Poland in focus
Neill Harvey-Smith, Director of Debate Chamber, lived and worked in Poland from 1994-99. He argues that this week’s news from Warsaw is not a heartwarming story of twins at the top but a more sinister tale of extremists at the heart of government.
Poland’s other coalition parties are even more disturbing. The League of Polish Families is a devoutly pro-Catholic party which openly professes hatred of liberal Western values and devotes paragraph 11 of its programme to telling voters “we are against homosexual relations”.
The Poles are a nation of 40 million people and a diaspora of many millions more across the world. Perennial opponents of the England football team and masters of a language with three types of “z”, Polska is one of the new breed of European Union member states from beyond the Iron Curtain.
And now, Poland is the only country to be run by identical twins. President Lech Kaczynski appointed his elder brother, Jaroslaw, to the post, having sacked, in Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a man with an impressive 62% approval rating (I warned you about the “z”s).
But their bloodline is not the real story. The new Prime Minister, having twice banned the gay pride march in Warsaw during his previous job, will head a coalition of even more extreme parties. The lead partner, Law and Justice, is a populist anti-crime and Eurosceptic grouping. President Kaczynski pulled out of a meeting with the French President and German Chancellor last week and his attitude to EU partners has been temperamental.
Poland’s other coalition parties are even more disturbing. The League of Polish Families is a devoutly pro-Catholic party which openly professes hatred of liberal Western values and devotes paragraph 11 of its programme to telling voters “we are against homosexual relations”. Self Defence started as a violent movement of agricultural workers. Its programme tells us “a nation cannot be multiethnic” and espouses a “turn away from Satanic liberal values”; the party is a pro-Catholic, anti-liberal movement which opposes foreign investment as “colonial”.
So where did it all go wrong? After the Solidarity trade union stormed to victory in parliamentary elections in 1989, Poland enjoyed free presidential elections in 1990, where former electrician and symbol of the anti-communist fight Lech Walesa came to power.
Stalin once remarked that imposing Communism on Poland was like trying to saddle a cow. But capitalism has not come easily either. An ex-communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski, beat Walesa to the top job in 1995 and 2000 as many people grew tired of change and disappointed in the new Poland. Unemployment has been around 20% for over a decade, leaving millions of young people without the means to make an honest living.
While Poland has now entered the EU and NATO, massive problems remain for ordinary people. Agriculture supports a quarter of the population, an unsustainable number in a modern, developed country. The social welfare system is both expensive and low quality by European standards. Successive governments have been tainted by instability and corruption.
In the popular imagination, Poland since 1989 has been governed by a liberal elite which has sold off her assets, feathered its own nests and led a moral decline. New parties like Law and Justice, the League of Polish Families and Self Defence all position themselves as outsiders, representing the real interests of the people against a remote liberal elite. Now they have secured enough public support to govern together.
A Government of twin Kaczynskis risks turning Poland into the most xenophobic, insular, backward country in Europe. At the moment when European liberal values have most to offer the country, employing Polish young people, providing inward investment and giving opportunities for all to pursue happiness in their own way, the Polish government is in the hand of reactionaries who wish to start a “moral revolution” against the freedoms we take for granted. Link
Neill Harvey-Smith, Director of Debate Chamber, lived and worked in Poland from 1994-99. He argues that this week’s news from Warsaw is not a heartwarming story of twins at the top but a more sinister tale of extremists at the heart of government.
Poland’s other coalition parties are even more disturbing. The League of Polish Families is a devoutly pro-Catholic party which openly professes hatred of liberal Western values and devotes paragraph 11 of its programme to telling voters “we are against homosexual relations”.
The Poles are a nation of 40 million people and a diaspora of many millions more across the world. Perennial opponents of the England football team and masters of a language with three types of “z”, Polska is one of the new breed of European Union member states from beyond the Iron Curtain.
And now, Poland is the only country to be run by identical twins. President Lech Kaczynski appointed his elder brother, Jaroslaw, to the post, having sacked, in Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, a man with an impressive 62% approval rating (I warned you about the “z”s).
But their bloodline is not the real story. The new Prime Minister, having twice banned the gay pride march in Warsaw during his previous job, will head a coalition of even more extreme parties. The lead partner, Law and Justice, is a populist anti-crime and Eurosceptic grouping. President Kaczynski pulled out of a meeting with the French President and German Chancellor last week and his attitude to EU partners has been temperamental.
Poland’s other coalition parties are even more disturbing. The League of Polish Families is a devoutly pro-Catholic party which openly professes hatred of liberal Western values and devotes paragraph 11 of its programme to telling voters “we are against homosexual relations”. Self Defence started as a violent movement of agricultural workers. Its programme tells us “a nation cannot be multiethnic” and espouses a “turn away from Satanic liberal values”; the party is a pro-Catholic, anti-liberal movement which opposes foreign investment as “colonial”.
So where did it all go wrong? After the Solidarity trade union stormed to victory in parliamentary elections in 1989, Poland enjoyed free presidential elections in 1990, where former electrician and symbol of the anti-communist fight Lech Walesa came to power.
Stalin once remarked that imposing Communism on Poland was like trying to saddle a cow. But capitalism has not come easily either. An ex-communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski, beat Walesa to the top job in 1995 and 2000 as many people grew tired of change and disappointed in the new Poland. Unemployment has been around 20% for over a decade, leaving millions of young people without the means to make an honest living.
While Poland has now entered the EU and NATO, massive problems remain for ordinary people. Agriculture supports a quarter of the population, an unsustainable number in a modern, developed country. The social welfare system is both expensive and low quality by European standards. Successive governments have been tainted by instability and corruption.
In the popular imagination, Poland since 1989 has been governed by a liberal elite which has sold off her assets, feathered its own nests and led a moral decline. New parties like Law and Justice, the League of Polish Families and Self Defence all position themselves as outsiders, representing the real interests of the people against a remote liberal elite. Now they have secured enough public support to govern together.
A Government of twin Kaczynskis risks turning Poland into the most xenophobic, insular, backward country in Europe. At the moment when European liberal values have most to offer the country, employing Polish young people, providing inward investment and giving opportunities for all to pursue happiness in their own way, the Polish government is in the hand of reactionaries who wish to start a “moral revolution” against the freedoms we take for granted. Link
posted by BEING HAD at 11:57 PM
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