted democratic opposition, and the ethos of civic activism so strongly embedded in the Polish tradition: a little bit of eromski, a little bit of Konwicki, a little bit of Turowicz and a little bit of Milosz. Such is the snobbery of the Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza.

It's not a very elegant custom to quote oneself. This is why I'm apologizing in advance, and asking for forgiveness. In November 1980, within the respected walls of Jagiellonian University, I gave a lecture about the anniversary of the November Uprising of 1830. I was trying at that time to find an answer to the question posed by the Polish romantic poet and prophet Juliusz Slowacki: "Poland, but what Poland?".

We answer this question with a lack of certainty: Poland that is self-governing, tolerant, of many hues; based on Christian values and social justice; Poland friendly toward its neighbors. Poland -- capable of compromise and moderation; capable of realism and loyal partnership; but incapable of slavery; incapable of spiritual subjection; unaccepting of spiritual defeat. Poland full of the conflicts normal for modern societies, but saturated with the principle of solidarity. Poland where intellectuals defend oppressed workers, and where workers' strikes demand freedom for culture. A Poland which speaks about itself with both dignity and irony; which was so many times beaten down, yet never defeated. A Poland which has regained, today, its identity and its language.

* * *

This is also my answer for today, as Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza. I never wanted Gazeta to be an organ for any type of political party. This includes the original Democratic Union [UD], renamed later as Union of Freedom [UW]. This is why many politicians of the Union have often criticized us sharply: they have even claimed that until now their party wanted to have a newspaper, and now our newspaper wants to have a party. This party was to be Union of Freedom.

Dear friends of Union of Freedom! It is not a coincidence that I resigned from being a member to parliament. It is not a coincidence that I did not become a member of the Democratic Union. I want to assure you: I don't want you to be the party of Gazeta Wyborcza. But I ask you also to finally understand that Gazeta Wyborcza is never going to be the newspaper of your party, or of any other party.

Our sympathies are clear. Though our journalists never stated it verbally, of course we favored above all the Democratic Union and the Liberal Democratic Congress. We also like, though not all of us, the Labor Union and the Conservative Party of Alexander Hall. But we were open to any wise thought, regardless of whether it was formulated by the leader of the Christian National Union, Wieslaw Chrzanowski, or the leader of Social Democratic Alliance [SLD], Aleksander Kwasniewski. And I believe that this is how it will stay.

I have plenty of bitterness toward the politicians of the Christian National Union and SLD. Yet, the normal demands of professional civility, and normal requirement of a democratic order tell me to treat the politicians of both these parties as normal elements of Polish pluralism.

* * *

And finally, Belvedere. I was one of the first commentators to declare publicly that I would not vote for Walesa. I voted for Mazowiecki. Yet I treat the obvious partisanship and involvement of Gazeta Wyborcza during the presidential elections on the side of Mazowiecki as my own personal mistake. Independent journals should not take sides in the political struggle. Personally, I may have my own sympathies which I am free to reveal on the pages of Gazeta Wyborcza; but I should not, and I cannot make out of Gazeta Wyborcza an instrument in the electoral campaign -- on anyone's behalf and against anyone else. Including against Walesa. I have many critical words for Walesa, but also many positive feelings. For several years already I have not skimped on my criticism of him. In my judgment, he is not a good president. I believe that Poland needs a different president; and yet it is Lech Walesa who was elected President, and from this moment he is also my president. I may criticize him just as the French criticize Mitterand, or the Americans Clinton; but I have a personal obligation to respect the head of my state. I should not permit him to be insulted and belittled. This is why I will never use the Macierewicz files or the court sentences against Walesa's sons as pro and contra arguments in my own debate with the President.

It is quite difficult to judge Walesa's presidential tenure unambiguously. He uttered many nonsensical things, and I am afraid he will utter more. But let's be fair. Throughout his five years of holding office in Belvedere, Poland has never stepped out of the path of reforms, and did not cease to be a lawful, democratic state. I wish for Walesa that it is as the historic leader of Solidarity, the laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the defendant of Polish reform that he will be remembered in the pages of our history. I wish for him that he forget the "Yeltsin option"; that he forget about continuing his own power by breaking the Constitution.

I would like to see Jacek Kuron elected to the office of President of the Polish Republic. I know that he would be a good, effective and wise President. Jacek Kuron -- and excuse me if I speak in grand words -- is a great Polish patriot. He will give Poland the peace that our country needs so much, and he will be a President of reconciliation. I am convinced that Jacek -- a man of large format -- will be able to reach out his hand to all those who want to serve a democratic and sovereign Poland. He is both a deep thinker and a visionary. He has lived through much, suffered much, and forgiven much.

I am writing this openly, then: I will vote for Jacek Kuron. With the same clarity, I want to declare that Gazeta Wyborcza will not become involved in Kuron's election campaign. We will try to present the views and arguments of all candidates in an objective fashion. This is what our readers -- who will cast their votes for different candidates -- have a right to expect from us.

* * *

Together with all of Poland, Gazeta is heading into unsettling times. We are entering them in good shape, though full of anxieties. We would hope that in our new appearance we will remain just as close to our readers as we have been up to now. But let's be honest: we will quarrel, and we will provoke.

The great Polish journalist Ksawery Pruszyinski wrote: "The journalist must always be filled with a sense of responsibility. He must always consider the effect what he writes may have -- whether it will help to minimize the gravity of the situation, or whether, on the contrary, it will emphasize its full seriousness. [...] A good actor will never be booed off the stage; but a bad journalist is precisely that one who has never been booed off; who has never aroused public opinion; and who would never set himself in opposition to it [...]

We must always do what should be done -- without regard to whether our actions will definitely have an effect, or only possibly; and even when we fear they will have no effect at all; and even if someone swears to us he is sure they will have none.

The task of a journalist is not only not to play a constant, easy music, to orchestrate the easy moods of the public. The task of the journalist is to reveal the thoughts he has reached through his own reasoning. The task of a journalist is -- regardless of whether it is acceptable to those in power, to the Church, the masses, the society, the nation or to public opinion -- to stand by his own convictions; to impart his advice or his reasoned warning, though it may be unpleasant to some. His task is further to speak fully -- in spite of and despite others. [... ] He must speak what it is his responsibility to speak, and repeat it to the end, even when it is continually worse; even when they do not listen to him ... especially when they do not listen to him."

Otherwise, we will be as fish on the sand...