WARSAW, Poland—Anti Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement activists in Warsaw picket outside what for two decades had been a derelict communist-era sports stadium turned biggest open-air market in Europe, infamous for every conceivable type of counterfeit good. The site is now a flashy modern stadium with all the trimmings.
To the great chagrin of consumers on a tight budget—and let’s face it, in post-communist countries that’s most people—the old market-stadium was demolished in 2008 to make way for the new, flagship National Sports Stadium for the Euro 2012 Football Championship, hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine.
Looking on at the Internet freedom championing protesters, were about 40,000 people standing in line to be frisked by security personnel enforcing a strict no-camera prohibition as they awaited entry to a huge—and free!—concert party to inaugurate the new stadium. Being the first ever, public event at the venue, there were bound to be a few snafus.
Access to many approved journalists and photographers was denied because of technical glitches in the automated accreditation system. So as they waited in sub-zero temperatures for the mix-up to be cleared up, the journalists crossed the line from cool observers to cold, unwitting participants in this somewhat surreal chapter in the struggle for freedom that Poland as a nation embodies.
Protests in Poland against the government signing on to ACTA, as the anti-counterfeit treaty is referred to, although not confined to Poland, have certainly been the most intense and vocal here.
Protests have hit a number of cities, on one occasion turning violent, and cyber-activists have made their voices heard by launching denial of service attacks against government websites, including official Web portals for the prime minister, president, and Ministry of Culture and Parliament, effectively shutting them down.
Members of the opposition in Parliament even donned Guy Fawkes masks, a symbol of anti-establishment dissent, in support of those fighting for what many are keen to portray as a struggle for freedom, though a rather particular one.
Joining the tide of opposition is the European Union rapporteur for ACTA, who resigned a few days ago over the treaty, saying he wanted to “send a strong signal and alert the public opinion about this unacceptable situation.” In his resignation statement, Kader Arif blasted ACTA for having “no inclusion of civil society organizations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, [and] exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands.”
Meanwhile, back at the stadium and the concert, the freedom-fighting rock n' rollers Lady Pank are getting ready to go out and do their set, which wouldn’t be complete without the legendary communist-oppression-era cult classic “Less Than Zero.”
“Maybe you think you’re worth something
Because you have a mind, two arms and the will to act
Your place on Earth validated
By top grades at school
But there are those—and it’s no joke -
For whom you’re worth …
Less than zerooooo…oh! Less than zero!”
The reference is, of course, to the fact that not on merit, but at the mercy of discretionary decisions by communist bureaucrats was one’s fate determined in that (thankfully) bygone political system. No matter how decent and deserving you might have been, it was not rule of law or accordance with standards, but the arbitrary choices of autocrats that determined what became of you, and the ordinary citizen indeed mattered less than zero.
That’s all water under the bridge now, and aside from the flourishes of freedom-fighting by the anti-ACTA lot, the whole country joins hands in celebration of the fact that Poland, true to type, has pulled off a near-impossible construction project just in the nick of time, thumbing its nose at all the naysayers.
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