Ireland from a Polish perspective

In today’s Sunday Times supplement - The Sunday Times Magazine you can find a very interesting article about nowadays Poland. Journalist John Cornwell devoted his attention and time to describe in a detail the present political and social issues of my country. Indeed, I agree with most of his thesis. Poland under the rule of Kaczynski Terrible Twins and their junior parties colegues (like Giertych with his Hitler Jugend like - youth organisation MÒ?odziez Wszechpolska) is turning into Nazi = National Socialistic dangerous utopia. The anti - Vatican and anti basics of Catholicism, thus heretic priest Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and his Radio Maryja, TV Trwam and newspaper Nasz Dziennik is almost like Joseph Goebbels of Nazi Germany. Luckily his voice can gather only closed minded old people in number of 1 million or less (compared to 38 millions of the Polish population). The widely spread witch-hunt for the former communist party members among the politics, journalists and university lecturers is a part of fear and threat policy of our two head hydra. Meanwhile Kaczynski brothers don’t mind when some of the people from their surroundings were a communist party members, and at least one of them was a communist prosecutor during the Martial Law in Poland. It is clearly visible that Kaczynski brothers are trying to use the same people well experienced in taking part in totalitarian regimes. All those things are clear.

However, the article of John Cornwell is lacking of some very important points. First of all - I haven’t find the paragraph about the last elections. The last elections gathered the lowest rate of voters in the whole Polish democracy history. Moreover - John Cornwell was not willing to mention, that the one of the main slogans for Law and Justice Kaczynskis’ party in the last election was “coallition with Platforma Obywatelska” - a liberal centre - right party. Many people voted for Law and Justice thinking of voting for such coalition. Many of them were not bearing in their minds the possible coalition with far right nationalist party (with unclear links with Neonazists) - League of Polish families, that barely got a few seats in the Polish parliament. The same as for Self-defence party. Thus, many of Polish voters were taken in by Kaczynski brothers. Luckily after forthcoming elections the situation will change, since the election polls give the majority of the votes for Platforma Obywatelska.

The second thing that struck me was the typical political correctness ignorance hiding in some of the phrases and paragraphs of John Cornwell’s article. He mentioned Radio Maryja, but he didn’t mentioned that the only institution in charge of ending this anti-everything propaganda radio is Vatican. Despite of the accusations, Father Rydzyk still broadcasts the hate around Europe. Vatican could do something, but… it is all about the souls. It is just not profitable for Vatican to shoot down the radio, because it would mean of losing a great amount of souls (about 1 million).

John Cornwell is describing Polish anti-Semitism and racism. What is strange the Polish anti-Semitism is mostly limited to the stadiums, football supporters, Radio Maryja and Giertych’s Party (League of Polish families). Why? There is almost no Jews in Poland. Most of them were killed by…. yes.. Mr John Cornwell likes a Political correctness - by Nazis. Let me ask the question. What language and what nationality were the Nazis in major? It is very trendy to write Polish anti-Semitism, but is is completely forbidden to write German Nazis. Describing Polish anti-Semitism John Cornwell didn’t absorb his thoughts with some historical background - that Poland, before 2nd World War had the biggest Jewish community in Europe. Why? Because anti-Semitism in Poland was the relatively weak compared to the other countries of Europe. I presume John Cornwell never read about Jad Vashem institute and the medal of Just Among the Nations of the World and the great amount of Poles awarded. Moreover some of before 2nd World War strong Polish anti-Semitic activists were seriously involved in help Jews kept by Germans behind the ghetto walls.

So how does it look the Polish anti-Semitism now? As I wrote in the couple of entries below (the entry about my home city), my home city used to have one of the biggest Jewish communities in Europe, and nowadays it is facing the football anti-Semitic graffiti war between the supporters of two Polish premiership football clubs’ supporters. However, our right wing Mer/President of the city declared the war to them, starting the action called Coloured Tolerance which is widely supported by the citizens. To spray the anti-Semitic graffiti you don’t need the army of people, a dozen young hooligans it is enough to cover whole city with David Stars or anti-Semitic slogans.

Is Poland more anti-Semitic than other countries of Europe? I don’t think so. What about the Germany Nazi marches to commemorate the death of Rudolph Hess - Hitler’s successor? What about the burning of the Synagogues couple of years ago in the Western Europe? The same about racism. I found many British and Irish people very racist. The only difference is the amount of Black community in those countries. Britain and Ireland, as well as other countries like France, can not be accused of racism (or even more racist than Poland), because of the massive Black community. But yet again John Cornwell is missing the point. It is quite clear - the Black community in Poland is so small due to the couple of reasons. 1. Poland never has had a colonies. 2. Poland never has been a really rich country, so there was never massive emigration - except the Jews that were fleeing from Nazi Germany (which is of course not mentioned in the article). The only Black, or Arabic community in Poland is the former students of the African or Arabic countries that stayed in Poland after finishing university, and yet again - since Poland wasn’t a rich country it wasn’t so big.

So… It is just a way to catch the reader describing Poland as a country more anti-Semitic and racist than the others in Europe, which is completely not true, and in my opinion it is not professional.

As for the 2nd World War. I really can not accept the intended ignorance of some British journalists. I am the young, I have German friends, and I don’t find Germany to be enemy of Poland anymore. Moreover I am trying to underscore the massive German influences in Polish culture and development, and I am against any attempts to wipe it out or to blur it. However, history is a history, and I see no point to blur it in the way done by John Cornwell. Nazis were in the majority Germans and Austrians. It was Germans who flatted the Warsaw, it was Germans who decide to built death camps (finally UNESCO accepted the form - German Nazi Death Camps) and it was Germans who destroyed half of the Europe during 2nd World War. OK, some of them were Nazis, but I won’t call all of the German soldiers of Wehrmaht to be a Nazis. It is just ridiculous political correctness. One thing should be clear. I don’t blame the young Germans for the 2nd World War, for the genocide and it is not the point to draw it from the drawer of history during the talks of Polish and German government. Thus I don’t agree with the way the Polish foreign minister Fotyga deals with Germany. But I will never agree with blurring the history in the name of political correctness.

There is also another misunderstanding in the article of John Cornwell. It is the attitude to the communist era. Let me explain. Poland during communist era, at least in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties wasn’t a work camp behind the bars or barbed wire fence or the land of plenty. We were living our lives, watching television, American films in the cinemas, suffering the lack of products in the shops bu the culture of that time was our culture, in some parts similar to the west. There is nothing wrong and funny in some people’s nostalgia for old things. It actually doesn’t matter those things are from communist era.

And mr John Cornwell. Smalec (not Szmalec) is not a communist era traditional bread spread, it is just a part of traditional Polish cuisine , much older than the communistic utopia by Marks and Engels. Szmalec is a slang word for money.

Bookmark to: