The story I want to share with you is that of Zbigniew and
Sophia Romasczewski, the couple who ran Solidarity’s underground radio in Warsaw
during the first six months after the socialist regime imposed martial law in
December 1981. That was a time of terror and oppression, when many Solidarity
leaders and sympathizers were rounded up, arrested, beaten, and worse.
The Romasczewskis were discovered and
arrested by the authorities in 1982. They were each given sentences of four
years behind bars, and kept apart from one another in solitary confinement for
much of that time. His eyesight suffers today from the beatings he endured in
prison. I had the privilege of meeting with them in the privacy of their
apartment in November 1986, not long after they had been released. They were
active again in the underground, defying the regime, and fully expecting to be
arrested again, but that didn’t deter them for a moment. They were totally
committed to the cause of a free Poland and were not about to give up.
In my time with them, I asked many questions about what it was
like to run an illegal radio operation. At one point I asked, "How did you know
if anyone was listening?" I’ll never forget Sophia’s response. She said, "We
could only broadcast for about 8 to 10 minutes at a time and then had to go off
the air to avoid detection. One evening, we asked listeners who were supportive
of the radio to blink their lights, and to call others who were also supporters
but might not be listening at that moment, to ask them to do the same."
With a tear in her eye, she then said, "We went to our
window, and for hours, all of Warsaw was blinking."
The Romasczewskis and so many other brave souls like them were
the examples that galvanized not only a nation, but half a continent, and in the
course of events, brought an evil empire to its knees. They are heroes to
millions.
And by the way, Zbigniew later became a duly elected member of
the lower house of Parliament of a free Poland whose President is Lech Walesa.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say something about how my theme
today applies to the field in which I now work—public policy. This is an area
that touches each of your lives in important ways.
I interact on a
regular basis with policy makers, including politicians. I am not one who
disparages all politicians. I recognize that there are good ones and bad ones,
just as in all other professions. And when I think of what makes a good one and
what makes a bad one, I don’t think first about how they vote—which may
surprise you. I think of why they vote the way they do. And I have
friends in the political arena from across the philosophical spectrum.
