Rampant consumerism fired by scarcely fettered capitalism is changing the face of Poland, where the old Catholic rhythms of the year, punctuated by feast days and holy days, are being swept aside in pursuit of the rituals of retail and an open-all-hours culture
On Warsaw's John Paul II Avenue, a vast new retail and amusement complex rises against the grey skyline on a sprawling city intersection. To the east, the tramlines head for Umschlagplatz, where Jewish families from the wartime ghetto were herded aboard cattle-trucks by the Nazis and sent to the gas chambers of Treblinka. To the west, the Catholic church of St Charles Borromeo borders the necropolis of Powazki, final resting place for heroes and villains, and a vast military cemetery housing the dead of two world wars.
And in the marble-floored Arkadia mall, pop music blares and history and faith are left behind as shoppers, clutching their plastic bags, scurry through 184 shops and 30 restaurants, up elevators to a 15-screen cinema multiplex or down to a parking area for 5,000 cars. The place heaves and hums with the contrasting sights and sounds, images and sensations now evident all over Eastern Europe, as traditional values compete with the pressures and attractions of materialistic modernity, bringing prospects and opportunities for some, and hardship and frustration to others.
"We're living an American-style liberal dream here, which compels people to fend for themselves and allows shoe-cleaners to become millionaires," explains Krzysztof Zgoda, a Solidarity union vice president. "The problem so far is we've produced a lot more of the first than the second. Most Poles assume this kind of system is the norm everywhere and don't even realise that they have rights. The media and the politicians don't even discuss it now - it's unfashionable and retrograde to question the free market."
When Zgoda and other Solidarity veterans celebrated their movement's twenty-seventh anniversary at the end of August, they may well have wondered if this was the kind of Poland that they struggled for. As Communist rule collapsed in 1989, a premium was placed on quick economic growth and it was widely assumed that Poland needed a phase of unhampered capitalism to unleash its population's acquisitive instincts. Regulations have since imposed a measure of accountability. But the notion that markets define their own morality remains deeply ingrained.
In the 1990s, Western companies descended on Poland in search of cheap labour and instant profits, and were given a free rein to corner and supply the growing market. With tacit government connivance, most routinely flouted the principles of fair and open competition. Contracts were violated, pay deals ignored and holidays denied, while women were paid up to 35 per cent less at all levels of work and refused maternity rights. Conditions were dictated by employers, and those who complained were fired. Huge gaps opened up between a new rich and a new poor.
In a scathing homily at Legnica in 1997, John Paul II painted a grim picture of nineteenth-century-style exploitation. He told fellow Poles: "The phenomenon of exploitation is often manifested in conditions of employment in which the worker not only has no guaranteed rights but is subjected to such an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear of the loss of his job that he is in practice deprived of any freedom of decision. It is also often seen in the fixing of work schedules, which deprive the worker of the right to rest and provide for the spiritual good of his family. It is often associated with inadequate pay, together with negligence in the areas of insurance and health assistance."
Catholic intellectuals, heavily influenced by America, admitted having trouble understanding the Pope's concerns. Didn't talk of social justice, some asked, smack too much of discredited socialism?
Ten years on, Poland can point to some impressive economic progress but the social costs have been high. Although unemployment has fallen sharply from its peak of 19 per cent since Poland joined the European Union three years ago, this has owed much to mass migration, with up to two million Poles moving abroad. In a survey commissioned by Poland's Confederation of Private Employers, only a quarter of Poles wanted stay and work in their home country, with most citing fears of poverty and unemployment and a "lack of perspective" for their children as reasons for leaving.
As the Pope implied, the essential dilemma has been between economic growth and social justice. And it's one that no one - not Solidarity, the Church nor any of Poland's self-interested political factions - has shown the will or capacity to tackle. Big multinational corporations have been portrayed by some academic specialists and media commentators as heroes of freedom and enterprise against the dead weight of organised labour and the welfare state - proponents of a bright new future that catered for every human need and erased distinctions between home and work.
In 2001, legislation requiring large-scale retailers to close on Sundays was vetoed by the then President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who claimed that the reform was unnecessary and would merely destroy jobs. Since then, the hypermarkets have driven small-scale retailers out of business, creating low-skilled jobs while turning once-green city suburbs into commercial jungles of concrete and steel.
Since taking on the Polish market in 1995, Tesco alone has acquired 280 supermarkets and three dozen petrol stations, open 16 hours daily, seven days a week. With a workforce of 25,000 and six million customers weekly, the British giant is well ahead of rivals such as the German Real or French Carrefour, which claims in elegant adverts to be catering for "culture and communication, the home, recreation and the human person". Tesco plans to open dozens of other shops all over Poland.
Tesco-Poland's website says that the firm claimed record profits last year of 6.5 billion zloty (£1.2bn) and has "a strong track record of bringing benefits locally" through "significant investment in training and development". In January, however, the company promised to investigate newspaper claims that its employees were treated "like criminals" after staff complained of being subjected to "aggressive and degrading" behaviour from store managers.
Polish Church leaders endorsed a series of one-day Solidarity-backed strikes by Tesco workers last June after accusing the firm - whose British chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, is a Catholic - of preventing staff from attending church and ignoring the country's Catholic traditions. Some criticisms could be unfair. Companies such as Tesco, observers maintain, have offered Polish workers better conditions than many enjoyed previously. The real fault lies not with their Western owners but with their Polish bosses. Supermarkets in Western Europe are more likely to close on Sundays than they are in Poland. It's Poles themselves who have shown the greatest disregard for their own country's norms and values, and who've taken free-market logic to an ideological extreme. Now, however, under a labour code amendment, non-essential trading is to be banned on 12 national holidays, including Corpus Christi and All Saints' Day, allowing Polish employees a chance to rest and recuperate.
"The era of slavery has begun to end," Poland's Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Joanna Kluzik-Rostkowska, declared in August. "Unemployment is falling, and if the big company owners don't look after their staffers, allowing them holidays with their families, they will lose them."
When it comes to social and economic models, Krzysztof Zgoda thinks Poles would be better advised to put their faith in Europe rather than the United States, and start demanding the same rights and conditions as their neighbours in Germany and France. He's hopeful that Poland's European Union membership will help defuse current tensions, by extending norms and attitudes upheld in the more stable societies and developed economies of Western Europe. Yet the essential dilemma is likely to remain: if Polish workers and employees organise to defend themselves, the investors and entrepreneurs could go elsewhere.
"Pay and conditions will improve here - not through the goodwill of employers, but because people can now choose to go elsewhere," the Solidarity leader said. "We don't want to go back to the past and we know the free market can, if organised properly and fairly, bring great benefits. But the changes now occurring are far too small to satisfy anyone or brighten the darker side of capitalism which holds sway here."
Back at the Arkadia shopping mall, a million square feet of conspicuous consumption, stores such as Marks and Spencer, H&M and BHS mingle with Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger and Peek & Cloppenburg to satisfy the new class of shoppers. On nearby John Paul II Avenue, Catholic youth groups tried unsuccessfully to clean up the pornography kiosks before the last papal visit in May 2006. In the opposite direction, Fr Popieluszko Street runs up to St Stanislaw Kostka church in Zoliborz, where a young priest who gave his life in the dark days of Communism for the promise of dignity and freedom lies buried.
The Arkadia brochure proclaims the complex "the favoured place for actors, singers, media people and foreigners", who now congregate here to enjoy something "stylish, elegant, friendly and new". That enthralment to the new symbols of capitalism speaks volumes about contemporary Poland.