Aleksandra (Alex) Sacco Nee Wilczynska

I was born in Poland, in Krakow, in ’53…. so that’s communism….

It seems to me like propaganda in Poland had less effect on People than here, because everyone knew it was there, and no one ever took any newspapers or any television or believed in anything straightforward. Everything was suspect, was analyzed, and was just considered with common sense, so they couldn’t sell us baloney so easily. And because everyone knew that the information is not dependable, there was a huge network of people passing on information.

Eventually people understood that the most effective propaganda… err… distortion of information… was when people censor themselves. Well, they know what will pass. They know what will be cut out – because there was a censor bureau of course. Everything had to go through censor bureau, and evaluated if it was acceptable, for publishing of some sort.

That’s everywhere.

Is that everywhere?

Yeah, TV shows have to go through censorship for bad language and sexual content.

Well, that’s true, but not a central, governmental one, but the particular network. But, the same thing works exactly as there – the self-censorship. Because you know, the writers know, the speakers know, whoever, know what sells here, what’s popular, ad they pass it on accordingly.

What do you think gets censored here?

Well… anything that’s out of the mainstream. One of the things is just this – desire for mainstreaming everything. And when something is not said, or thought through the way that’s already established, or conventional, or makes sense with all the other stuff that’s circulating at the moment, it’s rejected as radical. But I wonder if it’s always been like that, because when you think of the founding fathers, I mean like, Tom Paine was radical. You know. Or, Franklin was radical. It’s just the question of people who are so called radical being able to effect – to shape the mainstream. To come from the sides, because otherwise there will never be any change in the thinking, because the thinking is just going in the path, that is already been worked out by the previous brilliant brains rolling down the road. I think today, there is less and less opportunities, I mean, on the mass media, you know, the networks and newspapers. However, with the internet, there is hope of fresh thought breaking through. A little bit.

An example of how you know to censor yourself is when I was in High school they always where collecting money for the rebuilding of Warsaw. Because Warsaw was 90% destroyed at the end of WWII, on the personal order of Hitler. So they always had this fund – and my teacher, in high school, my homeroom teacher came and said there was a voluntary collection of money for rebuilding of Warsaw and I had my mother’s attitude not to spend too much money on everything. I suppose because she was a widow. (laughs) A poor widow. And they came to bring the money, and of course, I didn’t bring the money. And she asked me why I didn’t bring money, and I said well, you said it was voluntary, and I didn’t want to bring money. And she got very upset and screamed at me why don’t you For example I think Krakow should have priority, because there is heavy industry around here and the golden roofs are melting, and I just run my mouth off, about Krakow. And the teacher was very mad at me. The next day, I was called to the director of the school, for a disciplinary talk, and again I took my stand that it was voluntary. But see, that’s how it worked. I should have known voluntary meant for have to bring 5 sloty (szwo-tih), and not question it, and that’s how everything worked. The words where fixed. Their meaning was fixed , and you should not misunderstand their meaning. It’s just like here, when they say Patriotism during Bush, that was fixed. It meant that you support the Bush administration. Or the war in Iraq. So they wanted to throw me out of school for this, for this misbehavior, and the teacher’s gathered; they had some procedure had to follow, fortunately, and most of the teachers decided to give me a second chance, they liked me, so they gave me support. The director gave me a book to read, and the book was about a Polish general, who did not capitulate to the Germans, lay down arms…

surrender

He didn’t surrender, but he continued fighting, with a full unit, hiding in the forest, and they fought to the bloody last man. I think this Director was trying to awake a feeling of Patriotism, because that’s what he thought that’s what I was lacking– that I didn’t have feelings for Warsaw, but what I didn’t want to do was pretend something was voluntary. I didn’t like the whole pretense of it. But if I did something like that in the workplace, I would for real lose a job, and I could be blacklisted.

People had to censor themselves in everyday situations. It wasn’t as bad as Russia, where people had to censor themselves on a personal level – they where scared of each other – but you had to censor yourself in a social context.

You know, later on, I experienced this - recently most at UIC, with Education, because there is definitely established expectation of how a teacher should think, and behave, and what kind of views you should have, and it is consistently and systematically imposed, and at the moment, one of the big things at UIC is the multi-culturalism. And it’s really oppressive. If you don’t choose your words carefully, and hedge whatever little criticism you might have, and be very polite, and vague, then you can just really ruffle feathers.

And of course, I had to upset them. (laughs) I have a tradition of upsetting people. But you know, there I did, but when I face actual teachers at school, and principles, potential employers, I am very, very aware not to fully be myself, and express myself, even I know I’m a good person, and I know who I am is completely acceptable to teach children, yet I know I have certain ideas which are not completely aligned with the prevailing orthodoxy, and I have to be very careful to express myself completely the way they are used to. So it completely works this way. I think that any institution probably imposes this on people.

Actually, the most happy times in life are when you are in school. It’s probably one of the freest places, when you are a student. It’s because whoever is in charge will say, ‘oh, this is just a student and we can still teach them’. Or ‘they just don’t know any better’. You are allowed not to know any better. So you can do outrageous things, and speak your mind there.