US religious advocacy groups think that Poland is ‘Europe’s Last Best Hope In The Battle For The Family’.
That’s the title of a press release issued last December by the US based Howard Centre for Family, Religion and Society (HCFRS), announcing that the World Congress of Families IV will be taking place in Warsaw, 2007.
But why Poland? Groups in America such as HCFRS and Focus on the Family consider Poland a place of faith in the middle of a secular, heathen Europe. The press release says:
“Europe is almost lost; to the demographic winter and to the secularists. If Europe goes, much of the world will go with it. Almost alone, Poland has maintained strong faith and strong families, though even Poland comes under severe pressure to change. Poland has saved Europe before. It is likely she will save Europe again. On family and population questions, Europe is the battleground in the early years of the 21st Century, and Poland is the pivot point. It makes abundant sense that The World Congress of Families IV meet among the brave people of Poland.”The vast majority of organizations that make up the World Congress of Families are American, but one of the affiliated groups is the Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements. On the administration board of PFLM are members from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), like MEP Konrad Symanski.
According to World Congress of Families President Dr. Allan Carlson, Warsaw was chosen for its central location and potential to turn back the tide. “Western Europe is plagued by de-population,” Carlson said. “Western European governments (including the European Union) have adopted policies inimical to the natural family. We look to the new EU members in Eastern Europe – first and foremost Poland – to help turn the tide of family decline.”
But what can he mean? Poland has the 18th lowest birthrate in the world, so babies are not really filling up the cots in the maternity wards here, either.
The World Congress of Families will no doubt be talking in Warsaw about the new government’s initiative to beat the de-population. They are giving a massive 1000 zlotys (about 330 dollars!) to the mother for every baby born. That’s a one off payment, not a regular allowance.
Well, that’s going to solve everything, isn’t it? I can see it now: families turning themselves into cottage industry baby factories, churning out nappy-wearers. Perhaps they can get an entrepreneurial grant from the EU? Maybe if she took the right hormones, they can produce multiple births, and pocket the multiple cash orders?
To get rich that way, however, the poor woman is going to have to be constantly pregnant. To buy a small one bedroom flat in Warsaw she is going to have to produce about 120,000 of them.
And that’s a lot of diapers to wash.
9 comments:
Another thing with the becikowe payments, by giving them to all women regardless of income, aren't they just guaranteeing an increase in the price of baby products?
I realize that reality-based economics aren't a strength of PiS (that's why they're so desperate not to form a coalition with PO) but this seems really cynical.
There is, indeed, a kind of Polish Baby Clothes Masonic Lodge operating through innocent retail outlets in this country.
Revolution sponsered by Mothercare!
Greetings Mr Grodsk!
Is PiS turning Poland into a brothel?
You see, you heard it first, right here on the beatroot, folks!
So, now our latest theory is that this is a move to BRIBE the voters to vote PiS!!!
Any other offers...?
My view is that this is a tokenist attempt by the government to appear to be doing something about whuch only the religious are worried about. Economists say that immigration will solve the population/pensions 'problem'... and I agree with them. Handing out 1000 zloty is an expensive but useless solution to a problem that isn't a problem.
And that is very bad government.
Welcome back Mr Gummish and Mr Michnik.
First of all, the 'lot of diapers' was maybe a bad joke, but a joke it was - hopefully pointing out that people do not have babies for money, they do it for love. So government policy in this direction is useless.
The child allowance in Britain is paid to every family - per baby. This has been the case since the second world war and is meant to be a type of benifit for poorer families, although the payment can, and is, claimed by risc too. It is NOT the same as the PiS payment as it is not designed to try and get more babies born, but to help stop poverty - a very different motive.
And Stefan...immigration did, and has never, caused riots. lack of assimulation and racism can and does cause riots...
I thought you were that 'teddy bear terorist' (in Krakow?) who called himself Gummish! :-))
I think we are on line at the same time...
In France they have 'assimulation' policy - which they have not been able to do properly because the meaning of being French has become unclear. In Britain they have 'multiculturalism' - the British identity means nothing at all anymore, so what we are meant to have is lots of cummunties living in harmony together. but it doesn't work - societies need something that unites everybody. But you wonlt find that in the UK.
So it is very hard to expect immigrants to assimulate into something that isn't really there. Blaming immigrants when the problem is acually with the host countries like France and Britain is what the politicians in those countries have been doing. But I think the British and the French should have a long hard look in the mirror. We should be looking for things we have in common.
Apart froma couple of verbal ones!
Wasn't gummish terrorising Krakow in the early 1990's? I remember someone telling me about it.
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