“As a woman, as mother, I will never understand or support the protesters. Vulgar and boorish behaviour is not making women pretty, they remind me of pack of Papuans and brainless savages, who can only beat and mindlessly have sex. It’s scary to give matches to some of them. To all of those swearing pseudo-women we should create reserves, when they will be serving as incubators”.
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This is the entry from official Facebook page of Marlena Maląg, a PiS MP. As often happens, when PiS politician writes something stupid, she claimed her account was hacked. Apparently there is new trend amongst hackers – to hack PiS politician’s social media account and write something, that looks completely like something that PiS politician could write. Strangely, we don’t hear about hackers hacking the Left wing MP’s and writing right wing slurr there.…
Of course nobody believes in that “my account was hacked” excuse anymore. The common consesnus was that she just had one drink too much and wrote what she really thinks. But I would not go that route. I think there is much simplier explanation. For many years now we know, that PiS is behind so called “troll farms” – an organized army of fake accounts that pump PiS propaganda into Polish social media (some examples here or here). If I was asked to guess, I would use Ockham’s razor and propose the simpliest solution: social media accounts of PiS politicians are managed by the same people, who work on those “troll farms”, and sometimes they simply log in to a wrong account when posting their hateful messages… This is why we hear about so many examples of “hackers taking over PiS politician’s account”. The only exception to my theory will be that MP who posted nudes of his sectretary. I am pretty sure this one is on him.
For the bishops it’s more tricky. It is hard to claim that you’ve been hacked, if you were filmed speaking rubbish during sermons. Luckily, if you are a bishop, the Polish courts come to the rescue. And so this week we learned, that when Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski called LGBT people “Rainbow disease”, he acted in “widely-understood social interest”, and it’s his duty to speak like that, because “canonical laws places a duty of defending his faith on him”. I wonder what courts would say if the clergy was called “parasites” or “disease” by an LGBT activist?
Meanwhile Rafał Trzaskowski, opposition mayor of Warsaw, will have to explain himself. After he demanded that police explain themselves why they are acting against protester in such aggressive ways, he was called to the police station. Police accuses him of “acting against rules of behaviour in public places”, and he can be punished by a fee of up to 500zł. So, basically: offending LGBT people is OK, criticizing aggressive police behaviour: bad.
And Trzaskowski is not the only one, who is worried about rule of law in Poland. According to TVN24, the organizer of the infamous gay orgy in Brussels, that led to the end of career for a certain Fidesz politician, has been wanted by Poland since 2014 for some minor fraud, but in 2017 Belgium refused extradition, arguing that by sending him to Poland they can break his fundamental rights. And no wonder, as the justice system in Poland works in very weird ways.
For example, Father Rydzyk won’t be fined for breaking COVID-19 social distancing rules during celebrations of 29th anniversary of his radio station (see here), because according to the police, no rules have been broken: all the limits were observed, and everyone was wearing face masks. If you have any doubts, then you can see picture of Zbigniew Ziobro, minister of justice, wearing a facemask during this event here. Ah, wait… Ok, nevermind.
Meanwhile in Ursus, police entered a private flat to remove a Polish flag with the symbol of Women’s Strike displayed on the balcony’s balustrade. The owner of the flat will be charged with the crime of insulting national colors by placing the symbol over the flag. I would like to draw reader’s attention to the background of the picture in this article, as this is quite a typical thing from the presidential campaign: a Polish flag with the message of support for Andrzej Duda written on it. How is it, that some messages on the flat are insulting national colors and some are not?
It’s always one laws for us, other law for them. It’s like with a Catholic school in Tarnów, that remains open, despite coronavirus closure, thanks to some loophole and claim, that organizing home schooling is impossible there. The state institution see nothing wrong with it. Meanwhile the police harasses residents of the block across the street from Kaczyński’s home, where during the women strikes a theatrical spectacles was played for the crowds below. Apparently a version of Mickiewicz’s Dziady (Forefathers’ Eve) mocking Kaczyński did not came to his liking…
There are some events that PiS and right wing politicians like more though. Like a funeral of “350 unborn babies”. Some of them waited even 7 years in formalin to enjoy their “Christian funeral”. This strange event was possible due to the Polish law that prevents treating the aborted fetuses as any other medical waste. Since most women don’t care what happen to it after abortion, and hospitals have better things to do than organizing funerals for something they consider medical waste, those “unborn babies” are being taken over by the religious fanatics who organize mass funerals. I can see how this is handy for hospitals, but if they are “unborn babies”, surely they have parents, yet nobody asks if they would like to see their “babies” having Christian funerals…
Speaking of the hospitals, a new scandal related to the National Hospital Mock-up had emerged. It has emerged that cleaning this Potiomkin’s village of PiS, pretending to be a real answer to COVID epidemics, costs two or three times more than cleaning of any other hospital comparable in size. The total cleaning bill came to 1223000 zł per month. And that despite the fact, that some temp agencies were looking for “women cleaners, preferably Ukrainians” and were willing to pay them 16 zł per hour on 0 hour self-employed contracts with no worker’s rights respected. Would that be a surprise to anyone, that there was no tender for those services, and the contract was awarded in unknown circumstances?
Some have it good, other have it tricky. Like Igor Jarek, one of the writers nominated for prestigious award of the weekly magazine Polityka. He informed, that if he wins, he won’t be able to accept money that come with this award, as he is a father of a disabled daugher and her full time carer. And according to Polish law, someone claiming carer’s benefit can’t have any other income. The problem is being highlited for years, and the psychologists even point out, that having a side job for full time carers greatly improves their mental health, but no government so far did anything to change it. As per other income for the parents of disabled children, they were often relying on generosity of others, as since it was possible for the Polish taxpayer to declare that 1% of their taxes is to go for the charity of choice, many parents teamed with charities who take donations with indication of which kid the money are supposed to go to (which results in the Polish social media changing into the beggar’s festival about the end of the tax year). But the law has been changed recently and now the money for the charities are funnelled by some special institution. As a result some of parents report that they get even 80% less money than usual, and the tax man and the finance ministry refuse to explain to the charities where the money went…
But it’s pretty sure where the money are going. For example it has emerged again that the government funds to support local governments in the time of the pandemic go mostly to those ruled by PiS. And if only the PiS was using them right…
The Child Right’s Ombudsman Mikołaj Pawlak had made a fool of himself again during the live interview when he claimed that his helpline for children is open 24/7. He stuck to his guns when challenged by the journalist and accuded him of spreading fake news, so the journalist called the line live during the interview and played the pre-recorded message clearly stating that line is open from 8:15 to 20:00:
But, as usual with PiS, even proved to be a liar in his face, the child ombudsman still claimed, that he was right, and the helpline operates 24/7. Because, you know, when you call it after hours perhaps there will be noone to speak to you, but you can still listen to pre-recorded message, right? And he is susprised to hear this recording, he is about to check why such recording is playing. If you need help, mister ombudsman, I’ll give you a tip: you can claim that someone HACKED your helpline, sent your workers home and placed this recording there. No need to thank me…
Meanwhile students and pupils who need for their rights to be defended take matter in their own hands. After petition with over 100 000 signatures have been ignored, they organized strike, demanding dimission of the new Ministry of Education, the ultra-Catholic radical Przemysław Czarnek. From 7th of December instead of taking part in the classes, many of them decided to do other activities, such as cleaning litter from forests or donating blood.
Meanwhile one of Czarnek’s collegues from his alma mater took part in protests aggainst COVID vaccinations organized by ultra-Catholic organization. “God created human in such a way, that he is adapted to living with viruses. Most of us most likely had it already, so what’s the point?” – argued leader of the protesters. A professor Ryszard Zajączkowski from the Catholic University of Lublin shares those views, saying that it’s enough “to take care of oneself and strenghen the body”. A couple months back he was also giving lecture on the virus, arguing that the pandemics is, in fact, “a globalistic communism, aiming to throw nation on their knees and make slaves out of people.” Since (obviously) he is a literature professor and has no clue about the virology, he quoted a poet Cyprian K. Norwid, who once wrote “a slave is someone, who when given wings to fly, uses them to swipe the street”. Then he added, that “the other side has no valid arguments”. Yeah, sure.
And so is the life in Poland nowadays. Women fight for their rights, idiots given charge of the future of the Polish youth, COVID is running around, unchecked, while the government using public money to fund their party and its cronies… A recent poll shows, that 64% of people aged 18-29 would prefer to live and work in another country. Is that a surprise to anyone?
This piece was written for Britské Listy
Picture of Mikołaj Pawlak: Sejm RP via Wikipedia (CC 2.0)
