Jackie Danicki

I was very amused to see my friend Adriana Cronin-Lukas’s picture on the cover of - and many times inside - the Guardian yesterday. So it’s good timing, for several reasons, for her to publish her story of growing up under communism, and the events that changed everything.

I knew that I had no control over my future and that I faced two choices only. In order to blend in, accept the evil around me in exchange for a semblance of a ‘normal’ life. Or follow in my parents’ footsteps and forsake all that is considered good and rewarding in a healthy society, such as higher education, travel, even family and potentially freedom. I may have been very young but, alas, not young enough to be blind to the full horrors of such life. After all I had seen those around me living with similar decisions. As it happens, that choice was not real - having been part of the dissident movement, I was weighted, marked and tagged as the enemy of the state. I belonged to the dark forces undermining the society - a phrase so beloved of the communist media.

Well, she’s still a dark force undermining this society, and I’m glad to be along for the ride with her. Read the whole thing.

Filed under: Friends, Happiness, Life, Media, Politics, Survival, The State Is Not Your Friend