It seems that after last elections, the characters and issues from first chapters of this series are coming back. It’s a true blast from the past. For example, it just emerged, that Edmund Janniger, one of the Antoni Macierewicz’ adolescent “advisors” is still assisting his former principal. Sure, Antoni Macierewicz today is just a regular MP, but then Janniger does not get paid by the government either. The Polska Fundacja Narodowa, an institution created to transfer state owned companies to friends of PiS (under pretext of promoting Poland) paid over 6000 dollars for his trip to the USA and accommodation there.
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It is not clear what was the role of Janniger during Macierewicz’s visit to the conference, but he was certainly not happy that this information became public – he even hired some New York lawyers who tried to intimidate journalists to prevent publication. Meanwhile Macierewicz himself answered the questions on twitter in a way, how to say it diplomatically, typical for him:
Wczoraj w wydaniu PO byłem Stalinem, dzisiaj według Onetu szastam kasą jak szejk arabski… Brednie. Wierzba zdębiała. Dąb się zaperzył. Jeż się okocił, a kot najeżył.
— Antoni Macierewicz (@Macierewicz_A) December 8, 2019
“Yesterday in the PO version I was Stalin, today, according to Onet [the portal who published the information about Janninger – TO] I throw cash around like Arabian sheik. Bullshit!”. The rest of the tweet consist only some word puns that make absolutely no sense. Responses to this post can be divided into three groups: his hardcore fans thinks he is a genius and that his response was yet another instance of his intellectual brilliance. The rest is divided between considering him to be a Russian agent and just a loony.
By the way young assistants seems to be still a good trend in PiS. Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Gliński has just appointed a 25 year old who’s only experience so far was working in a KFC fast food outlet. Gliński argues, that he is a graduate from prestigious university, which is probably true, but I bet he is not the only one with such formal qualifications, so it would be possible to find someone with a bit more of experience?
But back to the review of the recurrent topics: The Arabian Horse stud in Janów Podlaski (mentioned in one of our first articles of the series), a pride of Poland for more than two centuries, that survived two wars and communism in just few years was brought by its new PiS-appointed management to the verge of bankruptcy. In a desperate bid to save it the best horses are now up for sale, which will completely destroy the breeding plan, that has been continued for decades…
It seems that this is a new normal in Poland when it comes to horses – horses are OK, but people in charge from them have no clue what they are doing. A traffic police caught a horse cart driver who was completely drunk, but claimed that it’s not a problem, because his horse is sober and knows its way home. Perhaps putting horses in charge would also help to save the Arabian studs?
The topic of submarines is also back, although so far there is no plan to build those new submarines promised by PiS in previous term. Instead it seems that Poland is about to buy 30 years old ones from Sweden.
A recurrent character of this series, Patryk Jaki, former deputy justice minister and today an MEP has recently became a PhD in a curious way. After being denied the right to pursue his doctoral studies at his Alma Mater in Opole (most likely due to poor quality of his proposal), he started working on his PhD in a military academy in Warsaw, where under supervision of the people from completely different field, he became a PhD in less than 6 months. I haven’t read his dissertation, so I can’t comment on the quality of its work, but a picture of the title page circulates the internet, and, if it’s true, he managed to make several spelling errors even there:
The Polish internet has a loads of fun mocking Patryk Jaki, PhD. I guess this is going to bankrupt Mark Zuckenberg. Patryk Jaki has already sued Facebook for that it does nothing about the omnipresent memes that mock his numerous failed attempts to pose as intellectual.
The other recurring character of that series, father Tadeusz Rydzyk, had just got another tribute from PiS politician – this time a member of the National Broadcasting Council. In a book dedicated to Tadeusz Rydzyk and published by one of the foundation belonging to the network of businesses and foundations ran by him, the author argues, that Rydzyk is a victim of a hostile state, that harasses him by demanding financial information he should provide to the tax man like everyone else, or expecting him to observe the law. He concludes his book with the words “It’s not true that such thing as “Rydzyk’s empire” exists” and that he has never received any public money. Then the following eight pages contain solely advertisements for the businesses and foundations run by Tadeusz Rydzyk. You could not make it up.
Meanwhile the character present in more recent chapters, compromised chief of the Supreme Audit Office is back in the news. After weeks of PiS trying to convince him to resign over some shady businesses he runs with known criminals, he send a resignation letter, but the speaker of the parliament sent it back to him – apparently she was not happy with who would take over after him and wanted him to name his replacement as advised by PiS. Instead of that, he decided to counterstrike and decided to bring out the irregularities in the Ministry of Justice…
But appart from that there is business as usual in Poland. Another school scared children as young as 3 (as there is a kindergarten in the same building) by staging a terrorist attack. The head teacher was immediately sacked and rightly so, but I still cannot understand what educational value such exercise can bring – other than trying to fuel anti-Muslim sentiments in the younger generation.
Ministry of Finances employs nine chaplains in the tax office. Since their positions are qualified as experts, it came to a cost of nearly half of the milion. Even the new independent presidential candidate, Szymon Hołownia, popular TV presenter and Catholic publicists known for his fairly radical views, has enough and promises “friendly separation between church and a state”.
President has sworn two most hated PiS figures – Krystyna Pawłowicz and Stanisław Piotrowicz – as the Constitutional Tribunal judges. He was apparently very ashamed of it, as this happen in the evening, with no press allowed, and even the official presidential photographer has been send for holidays. But PiS spokesperson denies that this was done secretly: “If it was done in secret, then they would meet somewhere at the gas station, cemetery or in garbage dump” he said. This appointment is Kaczyński’s way to spit in the face of all Poles – those two would be last people to improve quality of the Polish law and to fight communism.
This also confirms a final fall of this institution. There is not a single respect to it left, and even the fact, that right wing media, that in their attempt to smear the judges publishes a list of those, who were appointed during communist time, but forgot to include the Chairwoman of the Tribunal on that list, will not change that.
But at least ordinary people are still friendly and helpful. Despite all this anti-Muslim propaganda, an Iranian lorry driver, who’s nearly 40 years old International truck broke down in Poland was met with the most friendly response. Several companies – from local truck services to electricians rushed to try to fix his antic and exotic vehicle, and the locals provide him with food and invitations.
If only some Polish citizens could hope to get such friendly welcome from the state institution: recently the Highest Administrative Court ruled that while a child raised by two lesbians is a Polish citizen, the transcription of its foreign birth certificate, in which they are both named as mothers, is impossible under Polish law. I would understand such ruling if the document was to contain information about baby’s real, biological parents, but this is not the case: many children has their adoptive parent’s names in their birth certificates, or, in some cases, even fictional fathers. So apparently the only problem is that those particular parents happen both to be female. The problem is, that a Polish birth certificate is the only way for the Polish citizen to obtain a passport or an ID card. It is also required in numerous other situations. So basically while this kid is officially a Polish citizen, legally speaking it will be held in a limbo.
And this is a difference between Poland and other countries. If you have been raised in LGBT household in, for example, Finland, like a certain Sanna Marin, nothing stays in your way to, for example, became the youngest prime minister in the history of your country. In Poland, you can’t even get a bloody passport.
Picture: Rutgers Council of Public and International Affairs via Flickr (CC 2.0)
This piece was published in Britské Listy
