Summer is usually a lazy time in politics. It was quite lazy for me as well, as I ditched everything and went for a road trip across Europe – from Scotland, through England, Benelux and French Alps to Tuscany and San Marino. I expected people to ask me questions about Brexit – after all, I travelled with British registered car – but it turned out, that nobody cares about it. I only heard a few jokes behind my back like “Look, some Britons came all the way here in their car”. “Well, after that idiocy their did, it might be their last chance, so they are desperate to see Europe”. Hehe, funny.
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To my surprise, even in the most remote Alpine villages I managed to bump onto a few people who, after finding that I am actually Polish, were asking me what on Earth is going on in my country. Here, the answer is a bit more tricky, as I am loosing grip myself. It turns that everything is being changed upside-down. The president for example made a speech at the mass in the church (as this is where Polish political leaders make their official speeches now, apparently) in which he claimed, that “Poland is sick” and that “this is the price we pay for that bloodless revolution in 1989”. So, it seems, what was always considered a great success of our nation, that we managed to dismantle the communism in a way of peaceful negotiations, setting the first domino block in motion, that lead to a total collapse of the Eastern Block is now, in some way, considered to be a mistake. What would president Duda want to see instead? A bloodshed like in Romania? A civil war? In that case, he would be unable to enjoy support of former communists like Stanisław Piotrowicz, as they would be shot, or at best, forced to hide somewhere abroad…
PiS’s strive to rewrite history is gaining momentum – during celebrations of anniversary of Gdańsk Shipyard’s strikes, members of Solidarity Trade Union (that today become reduced just to PiS sidekick) removed portrait of Lech Wałęsa from the gallery depicting portraits of all strike leaders:
Luckily, the idea of
unveiling a commemorate plaque celebrating the fact that Kaczyński
brothers “were present in the building during the strike” had
been abandoned after it had became
a laughing stock all across the Polish internet. And rightly so,
it sounded like trying to attach them to some battle by saying
“during the heroic fight with the enemy, they were taking a dump in
a nearby forest”… But of course, everything is ahead of us yet.
Meanwhile the widespread action of “offending
monuments” (see more here)
gains momentum as well. It seems that it is pretty easy to offend a
monument – a councillors from one of Warsaw’s districts made an
official protest against a cycle path being built nearby a monument
commemorating Cursed Soldiers! According to them, cycle
path is incompatible with the solemnity of such location. If
cycling nearby the monument can be considered offensive, then just
imagine how outraged the Polish right is when several monuments of
pope John Paul II were dressed in plaques or t-shirts saying “I’ve
been protecting paedophiles”. As usual, they throw everything
they have to protect the clergy. Anti-abortion activist Kaja Godek
went as far, as to blaming the left for the paedophilia within the
church – apparently, paedophilia leaked
into the church as a part of leftist sexual revolution…
Why they would do
it? Well, the church is one of PiS closer allies, and they cannot
allow it to get under attack. The fact, that Poland became a country
where the number
of young people turning away from the church is the highest in the
world makes it pretty clear: they have to act fast, while the
church is still strong. The footage from Ireland probably made a few
people think: while just a few decades ago pope John Paul II was
welcomed by nearly everyone alive, recently pope Francis car was
crossing virtually empty streets, as nobody really cares any more.
This is likely to be a future of Poland unless church stops sweeping
their scandals under the carpet, and affiliating itself with the
right in order to fight the changes in the society in exchange for
millions of taxpayer’s money…
Some church officials,
though, are becoming even more radical. Archbishop Wacław Depo for
example is inconsolable with the fact, that some
people dare to say, that Constitution of Poland is above the church’
teachings. How ungrateful those Poles are, have they forgot that
in 1920 our victory in the Polish-Bolshevik war was possible only
thanks to personal intervention of the Holy Mary? (The question where
was the Mother of God when we needed our arses saved in September
1939 remains unanswered).
Luckily, the government
remembers how the Virgin Mary was there to help us in seemingly
hopeless situation back in 1920. And since she is such a highly
qualified specialist in crisis management, they have decided to
entrust the Polish energetic sector to her.
“Our
almightyLord, through Your son and our
saviour, Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy Ghost and aware, that our
work serves not only our own families, but it is a service to the
whole nation, all Poles, we are standing today here, at the feet of
Mary, through her hands entrusting ourselves, our families, our work
places to Your Godly Providence. Oh, Great mother of God the Human,
immaculate Virgin Mary, mother of Church and Queen of
Poland, mother of our entrustment, we, Polish energy sector workers,
bring to this sanctuary of the Polish nation our worries, our joys
and hopes, we are coming here with the words spoken from the cross in
our minds: Behold thy mother!.
We are entrusting in you,
the Lady of Jasna Góra, all matters of Polish
energy sector, it’s security, development, modernisation, the service
of thousands of our colleagues, day and night, without
rest, with sacrifice and risk to their lives. We are entrusting our
bosses to you. Please, make sure they have wisdom and responsibility
in all decisions they take” – said
minister of energy during
energetics’s
pilgrimage to Jasna Góra sanctuary. Alas, he never mentioned
customers, so it seems there is no hope for the miracle, and the
steep hike in energy prices prognosed by all experts due to critical
state of the sector that desperately needs investments is still to be
expected. The other aspect of
that whole circus, that is
the obvious fact, that
constitution clearly states that government is to remain impartial in
the religious matters does
not really surprises anyone any more.
But
maybe I am too harsh? Maybe Mary is not that bad as a manger? After
all the mayor of Siemianowice Śląskie claims, that
he delegated his duties to her, and she is doing pretty good as a
city manager. Apparently there are some miracles happening
elsewhere as
well. On 23rd
of August 2018 minister of environment Henryk Kowalczyk has
confirmed
changes in the National Board of Environmental Protection. One of
the new members is late prof. Zygmunt Jasiński, who died in April
2017. Knowing, that the candidates
have to actively express
their consent, if that’s not Holy Mary’s doing’s, then I don’t know
what it is.
This was not the only strange thing that
happened recently when PiS people were being chosen to star in PiS
puppets theatres
(that until recently were serious government bodies). During
elections of the member of National Judicial
Council, one
candidate has been replaced with the other in
a final documents. PiS says
that it was a simple mistake, as both candidates shared the same
surname.
I
guess such inaccuracies
are happening because the election process is not transparent enough.
Luckily, this is soon to
become thing of the past. After PiS questioned the validity of the
local elections a few years back, the previous government introduced
the new law, that requires
for the ballot boxes to be made of transparent plastic, so everyone
can see inside and check for himself if some frauds are not taking
place. This will surely ensure that the elections will be reliable –
after all, ballot boxes during Crimean referendum were transparent
and nobody questions
Russia’s right to claim this territory,
right?
There are few
problems though. First, new boxes are too big to fit through
standard doors, which causes an issue in several voting points.
Secondly, as they are made of plastic, the electrostatics becomes a
problem – some ballot cards can stick to the side of the box, thus
showing to everyone how the person who just put them into the box
voted…
But
this can be solved, I trust. After all, the government is doing a lot
to solve Poland’s problems. After three years of criticizing previous
government for not doing so, PiS have decided to actually do
something about workers rights. The State Work’s Inspection
investigated Amazon: the mega-corporation
has been accused of breaking workers rights and appalling
work conditions. The investigation found
several breaches of employment laws, issuing 38 recommendations and
42 orders. The corporation had been fined as well. The
fine was 1000 zł. Yeah, you heard right. Over 6000 Czech crowns,
or 200 British pounds. 271 US Dollars 81 cents, according to today’s
exchange rates. That will surely
teach this Jeff Bezos a
lesson!
But
maybe they just need more time in
that instance? While
some things, like demolishing Polish democracy, PiS can do virtually
overnight, one has to wait longer to see other stuff taking place.
But even they are coming in their due time. Antoni
Macierewicz, former minister of defence finally got himself a new
premises and vacated his
offices in the Ministry building.
The new HQ of his commission for investigating Smoleńsk crash is now
located in Aviation Institute. Despite
8 months he needed to organize his removal, previous tenants – an
organization of retired soldiers – were kicked
out of the premises literally overnight.
The state of
the army after his rule urgently needs a holy intervention. We’ve
already wrote in
this series about the state of the Polish navy, that currently
would be able to defend Polish seas only if we were attacked by the
navies of our Souther neighbours. Recent
report of the Polityka weekly disclosed, that also the condition
of our air forces is tragic: all
jet fighters apart of some F-16 are grounded and
after
Antoni Macierewicz shot down the deal with the French for new
helicopters in the army nothing is going on at this front as well,
and our flying museum of
Soviet derived helicopter technology is at the brink of being
grounded as well.
But
of course it is not that we are not making any strategic purchases of
the weaponry. Recently Parliament Guards have been treated with the
new sabres, and the Sejm office’s refused to provide public
information on the price, quoting
security reasons. But who needs modern
weaponry, North Korea regularly organizes parades in which they
present their 1960’s army equipment, and yet nobody dares to ridicule
their military powers. Apparently
it is enough to organize biggest Military Parade since 1960’s
showing all kinds of Polish armoury since the middle ages, everything
will be OK here as well.
Speaking
of North Korea, actually, is
not that bad at all. The government knows it, probably
from watching video-blog
of a popular Youtuber Lois Cole, who presented
North Korea in very positive light. They actually liked it so much,
that they have hired him to do a
similar series on Poland. For
only quarter of a million!
Vanity
Fair portrayed
him as a man, who “just
wants to focus on
the positive things about one of the world’s
most oppresive nations”. I wonder, if his new deal with Poland
means that he lowered his standards, or that he sees potential in
Poland under rule of PiS?
This piece was published in Britske Listy
Picture: Robert Drózd (C.C. 3.0 via Wikipedia)
