By MICHAEL SZPORER
To the question "Why ethnic parties?" in a former Soviet region, Jan Sienkiewicz, the leader of the ethnic minority party Electoral Action of Lithuanian Poles, answered that democratic reform did not usher in the promised land of tolerance.
The mentality has not changed. Even his own party was hastily formed only after the Lithuanian parliament passed legislation excluding nongovernmental entities -- including ethnic organizations -- from participating in elections. The reason for the party's extraordinary showing in the March 25, 1995, elections was that it garnered support from the other minorities disaffected with ethnic favoritism.
A member of the Vilnius city council and editor of the monthly cultural Magazyn Wilenski, Mr. Sienkiewicz proudly noted that, while the elections brought a decisive defeat to the ruling Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party, in the ethnically diverse Vilnius region in which Poles constitute a 64 percent majority, the postcommunists won not a single seat. However, the success may be illusory because administrative reform by parliament stripped localities of any real authority.
In his Oct. 10 LC Professional Association Polish Language Table talk, "Why Ethnic Parties? The Political Power of Ethnic Minorities in Central Europe," Mr. Sienkiewicz used the autochthonous population of the former Polish Kresy (Borderland) region as an example of why ethnic tensions are on the rise in the relatively progressive post-Soviet states. Mr. Sienkiewicz attributed postcommunist ethnic conflicts to the "divide and conquer" policies practiced for years under the Soviet regime. At the end of World War II, the Russian newcomers were the instrument of denationalization in Latvia and Estonia, Mr. Sienkiewicz said.
"Moscow's dirty tricks," he said, were responsible for its tolerance of a Polish presence in Lithuania, which weakened Lithuanian national identity and allowed the Soviet Union to tighten its grip on the former republic.
The collapse of the "nation of nations" gave rise to ethnocracies set on curtailing local power and regional autonomy, particularly in ethnic minority regions. The political pendulum in Central Europe swings from right to left but intolerance and discrimination persist, Mr. Sienkiewicz argued. "If the nationalist government of Lithuania headed by Vytautas Landsbergis was at times openly exclusive, at least you knew where you stood."
The postcommunists led by current leader Algirdas Brazauskas follow the old Soviet line: "We don't have an ethnic problem, therefore, we don't have an ethnic problem," said Mr. Sienkiewicz.
Despite the official party line, Mr. Sienkiewicz noted several cases of ethnic discrimination. For example, he is legally obliged to spell his name according rules of Lithuanian orthography as Senkevic; reprivatization of land in the Vilnius region in which Poles are a majority is the lowest in the country (only about 6 percent as opposed to 30 to 35 percent elsewhere), with choice properties parceled out to Lithuanian newcomers resettled from other regions; and ethnic minorities are still widely treated as foreigners by the media and decision-makers.
"In Vilnius cemeteries, trees tend to drop on gravestones with Polish inscriptions," Mr. Sienkiewicz mused, "and few want to remember the mass massacres of the Holocaust by special Lithuanian units and why there are virtually no Jews left in the country.
While Mr. Sienkiewicz does not believe that regional autonomy is the answer to ethnic friction, he sees the centralization of power as fundamentally undemocratic.
According to Mr. Sienkiewicz, societies that have emerged from the former Soviet region, perhaps because they have been "hermetically sealed" for so long, seem unwilling to normalize minority relations.
They want "to enjoy all the advantages of belonging to international institutions such as the United Nations ... but [be able to] keep policies and practices in clear contradiction to
the norms and laws generally accepted by the international community they wish to join," he said.
The leaders believe that decentralization will dilute their power; thus they prefer politics as usual. "Coming to grips with totalitarianism within is more difficult than opposing totalitarianism imposed from without. Old habits, decaying ideologies take years to defeat."
Michael Szporer is on the staff of the Copyright Office. Dr. Szporer was the first Fulbright fellow to the Republic of Lithuania when it declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.