By Simon Mol
September 9, 2005 pressed me to a crucial battle against forces plotting to snatch my humanity from its sacred sanctuary in my personality.
About a month ago I ran into two individuals at a shopping centre. It was close to midnight. We ran into a conversation and they said they were after work and were on their way home. They said they were scared to take a bus as it was too late. The previous day they had run into a group of young hooligans who harassed them. I offered them a lift to their destination, about fifteen kilometers away. On the way I realized that I was short of fuel and stopped at a filling station along Kondratowicza Street in Targowek. I don’t recall how much fuel I took. However I remember going into the shop to pay for the fuel. I remember this very well.
I also remember vividly that one of my passengers gave me money to get a packet of cigarette and that I also took a half-litter bottle of coke from the refrigerator and walked to the counter to pay. Above all, I remember that there were two police officers inside the shop when I got in. These pictures stick out in my mind though the incident transpired weeks ago.
About a week ago I got a letter to report at the Targowek district police department on Motycka street, quite close to where the fuel station is located. Getting there a female officer brought out a file, opened it and said ‘You have been charged here with stealing fuel worth 30.29zlotis’. Imagine my stupefaction. ‘The matter has to be sent to court’, she went on, ‘the salesman who was on duty says in his statement that you came into the shop after fuelling your car, took a bottle of coke and a packet of cigarette and walked up to the counter. He says he then asked you if you wanted to pay for the commodities and the fuel also and you said you would pay only for the commodities. You paid for the commodities and walked out of the shop.’
In my response I said, ‘I don’t remember the conversation with the salesman. If he claims that he asked me if I wanted to pay for the commodities and for the fuel and I said I would pay only for the commodities when it was obvious that the car was still at its tanking position and he had the computer in front of him from which he had switched on the machine, why didn’t he complain then that I had tanked my car and I had to pay for it? Isn’t that a stupid way to steal, particularly in the presence of police officers? Charged with stealing 30zlotis (6 dollars) worth of fuel?’
The officer said I could explain that in court, ‘The law is the law. You have been charged and the matter will be sent to court’. I told her I was ready to pay for the fuel (again), assuming that I had forgotten to pay for it. ‘You can go and pay for it and return here with the receipt; this will be perceived as a goodwill gesture on your part by the judge.’ She said.
I left and went to the fuel station. When I asked the manager of the shop couldn’t get me a copy of the receipt for the coke and cigarette which the salesman claimed I had paid for. However she said, ‘quite often our clients ‘forget’ to pay for the fuel after collecting other items in the shop. They remember to pay only for the items and so we contact the police to trace them to ‘remind’ them to pay.’
‘So why instead of ‘reminding’ me to come and pay the police is saying that I have been ‘charged for theft’ and the matter will be taken to court?’ The manager was shocked. ‘No!’ she exclaimed.
‘Yes…’ I replied, ‘the police read to me your salesman’s statement in which he claims a conversation transpired between us.’
‘But that is not possible… statement for what?’ I had no answer to that one. I paid and took the receipt to the police station. Before I left manager penned down a note on which she wrote;
‘I hereby acknowledge that the client has paid the sum he owed us and we hereby hold no grudges against him.’
She asked me to hand this note to the police.
For the length of time I spent at the police station I was threatened. I kept asking myself why was it the police that was insisting on sending the matter to court when the manager of Stat Oil held that this wasn’t their intention at all? The implications of staining my records on such charges were far reaching. ‘Was it a racially motivated plot?’, I kept on reminiscing, ‘was it the consequences of my human rights activism? I am aware that through my human rights activism a web of foes has clustered around me and they have thrown a net which is getting tighter and tighter and I have started to feel the pinch. The car I own—a fifteen-year-old Lancia which is a gift from a friend, has been in my possession for three years. For the length of time I have the car I have never been accused of ‘stealing fuel’. The car is virtually the life-blood of the Association of Exiles in Poland. Without it the Association wouldn’t be where it is today.
When I arrived in Poland on June 13th 1999 I wasn’t known to be a thief, otherwise I wouldn’t have been granted the status of a political refugee. Now I have become a thief and the first thing I steal is 30zlotis worth of fuel… what progress on my part! I really have to congratulate myself!
In my cogitation I took a chronological look at my human rights activities CV and encounters with the police here;
A) 2001: My first encounter with the police in Poland was when I was racially attacked twice in less than two weeks. I launched complains in both instances.
B) 2003-2004: during the Oben John rape case; John was falsely accused of rape and was given a four-year sentence by the court of first instant after being kept in detention for close to three years. The court of appeal discharged John and freed him from all charges. This was possible thanks to our intervention. The two officers who had arrested John had tampered with vital evidence.
C) September 2004: following the murder of an African I coordinated a peaceful demonstration by the African community in Poland in which we handed a letter to the minister of Interior calling on the police to be motivated to catch the killers. I had to get a permit from the Warsaw Police head for the event.
D) 2004-2005: when a Dutch actor of African origin was attacked in Cracow I was contacted by friends of the victim to intervene. I was contacted by the Cracow Police over the issue in.
E) 2005: when a Cameroonian refugee was attacked in KFC in my presence I personally called the police via my mobile phone and later posed as a witness.
F) And now the Stat Oil saga.’
The most memorable statement which came out involuntary in the course of my interrogation by the police was ‘you are not aware of the political climate in this country’. I was left wondering how this implied in my situation. These analyses went through my mind as I sat waiting for the officer to sort out papers, etc. I cursed myself for getting into such a mess as a result of wanting to help two vulnerable individuals (Poles); people I do not have contact with and cannot remember were they to stand in front of my face. Was it stupid to be generous? Should I, in the future, refrain from helping those in need because I could end up a victim or walk into a trap? It is highly improbable that I would go into a fuel station, pay for two items and refuse to pay for the third, even when asked! Am I being made a scapegoat because of my skin color? If not, why was I given a different treatment from a Pole under the same circumstance? Who badly wanted to see Simon Mol’s record stained in this country? I saw myself being gradually cornered to ‘live in exile, while in exile’.
After much self-vilification I reminded myself that the guarding principle in the face of such a challenge should be the ‘Lotus plant theory’, which is embedded in Buddhist mysticism. While condemned to survive in muddy waters the Lotus plant does everything possible to retain its brightness and the beauty of its flowers. And it invariably succeeds. The strength and wisdom of the Lotus plant should be emulated by those who strive to retain their humanity in the face of the multiple, tiring and provocative challenges that come along with day-to-day living; particularly those that are man-made. By the time I left the station I had worked to convince myself to uphold the Lotus plant vision against all odds.
Still, I reminded myself that I had to be on the guard, hoping I didn’t end up in a worse scenario where for instance a parcel of something illegal is planted in my possession, a woman is sent to charge me with rape or worse still a bullet ends up in my head under any pretext that could easily be put in place to justify my elimination. As a political refugee, if things maintain this dangerous pace in the near future, I will have no other option but to pick up the tiny briefcase I came here with and along with my experience, continue the search for another sanctuary. This will be a very regrettable but necessary act. The world as a conscious political entity has plunked itself into a dangerous level of near-explosion tension, at the expense of the Earth as a planetary entity. This has left the later bleeding profusely as a result of man’s mystifying sadism.
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