Meanwhile in Cuckooland 26

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During celebrations of Smoleńsk plane crash month-inversaries Jarosław Kaczyński tells the same speech over and over again. In short: “we need to fight our enemies, those “certain” forces, we all know who they are so I don’t need to tell you. They are still strong, but we will win, and we will discover what had really happened in Smoleńsk. We are just about to uncover the truth!”

After hearing for over 80 times, that “we are just one step from uncovering the truth”, Poles are getting fed up with this circus, so more and more protests emerge. To prevent opposition from turning up at Presidential Palace at the same time as “Smoleńsk Month-inversary”, the law on public gatherings was amended to ensure, that it is impossible to stage another rally in the same location, but as with most of the law introduced by PiS, it was written in a hurry, and thus is full of flaws and loopholes. Firstly, if the Smoleńsk month-inversary becomes and official state event, then no citizen can be denied right to participate in it (not that they haven’t tried, see HERE ). Secondly, though, the new law is so flawed that the ban on competing manifestation can be easily scrapped in court, and so on 10^th may opposition not only staged their own rallies nearby, but also its members participated in the “official” celebrations. Some of the protesters were trying to make some noise in order to drown out Kaczyński’s speech, others were just holding white roses, which recently became a symbol of protest:

But Kaczyński don’t get historical references to Die Weiße Rose movement in Nazi Germany. For him, white roses are “symbol of hate and stupidity”. That would explain why white roses were amongst the flowers with which PiS leaders welcomed Beata Szydło on her return from that compromitation in Brussels, when due to their stupidity PiS was trying to undermine reelection of Tusk, who they hate so much.

"Beato, mam dla ciebie symbol nienawiści i głupoty!" pic.twitter.com/n1TtVBQYHw

— Ben Stanley (@BDStanley) May 10, 2017

“Beata, I have for you symbol of hate and stupidity”

Some of the people holding white roses became victims of aggression (both verbal and physical), such behaviour was encouraged by PiS activists. No wonder that the police had to step in. Several people were summoned to the police, where they will have to explain their behaviour. Strangely enough, only those from opposition. Their crime: “maliciously obstructing religious act of the Roman Catholic church”. Do we need any more proof, that there is certainly something wrong with relations between Polish church and PiS, if their monthly rallies of Smoleńsk conspiracy believers have became “a religious act”?

Speaking of ill relationship between the church and PiS-hijacked state, there was a “scientific conference”, organized by minister of environment Jan Szyszko in cooperation with the forestry commission and father Rydzyk media empire. At the cost of 120 000 zł for taxpayer, the participants (mostly forrestry commission employees, who, allegedly, were forced to attend, and members of farmer’s trade union) were privileged to listen to 8 interesting lectures, such as Catholic priests or Kaczyński’s cousin Konrad Tomaszewski, who is in charge of forestry commission. According to speakers, the major problem nowadays is “eco-centrism”, that is an ideology that claims, amongst others, that “trees are in love with each other”. Environmental organizations, who spread that ideology, are “most dangerous kind of world militant neocommunism”. In their “neomaterialist and neomarxist” world view they aim to “humanize animals and trees” and “animalize the human being” in order to “throw it from the pedestal of god-like figure”. Therefore their ideology is “anti-God” and “anti-human”. This is why those organizations so fiercely attack PiS: they can’t stand that it aims to renew “a Christian-based culture of life” in which “God, humans, fauna and flora have their highly dignified place designed for them by no one else but the God himself”.

But don’t worry, the world ridden by leftist environmentalists! Poland is here to save the planet! According to one of the lecturers “the Polish nation, Polish science and Polish state gain the role of a teacher to hundreds of other nations of Earth”. If you believe the conference speakers, the lesson is to stress up how the role of the Church, foresters and hunters is crucial for Polish rural areas, that are home of Polish patriotism and the strength of the nation”. It seems that I might be confused by all this neo-marxism and communism, as I fail to see how on earth such a message can be of any use to “nations of the Earth”. Should they also change their forests into living museums devoted to martyrdom of Polish soldiers, as proposed during the conference, in order to save the planet?

In other news, usage of the symbol that refers to the historical logo of one of the organizations was punished. And no, I am not talking about falanga, a stylised arm holding a sword used by radical nationalists that recently marched through Warsaw like the true Nazis they in fact are. It was a “Fighting Polish Women”, a symbol derived from the “Fighting Poland” logo used by home army and scout sabotage groups during Nazi occupation. Organizers of Black Protest, a massive rally against tightening already strict abortion laws, were fined with 2000zł penalty for “allowing insulting of Fighting Poland symbol” during their mass protests last autumn. Apparently adding a braid to letter P and changing letter “W” into women’s breast, changing the shape of the two letters stylised into an anchor into schematic picture of a woman is bad, unlike wearing national symbols, including official state symbols such as Polish flag and emblem, during neo-Nazi rally, which, according to PiS government, is perfectly OK:

 

Supermarkets Lidl are also guilty of committing terrible offence to Polishness. Those bloody Germans, according to some nationalists, are trying to make money using false claims in their advertising. You see, there was a special event in Lidl called “Week of Polish brands” during which traditional Polish products such as mineral water “Żywiec”, “Ptasie Mleczko” sweets or “Prince Polo” wafers were available at special prices. The protesters point out, that those products are not Polish, as the companies that make them are owned by foreign capital. I guess I am guilty of similar offence: I once served traditional Polish sausages to my guests and claimed that it is a Polish cuisine, despite the fact that this particular sausage is made in Glasgow, so it was probably just some unusual type of haggis. Although I am not sure, if it works both ways: if the “patriotic clothing” described in previous chapter of the series is manufactured in China, is it still a Polish product or not?

Other scandal had place during recent matura exams. In one question students had to describe, which human rights were abused during operation “Vistula” that had place in 1947. During this operation over 141 000 of civilians were forcibly removed from their homes and dispersed amongst newly obtained territories of Poland (see more here) in aim to extinguish their alleged support for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. This had led to virtual destruction of the culture of the smaller minorities such as Lemko people. According to Robert Winnicki, a nationalist MP, such a question is a scandal, as operation “Vistula” was good and just, as it was the only way to end “homicide carried by the Banderists”. He demands persons responsible to face consequences, as according to him condemnation of operation “Vistula” is de facto supporting historic narration that glorifies homicidies carried by Ukrainian nationalism.

Obviously, at least for the Polish right wing, big changes are needed. Not only in the school curriculum: According to the organization called “Knights of King Jesus Christ” there is an urgent need to place a huge picture of the Black Madonna from Częstochowa in the Polish parliament. The mighty knights marched on parliament to deliver their argument:

Their demands haven’t been met. So far.

Meanwhile others also dare to have demands from Poland. Several countries during the meeting of the UN Human Rights Council insolently demanded from Poland that it will stick to the rule of law, respect minorities and stop dismantling democracy. Even the Holy See criticized Poland for refusing to take refugees. As the PiS tactics is just stating, that nothing is wrong with Polish democracy, then covering their ears and singing loudly, they simply deleted unpublished verdicts of the Constitutional Tribunal from its website. This was unfortunately not enough, as the University of Oxford organized a debate on a Polish constitutional crisis and they had to send someone to defend their stand. They have a cheek to pick prof. Leszek Morawski.

Prof. Morawki fits PiS perfectly. As Antoni Macierewicz associate he was involved in parallel investigation of the Smoleńsk plane crash, but recently his name was mostly associated with a car crash which he caused. His accident is different from the other ones that PiS is famous for (we’ve been writing on that before in this series) in that he crashed his own private car. While driving on the motorway he rear-ended another vehicle, pushing it off the road. The van and it’s cargo were written off, and the driver was severely injured. The victim estimates his losses at approx 60 000 zł. Meanwhile the prosecutors worked very hard to frame the victim as a the guilty of the accident, and now, when prof. Morawski was (illegally) elected as a judge of Constitutional Tribunal and (illegally) sworn by president Andrzej Duda, he is protected by a judge’s immunity, so all proceeding had been suspended. Until the matter is settled, the victim has no chance to receive any insurance settlements…

So this is the man that PiS have chosen to defend Poland in the Oxford debate. But if you think that this alone was a huge discredit to our country, you should listen what prof. Morawski actually said there in his broken English. He was struggling to make it clear if he represent impartial Constitutional Tribunal or the government. In course of the discussion, he abandoned whatsoever any attempts to at least pretend that he is impartial judge, and was simply referring to actions of PiS as “ours”, “we”, “us” etc. At least he was telling the truth – he pictured Poland as the country ridden by corruption, that reaches even as far as to the Constitutional Tribunal, but I doubt that by that he meant himself and his party collegues. He argued that there is no such thing as independent judge by definition, and accused Venice Commission of bias, claiming that their delegation, that investigated constitutional crisis in Poland, “contained solely buddies of prof. Andrzej Rzepliński” (former chairman of the Tribunal). He stressed that Poland is very tolerant country, as despite the fact that the government is against gay people, they are not persecuted. To understand what a trainwreck it was, you simply have to observe reaction of his adversary, prof. Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki from Jagiellonian University (watch from 1:00:00 onwards):

So this debate resulted in even further blow to the perception of Poland abroad. But the Polish right does not care. As if would be the first time that everyone is against us! And yet Poland has not yet perished… “It can be only explained by this unexplanable pheonomenon, that can be described as a gift from our Lord, a Polish DNA code, that we carry inside us for centuries.” – writes Mirosław Kokoszkiewicz in catholic-nationalist weekly “Polska Niepodległa” (“Independent Poland”). There is no need to be afraid – argues Kokoszkiewicz – as “this invincible gene of Polishness terryfies our enemies. (…) They tried anything to ensure, that fate of our homeland won’t be decided by the beaers of Polish DNA (…) but they failed, as Polish DNA cannot be defeated”.

I have to admit, that I fail to see that superiority of the Polish genetic code. I believe that all people are equal. But what you can expect from me: apparently I am not Polish. After all I write it for Czech portal, and Jarosław Kaczyński made it clear, that those, who inform on Poland abroad are “worst sort of Poles”, or perhaps even have DNA of Gestapo…

Well… … bis zum nächsten Mal.

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This piece was written for Britské listy
Picture of rose: Public Domain via Pixabay
Picture of Polish “patriot” – screenshot from Facebook profile “The beauty of European girls and women”

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