Main focus of Thursday, May 11, 2006

Is Poland's democracy in danger?

Europe is looking for answers to the question of how radical forces managed to get into the Polish government. Which specifically Polish experiences have made populism and anti-Semitism socially acceptable there? And is the country's democratic order at stake?

Przekrój - Poland

Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the country's first democratic prime minister after the fall of communism in 1989, fears that the conservative ruling and presidential party PiS could "distort" Poland. Talking to Piotr Najsztub about PiS boss Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Mr. Mazowiecki, who is now a member of the liberal Democratic Party, says: "He certainly wants to change the state. The problem is that the concept for reshaping the State, for transforming it, is at the same time a concept for the destruction of the state in its present form. It's a very bad thing when you want to change the state by waging wars in which everyone is against everyone else, by distorting the constitution and debasing the rule of law... At the very least, we're facing a distortion of democracy in which the law no longer stands above those governing the country and keeps their powers in check, but rather those governing the country stipulate how the law of the land is to be interpreted." (10/05/2006)

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All available articles from » Tadeusz Mazowiecki

Libération - France

Columnist Jacques Amalric argues that the new Polish coalition is a consequence of the country's "political regression". "Beyond all the politicking, everything is in fact transpiring as if a cultural war were underway, to the detriment of the country's economic development and the 20% who are out of work. On the one hand, there is a whole segment of the population that aspires to be part of the modern world and believes in the European adventure, even if it got its fingers burnt by the incompetence and corruption of the previous teams, composed for the most part of ex-Communists who converted overnight into opportunists and well-off social-democrats. On the other hand, we see a rural Poland, often elderly, disillusioned, jobless, manipulated by xenophobic populists and anti-European ultranationalists, all of them spurred on by a part of the Catholic church that strives to reclaim its title as guardian of the nation." (11/05/2006)

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All available articles from » Jacques Amalric

Der Standard - Austria

Paul Lendvai puts the fact that the conservative Polish government has dared "to move even further to the right" down to the key role which the Catholic radio station Radio Maryja plays in Poland and the rift within the country's Catholic Church. Founded by the redemptionist priest Father Tadeusz Rydzyk 15 years ago, Radio Maryja, Poland's most popular radio station with an audience of between four and five million regular listeners, constitutes a state within a state in Europe's most Catholic country. The station's overtly anti-Semitic, anti-German, anti-European, nationalist and fundamentalist comments are cause for growing concern both within the Polish Bishop's Conference and in the Vatican... Now, Jaroslaw Kaczynski himself, the powerful leader of the ruling Law and Justice Party, has publicly spoken out in defence of the station... Radio Maryja campaigned for the Kaczynskis in the elections last autumn and the two brothers are now paying off their debts." (11/05/2006)

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All available articles from » Paul Lendvai

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Germany

Konrad Schuller also reflects on why the Kaczynskis are defending the anti-Semitic attacks of Radio Maryja, the government's "pet radio station." He attributes their position to the legendary Polish resistance movement, in which the Kaczynskis are also "embedded", having parents who took part in the Warsaw uprising. "Having obtained absolution thanks to this anti-facist resistance, Radio Maryja now claims the right to break with the 'taboo of not saying anything but good things about the Jews.' Unlike the Germans, who cowardly remain silent because the 'Third Reich' broke their moral backbone, this view of things supposedly reflects this nation's strong sense of truth, steeled by resistance. Intellectuals like the historian Jan M. Piskorski are now attacking this Nazism born of anti-Nazism. In the Poland of the Kaczynski brothers, they will need a strong backbone." (10/05/2006)

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All available articles from » Konrad Schuller

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