Scottish racists sent to Poland to learn about tolerance!

Thugs who have attacked Polish immigrants in Scotland will be sent to Poland to make them more caring and sharing.

Here is a little gem in the Times (London)

A [Scottish] council is planning to send teenage troublemakers to Poland to learn about tolerance after a sharp increase in attacks on migrant workers and their children.

Moray Council [northeast Scotland] wants young Scots who have been involved in racist attacks to make the trip to help them to understand why so many Poles seek work in Britain.

A council spokesman said that children of migrants were hurt in racist incidents every week. “A lot of the kids involved are from third-generation unemployed families and some of them have been asking their youth workers why Polish people need to come here, why they can’t stay in their own country,” he said.

So, let’s get this one clear. Scottish youth from unemployable families who have attacked Poles who have come to Scotland to work, will be sent to Poland to show them why so many Poles leave Poland in the first place?

Moray has seen a growth in redundancies in some areas recently, though still has an unemployment rate of only 2.6%, which is below the average for both Scotland and the UK as a whole.

Many have the suspicion that the Pole bashing young Scots are not being given a punishment but a bit of a holiday.

“Och, I”, says Scotish racist thing when he turns up in Warsaw, “now I see why yer come to Scootland in the furrst place. Yer drink pissy beer, yer clean yer teeth with hot water (?) and yer put tomata ketchup all over yer pizza!”

But still, a treat’s in store when they get to Poland. These delightful Scottish kids (bless them!) are going to be taught about ‘tolerance’. Tolerance for who, exactly? Gays? German journalists? Unemployed gay German journalists?

I think Moray's Council’s new bright idea (“Let’s teach them, not chastise them", liberal therapist gurgle gurgle) - scheduled to start next summer - needs some…..(to be polite)...rethinking?

More? Other race attacks in the UK recently...
Victim is discharged, Lancashire telegraph, Aug 17
Polish men hurt in 'race attack', BBC Aug 17
[Belfast] House set on fire in racist attack on Poles, Observer, Aug 13
Search for Polish man's attackers, BBC, Aug 11

Lech Walesa beats a tin drum

Gunter Grass (pictured) admits he was in Waffen SS, Walesa is not pleased.

More nonsense from the Polish – German relations front?

Lech Walesa, Gdansk’s most famous son, thinks that Nobel Prize winner Gunter Grass, Gdansk’s other famous son (when it was known as Danzig) thinks that the author of the Tin Drum and many other works should give up his honorary citizenship of Gdansk.

The Independent writes:

Grass told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that, aged 17, he was called to the Waffen SS 10th Armoured Division, the combat arm of Hitler's paramilitary forces.
Grass, 78, said in the interview: "My silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote this book. It had to come out, finally."
He has written a book of recollections, which details his war service. The book is due out in September.

Walesa, also an honorary citizen of Gdansk says he feels ‘uncomfortable’ in Grass’s company.

Ruling Law and Justice member of parliament, Jacek Kurski has also called on Grass to return his honorary citizenship.

Spiegel online reports:

From the middle of 1944 until the end of the war in the spring of 1945, Grass served in the Frundsberg tank division of the elite military outfit. Previously, he had contended that he was teenage helper of an anti-aircraft unit.

Grass makes the revelations in his new autobiography, While Peeling the Onion. In it he says that he was only in the SS for around 9 months just before the end of the war and did not fire a shot.

Some in Germany are calling for his Nobel prize to be stripped. It’s not that he served in the SS – albeit not as a volunteer – that has angered the German press but that he concealed the fact for so long.

And what about other, elderly German gentlemen who got caught up in the Nazi machine in their youth? Would devout Catholic Lech Walesa object to being in the same company as...Pope Benedict?

Poles don’t trust politicians - shock!

Poles have one of the lowest opinions of their elected representatives in Europe. No surprise there, then.

A survey by gfk opinion pollsters finds the not very surprising fact that the politician is the least trusted professional in Europe. But only Greeks and Italians trust their politicos less than the Poles.

On average 17% of Europeans trust their politicians. In Poland this figures slumps even further to just 9%. In Italy and Greece this figure is 8 percent.

The most trusting of their rulers are the Danish at 37 percent, followed by the Swiss with 35 percent.

The most trusted professionals in Europe are doctors and teachers and Poles are no exception (although as Our man in Gdansk reports, it might not be a good idea to trust all doctors in Lublin!).

Sixty percent of Poles trust priests.

Most surprising is that 61 percent say that they trust journalists in Poland where as in the UK this figure plummets to just 30 percent.

Polish-German relations – not too good, really

Berlins ‘ethnic cleansing’ exhibition plus the infamous potato jibe against the Kaczynski brothers in a Berlin newspaper make neighbors’ sticky relationship stickier still.

On the face of it, what could be so ‘controversial’ about an exhibition in Berlin looking back on 100 years of expulsions and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Europe? From the ‘Armenian genocide’ to two monotonous world wars, to the Yugoslavian conflict of the 1990s, ‘cleansing’ certain areas of certain nationalities and ethnic groups has been a dark feature of the twentieth century.

Good topic for an exhibition, then.

Except this exhibition, ‘Paths Unchosen’, has been initiated by MP Erica Steinbach, head of the German Expellees Union. The motive behind Paths Unchosen is to highlight the plight of German expellees from Poland and elsewhere after 1945.
Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski called the exhibition "a bad, worrying and sad event" and said: "it is not doing anything positive for Poland, Germany or Europe."

Former Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz – now acting mayor of Warsaw - cancelled a trip this week to Berlin in protest.

"It's an attempt to relativize the history of World War II," Kaczynski said. "It's important to remember who the murderers were and who were their victims."

According to Allied information sources revealed after 1990, the German deportation and migration affected up to 16.5 million Germans from Soviet occupied areas in Poland and elsewhere.

The Potsdam Conference called for this process to be done in an ‘orderly and humane manner’ but maybe over 1 million Germans died in the process from disease, malnutrition, murder.

Radio Polonia quotes Piotr Nowina-Konopka from the Warsaw-based Schumann Foundation.

[Head of German Expellees Union] “Mrs Steinbach is neither a historian nor an expellee; she hasn’t a moral right to defend the case. Second point – we had already a bad experience with the association under her leadership and that’s why in Poland there is a generally bad feeling about its activities and this latest initiative. Of course, I must see the exhibition to judge whether it’s objective and whether it shows the reason that led to all the cruelties that, without any doubt, happened.”

I am glad he said that he should see the exhibition first before he can judge it, something that hasn’t seemed to trouble Jaroslaw Kaczynski or Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz.

Eva Kraftchyk of the German DPA agency understands Poland’s suspicions that Germany is trying to rewrite its history, but she thinks such fears are exaggerated.

“The tone of discussions in Poland over the past months is not very objective. I don’t think that anyone who is serious in Germany would try to pretend that Germany did not attack Poland, is not responsible for the Holocaust and did not start the war.”

Furthermore, Eva Kraftchyk believes that the expellees have a moral right to show their suffering.

“The refugees lost their homes in what is now western Poland, Kaliningrad, the Czech Republic and other countries. That was a very dramatic experience for these people. Now they are very old and they want to tell their stories. I don’t think this should arouse fears that Germany is trying to rewrite its history. It’s about showing all the facts.”

It’s hard not to disagree with that.

Political hot potato
The controversy follows attempts by the Polish government to prosecute a German newspaper over a satirical article – Poland’s new potatoes’ which lambasted President Lech Kaczynski and his prime ministerial brother and their mother, with who Jaroslaw still lives with.

“We were wondering why there is no reaction from the German public opinion” after the “very brutal attack,” in Tageszeitung, a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andrzej Sados, said in an interview. “This was not an attack on the Polish politicians, but on a third person, on the mother of the president.”

On July 21, the Warsaw prosecutor’s office announced that it was investigating whether to file charges against the author of the article – something that would be unique in European law if it succeeded, which it won’t.
Far right catholic newspaper Nasz Dziennik, owned by the Radio Maryja media group, printed a list two weeks ago of German correspondents working in Poland. The article urged readers ominously to “remember the names.”

Successive generations of Poles have grown less and less antagonistic to Germany – they don’t remember the war and don’t relate to the older generations memories of it. Some politicians, however, haven’t got over it and seem willing to use history – as Erica Steinbach appears to be as well – to reopen the old sores. It looks good to some of the home audience but looks a little grubby from the outside.

Poland returns ‘bomb-grade’ uranium to Russia...

...from its nuclear reactor near Warsaw. Er…Poland has a nuclear reactor?

Yup, has done since 1954, in fact. Reuters reported yesterday that in a ‘covert operation’ at dawn :

Poland...returned to Russia close to 40 kg (88 pounds) of highly enriched uranium, enough to make an atomic bomb, as part of a global effort to secure high-risk nuclear material, a U.N. watchdog said on Thursday.

The Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) was given to Poland years ago for research purposes.

This was another critical step towards enhancing security of fissile material by eliminating stockpiles of HEU," the IAEA's manager for the Polish job, Arnaud Atger, said in the statement

Poland’s reactor is in Otwock-Swierk, about 30 kilometers from Warsaw. Most of the research is for medical purposes for use in oncology treatment.

Poland announced last year that it intends to build a nuclear power station, to be ready some time around 2020.

Greens went nuts about the announcement, of course, but hey – nuclear fuel does not produce carbons and so is in line with all those directives from Kyoto and the EU to reduce emissions. Rejoice!

Liquid terrorist bombs: a new threat?

Not really. Were the 24 men arrested in Britain today just copying a planned attack 12 years ago?

Warsaw airport came to a standstill today. Radio Polonia reported that:

Sky Europe operates flights from London to 2 Polish cities in southern Poland, additionally offering shuttle bus connections to further 2 locations. Just like all other carriers arriving in London on routes shorter than 3 hours it has already felt the consequences of the flight cancellations. Sky Europe spokesman Eryk Klopotowski.

‘This may be a severe disruption but I wouldn’t call it a chaos. There are severe delays on many flight. Our planes are 2 hours late at the moment. This is caused by detailed security checks done at all British airports that includes personal security check and x-ray of every item including shoes.’

Security measures were stepped up:

More police officers, including counter-terrorist police and plainclothesmen, were deployed to safeguard airports and subways. The number of traffic police patrolling main routes to airports has also been increased.

Zbigniew Wassermann, the Polish minister without portfolio, in charge of special services, said there were no indications of a threat of terrorist attacks against Poland. He added that the Polish intelligence services would closely monitor the situation.

It seems these, mostly, British freaks planned to use a cocktail of liquid chemicals plus something like a mobile phone or a key fob to blow to bits airline passengers. But this isn’t a new ‘sophisticated’ method of terrorism, as some in the media are claiming.

These were not particularly sophisticated people at all. Neither was their method.

In 1994 Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah, and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef led a group of men who planned a similar attack on US aircraft with 12 bombs using liquid explosives.

The Washington Post reported back in 1996:

‘The impressive workings of the bombs these men were making for that purpose are spelled out in Murad's confession and in documents retrieved from the hard drive of a portable computer allegedly owned by Yousef, which he inadvertently left behind in a Manila apartment where police showed up to investigate a fire caused by the mixture of some of the chemicals.

Murad made clear that their intent in designing the devices was to ensure they could be readily slipped past airport screening devices and assembled in the washrooms of the planes once the flights were underway.’

At the heart of each device was a timer built by rewiring a commonly available Casio digital watch, which could be connected to a stabilized form of liquid nitroglycerin stored in a bottle ostensibly filled with contact lens solution. The stabilizer for the nitroglycerin looked like cotton, and Murad told interrogators that "nobody can think that it's . . . explosive."

Read more of that article here

We know these religious nutters know how to blow up planes, and we know how they want to do it, but we seem to react after we have uncovered a plot. Not before.

It seems that the security systems that airports are now employing – no liquids, no hair gel, no bottles of contact lens solution, etc, are not proactive but reactive.

That just seems daft.

More on liquid terrorist bombing?
Plot to blow up passenger planes mid-flight foiled, New Scientist

Poland is the 99th happiest country on Earth.

No, wait a minute. Another survey says Poland is the 114th. Surely some mistake?

It gets worse. The World Map of Happiness compiled by the University of Leicester claims that the happiest country in the world is Denmark. But the Happy Planet Index (snigger) by tree huggers at the New Economic Foundation reckons that the happiest country in the world is… Vanuatu!

Where?

Vanuatu – it’s a little island in the Pacific somewhere.

What’s more, the Happy Planet Index thinks that Columbia is second happiest. So, it looks like being permanently in a state of low level war, with drug gangs running amuck and the US bearing down on it as part of its War on Drugs is making Columbians deliriously happy!

Or maybe it’s all that coke?

What kind of bull is this, I hear you ask?

The happy, earnest people at the Happy Planet Index claim:

‘The Happy Planet Index is an innovative new measure that shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered around the world. It is the first ever index to combine environmental impact with well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which country by country, people live long and happy lives. The results are surprising, even shocking, but there is much to learn from what they show.‘

No, the results are not ‘shocking’ they are just silly. Linking the slippery concept of happiness to ecological efficiency is ludicrous.

The psychologists at Leicester University responsible for the World Map of Happiness say:

‘The meta-analysis is based on the findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data has also been analyzed in relation to health, wealth and access to education.

Whilst collecting data on subjective well-being is not an exact science, the measures used are very reliable in predicting health and welfare outcomes.‘

Again, ‘predicting health and welfare outcomes’ is nothing to do with measuring happiness.

Two daft studies both published in July prove nothing about happiness except that academics and Green campaigners have become obsessed with trying to make you and me ‘happy’.

The final insult to a grumpy old git like me, who would rather these people left us alone, is the news that British schools are to introduce happiness classes at school.

And that makes me very unhappy indeed.

Israel – Lebanon war: a chance for Poland to polish its image

What is a tragic, destabilizing war for the Middle East is giving countries like Poland a chance to look good on the international stage.

Poland has been trying to position itself for a few years now as ‘Israel’s best friend in Europe’.

It’s an image that fits with its close relations with the US and it also sends the message that Poland is not the home anymore of 1930s style anti-Semitic prejudices.

Jewish children from Naharyia in northern Israel, an area frequently shelled by Hezbollah’s low-tech ‘fire and hope’ artillery, have just arrived in Lodz for a couple of weeks holiday.

Poland is promising to be a member of the multinational force that will go into southern Lebanon just as soon as a UN resolution to the liking of the important players is ready and a ceasefire can be arranged.

Poland already has 200 troops in Lebanon as part of the peacekeeping force placed there after Israel was forced out by Hezbollah in 2000.

When the EU tried to write a united statement about the conflict last week it was Britain backed by Poland, Czech Republic, Denmark and Germany that managed to water down the resolution to stay in line with thinking in Washington.

There is only one problem with Poland’s desire to show the world - Israel - that Poland is not a land full of people who still think they are living in the 1930s.

Israel was horrified that the League of Polish Families (LPR) and Self defense parties joined the governing coalition a few months ago.

When leader of LPR, Roman Giertych was appointed Education Secretary leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote under the headline, A Polish minister with an anti-Semitic past:

His father, Prof. Maciej Giertych, a member of the European Parliament, recently sparked a storm during its session marking 70 years since the Spanish Civil War; he called Francesco Franco one of the most brilliant leaders of the 20th century.

In another incident, Ryszard Bender, a senator from Giertych's party said that Auschwitz was not a death camp, but rather a labor camp, and everyone there - Jews, Gypsies and others - had to work hard but at least had something to eat.

Giertych responded:

"I like the Jewish people and I don't understand why they don't like me."

He also admitted to the Jerusalem Post that his recent visit to Jedwabne - the scene of a Jewish pogrom in 1941 - had confused many of his supporters and 'was one of the most difficult decisions of my life'.

Such are the efforts of Polish politicians from all parts of the spectrum to appear pro-Israel that some of them are willing to piss off some of their core supporters, who do still think they are living in the 1930s.

It’s simply one of the most important parts of Poland’s image abroad.

So the war with Lebanon is a chance to further reinforce the view that Poland is 'Israel’s best friend in Europe'.

But as with most Western intervention in the region over the past century I don’t think Poland’s involvement is going to do much good for the people of Israel and Lebanon. The war is being used by western governments to look good abroad when they find it difficult to appear so fantastic at home.

More?
Israel anger over Polish minister BBC July 10
New Polish Coalition Jeopardizes Israeli Cooperation on Holocaust Education, AP July 9
Israeli ambassador criticized for meddling in Poland's affairs, ArabNews.com July 10

Another UK - Polish immigration horror story

Following on from the Poles leave kids in orphanages story last week the British press really has gone to the dogs this time.

This week in our "fear of the Polish plumber' series: ‘Pets pay price of Polish exodus’. The Sunday Times:

As Poles head for Britain in search of work they are abandoning pets in their hundreds at animal sanctuaries across the country. Up to 1m Poles are estimated to have gone abroad this year alone.

Isabela Dzialak, head of a kennel at Celestynow in Warsaw, has collected 180 abandoned dogs since the beginning of the year. “People go away to England and to Ireland and we have so many dogs coming in we can hardly keep going. I won’t tell you how many dogs I’ve got altogether because I’m already under pressure from authorities to kill off the old ones.”

Abandoned kids, lonely dogs, whatever next?

But the real problem lies not with Polish immigration but with the UK’s strict rules on immigration of animals!

This blog calls for freedom of movement across borders for all – including dogs, cats and even hamsters!

MSM, bloggers and Israeli-Lebanon conflict - Update: photogate

UK Blogger at EU Referendum accuses news agencies of colluding with Hezbollah and all hell breaks loose. Is it always a good thing when bloggers start making the news? (photos: ‘white t-shirt man and ‘suspicious’ logo on his chest)

Have been having a very interesting discussion with Richard North this afternoon at EU Referendum blog, in between taking dog for walk, making Yorkshire puddings, etc.

Richard's blog has been making news in the MSM and is claiming that bloggers are challenging the legitimacy of the media and a tipping point may have been reached by his posts about the Middle East crisis.

I disagree.

Richard - ‘maverick’ Thatcherite, member of the Bruges Group - has been in the news media loads in the UK this past week for his allegations that some news agencies having been using ‘misleading’ or even ‘staged’ photographs in their coverage of the Israel-Lebanon war.

North claims that Hezbollah has been manipulating the ‘left-leaning’ western media and editors have been presenting an anti-Israeli picture.

The MSM in Britain has got very defensive about the allegations and North has become a bit of a hate figure in the UK print media.

Unfortunately, at least some of what EU Referendum has been claiming is patently not true. The case of the White T-shirt man being the most obvious. North claimed that the photos had been doctored and the man in the white T-shirt was working for Hezbollah and that he had been directing the photographers and staging an image of him carrying a dead child in his arms.

The white t-shirt, North said, had a logo on it which was obviously ‘electronically altered’ so that you could not see what was written on it – some pro-Hezbollah slogan, perhaps?

North also stated that he had an ‘unnamed photo expert’ who could back up what he was saying.

It turns out that the photo in question was a compressed jpg and no photo expert in the world would have an opinion about it, one way or another.

The full size version reveals that nothing was written on the t-shirt apart from a faded fashion label. The strange ‘logo’ was the folds in the man’s t-shirt.

I tried all afternoon to get Richard to tell me who this ‘photo expert’ was, or even some information about what type of organization he works for, how long he has been an ‘expert’ etc..

Richard refused to answer. He said white t-shirt man was a dead end which didn’t affect the crux of his argument. He claimed that he was provoking a debate about the reliability of the news media and that they are biased against Israel.

But getting things right does matter, expecially when you are questioning the reporting of photo journalists in a war zone.

North claimed that he used an ‘independent expert’ in his analysis. So who is he?

I think the ‘expert’ is a fiction.

What about blogs being believable, trustworthy, and all that stuff, Richard? Richard said:

I have no "credibility" to lose, because I do not hold myself up to offer the unvarnished truth.

He then claimed the whole thing was a ‘sting operation’, which I don’t think I really understand – but it sounds...like…fraud?

Yes, bloggers are indeed the purveyors of a tarnished truth. But I don’t think that is anything to boast about.

I have nothing against Richard personally, and some of the attacks on him in the British media have been ridiculous this week. He was also one of the first people to say something nice about the beatroot blog in the early days when I thought I was blogging to myself. And I am grateful for that kindness.

It is the bloggers role to pick the scabs, and even open a few wounds, on MSM news coverage. But if bloggers are reaching Richard’s ‘tipping point’ in our relationship with MSM then we had better try and retain the little credibility we have, and not go throwing it away by accusing war photographers of ‘staging’ events with evidence (and experts) that are beyond credibility.


Update

But Richard isn't finished yet about journalists doctoring photos. See here. He is also appearing on BBC 2's Newsnight programme tonight, 7, Aug.

After the Reuters freelance photographer has been caught doctoring at least two photos Richard is on a roll...See Where there's smoke, Daily Telegraph.

The photo on the left is the altered one (click on the photo to get a clearer view). You can see more smoke. But two things strike me about Adrian Hajj, the guy who took these.

Why did he bother risking his career for a small change to a photo that was powerful in the first place?

Secondly, why do the doctoring so badly? It was done with a tool called 'clone' which you can find on photoshop. It takes bits of the photo and you can place them anywhere. You can see repeated bits of smoke on the left hand side of the photo easily.

If you look closely then you can see that some of the buildings repeat themselves. That is an effect of the 'clone'. Not a very good attempt to fool the world. So why bother?

But it does show that when journalists get things wrong there are consequences. Not the same for bloggers.

But the obsession about bias reporting is not just confined to right wing blogs. Harry’s Place, the supposedly left wing ‘Euston manifesto’ blog has a post about ‘Reutersgate’ claiming that the photographer who photoshopped his images "was behind many of the images from Qana – which have also been the subject of suspicions for being staged."

That claim is false, as much else is at Harry’s Place. Adrian Hajj was at Qana but he was not the author of the contested photos of 'white t-shirt man'.

Free speech is a concept...

...that some don’t understand.

As Our man in Gdansk notes, being a journalist in the mainstream Polish media is becoming a hazardous business, in these dark days.

He says:

This time it's Mariusz Ziomecki, who called a League of Polish Families deputy a "babsztyl" (big fat aul' one) and a liar in a tabloid, and is now being investigated for "defaming a public functionary." The prosecutor's office called him in for questioning.

'Our man' wants to know what could possibly be the topic of discussions and enquiry – the comments are in the public realm already.

But what the prosecutor will want to know is the motive behind the comments. They are also using the occasion to intimidate journalists in the private sector into more self-censorship.

In the public sector media journalists are being asked to hand over lists of names that they use as commentators. If who ever is in charge – often a government functionary – doesn’t like some of the names on the list then they are banned from the airwaves.

The coalition government feels under siege from a media where they have few friends. It’s interesting to note that all the mainstream weekly titles – even the right wing conservative Wprost – are lining up to have a go at the government. It’s unprecedented in the western world that a government has no friends at all in the MSM.

For friendly coverage the government turns to religious crazies at the Radio Maryja media group who are only too pleased to use ministers for their own peculiar ends.

If I were the government I would drop the intimidation of journalists and try and make some meaningful contacts.

But, at the moment, with opinion polls showing that Law and Justice are retaining their support in the polls, I don’t think this is about to happen anytime soon.

Elephant sized riddle in Poland

Why has Krakow city hall asked Mittal Steel to pull a few strings and get them an elephant?

Following the death of Burma, the 40 year old Indian elephant who lived in Krakow zoo in July ( I know, sad), Krakow has appealed to the Indian steel giant to get them a new one.

"Everyone in the city is waiting for a new elephant, especially the children," Krystina Paluchowska, spokesperson for the local authority told Reuters. "It could take a long time if we don't get help…’

There are trade embargoes on exporting elephants, all sorts of bureaucracy, and there is a waiting list as long as your trunk.

But why has Krakow city hall picked on Mittal Steel to buy them an elephant? Wouldn’t a new steel plant with lots of lovely jobs be a better idea?

Well, no. Mittal Steel already have a steel plant in Krakow. Apparently Spokesperson Krystyna thinks that Mittal could ‘pull a few strings’ (tusks?) on their behalf.

Mittal, however, seemed unprepared for shock announcement and ‘has no immediate comment’. Hmm

Has Mittal been bounced into handing over an elephant? What will Krakow city council offer Mittal as gratuities in return for them asking the Indian government if they can ‘have an elephant, please'? Are top Mittal executives going to get free elephant rides around Krakow zoo with their very own personal Char Wallah?

Have we uncovered an elephantine sized uklad?

UK refuses extradition to Poland of Stalinist prosecutor

She’s very old, lives in Oxford, and claims that the extradition is part of an anti-Semitic witch hunt. (photo: the only one I can find, taken back in her Stalinist heyday)

Great Britain has refused to hand over 79 year old Helena Wolinska - on ‘humanitarian grounds’ - for trial in Poland for sentencing to death, among others, the hero of the Polish Home Army during WW II, Emil August Fieldorf, who was accused and sentenced in a one-day show trial and then executed in 1953 for ‘conspiring with the Nazis’.

Even the communists, as part of the Stalinist thaw of 1956, admitted that Wolinska presided over show trials and frequently broke the constitution with her judgments.

Wolinska, an Auschwitz survivor, ironically moved to Britain after the anti-Semitic ‘partisan’ communist purges of 1968.

She has said all along that the extradition charges, made in 1999, were because she was Jewish.

The daughter of her most famous victim, Maria Fieldorf, hasn’t helped to dispel this impression, unfortunately. She is reported as saying:

"Poland has said sorry to Jews too many times. Now it is their turn to apologise to Poland"…"The sad truth is that our secret services in the 1950s were dominated by Jews. They were disposed to Communism, perhaps it is genetic. All the people connected with the arrest and prosecution of my father were Jewish, and most of them went to Israel. Nobody says sorry to us, but nowadays we have to say sorry to Jews all the time."

Oh, dear.

Since she left Poland Wolinska has been leading an uneventful life married to Oxford University economist Wlodzimierz Brus.

Is it worth dragging someone to Poland for what they did 50 years ago, even if they have a personal history they would rather forget? Her record does look bad and it looks like she was acting in revenge when she was executing Polish Home Army fighters. But isn't this fixation with the past an excuse for not confidently facing the future? Does Poland spend too much time in its painful history?

More?
See The Three Lives of Helena Brus, by Ann Applebaum

Hang 'em, flog 'em

Capital punishment is back on the Polish political agenda.

Generally the public is very much in support of the death penalty, it is the politicians and other bodies who oppose it. I am quite sure that it will be difficult to reintroduce death penalty but someone has to start work in this direction.

Those are the words of the far-right League of Polish Families, MEP Maciej Giertych, who is launching a campaign to reinstate the death penalty. He’s going to get half a million people to sign a petition demanding a referendum on the subject.

President Lech Kaczynski said last week that the EU should debate reinstating execution EU-wide.

EU establishment’s jaw hits its boots.

Giertych wants to start with the most outrageous killers – predatory pedophiles who murder children.

“The public is afraid of such criminals after they are released from prison.'

Poland formally gave up capital punishment in the late nineties. But nobody had been executed since 1988.

Donald Tusk, Leader of Opposition Civic Platform, a party that tries to appeal to the more ‘liberal’ voter, said that:

“Everyone would be willing to do away with a freak who kills children but on one condition - everyone has to be aware of the repercussions of the reinstatement of capital punishment in Poland. One of the most important for the millions of Poles would be the weakening of this country's position in the EU or even the exclusion from the most vital membership rights.'

One of the conditions of entering the EU is giving up the death penalty.

As usual with Civic Platform this is rather feeble opposition. The only argument they can come up with against capital punishment is that ‘Brussels won’t like it’.

If Tusk wants to oppose capital punishment then he is going to have to make some rational and coherent moral and judicial arguments why capital punishment will not make children any safer from pedophiles, nor will it make Poland a lovelier, happier, place to live.

But why now?
This might be about the EU, sovereignty, but all politics is local. By jumping on the momentum of Kaczynski’s remark, the League’s petition campaign is an attempt to give it some distance from its senior government coalition partner, Law and Justice (PiS). This could well be about pressing the right populist buttons to reinforce the electoral base.

PiS, who in opposition in 2004 tried to get a reinstatement of the death penalty (and lost by four votes!) and will make noises about reinstating it when in government, are still wary of the huge international consequences if they tried

The League couldn’t care less.

Commentator Oskar Chomicki told Radio Polonia:

'The League of Polish Families wants to be recognized as a separate political entity versus the ruling Law and Justice. It is a local issue but it also has some international repercussions.'

League of Polish Families is hovering around 5% in the opinion polls, barely enough to get them members of parliament in an election or many councilors in the local elections later this year.

It’s time to play the hang ‘em, flog ‘em’ card.

The Polish - UK migration backlash gains momentum

A campaign by UK’s Daily Mail attempts to highlight the downside of Polish migration. And 'liberal' Guardian journo is a racist twat.

The conservative, middle class Mail - which for as long as I remember has been carrying scare stories about waves, floods and other liquid metaphors of migrants swamping Britain - printed a story last week claiming Polish children were being dumped in orphanages in Poland so that parents could skip off to London for a good time and a decently paid job.

‘Hundreds of children, some younger than two, are being abandoned in Poland by parents chasing dreams of a new life in Britain, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The terrible legacy of the mass migration encouraged by Tony Blair's open door to job-seekers from former Eastern bloc states joining the European Union can be disclosed for the first time today.‘

Shock, horror, gasp! The paper rumbles on:

‘Even more tragically, some youngsters have killed themselves after being left with elderly relatives - while others have turned to drugs and crime when they were abandoned by their migrant mothers and fathers.‘

The Mail admits that nobody knows how many kids are being put in these homes (though it seems to feel confident that there are ‘hundreds' of them, all the same) but quotes a few experts to back up the story.

‘Beata Rostocka, a social services manager in Wroclaw, said she despairs of this harrowing trend. "We often get phone calls from mothers and fathers saying they are going to the UK or Ireland to work and asking if we can provide for their children's safe-keeping," she said. "It leaves me aghast."

Aghast! Gazeta Wyborcza has been running similar stories, quoting some of the same ‘experts’.

Then on Sunday the Daily Mail ran another story of a secret British government report which concludes that the UK will soon be overrun (swamped, flooded?) by eastern and central Europeans.

Around 600,000 Poles have gone to Britain to work since the EU’s expansion two years ago, says the paper. The Mail is arguing that further expansion next year, when Romania and Bulgaria are set to join, will tip the balance.

Not just conservatives...

But if you think that it is only conservative right wing British who fear the ‘Polish plumber’ then look at this little piece of doggy turd in the Guardian, the newspaper of choice for British liberal, environmentalist tree huggers. The first sentences written by journalist Simon Burnton about how the Brits work too hard go like this:

‘We work too hard [meaning: 'boo hoo, I want mummy and my therapist']. More than any nation in Europe, British lives are wasted in offices, leaving only a couple of waking hours each day for us to call free, even if they are spent on journeys to and from the workplace, frequently with one's nose pressed into the unwashed underarm of someone speaking Polish...’

If you substituted the word ‘Polish’ in that sentence for ‘African’ then Guardian readers would be screaming ‘racist’. But, alas, PC seems to cover every ethnicity these days except the white working class, and those from central and eastern Europe.

Kaczynski twins on the Jon Stewart Show

Poland’s international PR problem gets ever worse.

See clip of the show on Chris Borowski's Traveling Life blog.

See also Troublesome Twins by Andrew Nagorski in Newsweek.

That’s it from me for a couple of weeks. I’m going on a bit of a Balkans Odyssey so I will have plenty of stories when I get back.

While I am away check our Edward Lucas, Polish Outlook, Our man in Gdansk and the truly extraordinary Being had.

I’ll leave a couple of postcards on P3.

Do zobaczenia

Jacek the Ripper?

The Ripper was a Polish Jew. That was the opinion of the head of the investigation into the Whitechapel murders in 1888, according to ‘evidence’ released today.

Handwritten notes by Chief Inspector Donald Sutherland Swanson, just put in the Crime Museum at Scotland Yard, identify Aaron Kosminski as the man who butchered at least five women in the one of the most infamous unsolved cases of all time.

This is Local London reports:

‘JACK The Ripper was a Polish immigrant who died aged 54 in a Hertfordshire mental asylum - 31 years after he terrorised the dark streets of east London.

Mr Swanson wrote in the margins of the memoirs of the retired assistant commissioner Robert Anderson, "The Lighter Side of My Official Life", that the killings stopped after Kosminski realised detectives had identified him as the prime suspect.

Kosminski, who worked as a barber after arriving in London in 1882, was never interviewed because he was insane.

The only eyewitness to The Ripper murders was alleged to have identified Kosminski in an identity parade at a Metropolitan Police convalescent home in Brighton.
But Swanson wrote that the witness refused to testify against Kosminski because they were both Jewish.’

Aha! Another Jewish conspiracy theory.

Kosminski has always been identified as one of the numerous suspects of the grizzly murders. But many feel that the guy was only included in the list due to the wide spread anti-Semitism in London at the time.

But it still hasn’t stopped local journalists, apparently, from rehashing the story.

In fact many of the suspects were Polish Jews. Apart from Kosminski there were:

David Cohen (1865–1889). A Polish Jew whose incarceration at Colney Hatch asylum roughly coincided with the end of the murders.

John Pizer (1850-1897). Pizer was a Polish Jew who worked as a bootmaker in Whitechapel.

According to the great casebook.org, widespread social unrest in the East End of Victorian London led to:

‘...the belief that this “rising tide of Jewish immigration was reducing native Englishmen to destitution [and this] led to an increase in popular anti-Semitism”.

This anti-Semitism found its expression in a deliberate attempt to connect the Jews with the Whitechapel murders.'

Jack the Ripper, who ever he was (and who really cares?) was of more use as an anonymous monster than as someone who could be identified.

Much like today’s terrorists it is comforting, perhaps, to think of them as from an alien culture ‘over there’ – as a threat from outside.

Which is why it was such a horrible shock for Londoners to discover that the 7/7 bombers were not from ‘over there’ at all, but seemingly normal British Asians who played cricket at the weekends and plotted their weird trip to London on a white water rafting trip in Yorkshire.

For what it is worth, one of the most promising suspects was actually a Catholic Pole, Seweryn Antonowicz Kłosowski. A trained doctor from Warsaw medical school, he took the English alias George Chapman when he came to London from Nargornak in 1887.

He was convicted of murdering three women, including his wife. So, undoubtedly a very nasty man indeed who had all the skills to do the darstedly deeds.

But there again, Polish Catholics can make convenient folk-devils, too.

The Kaczynskis: Poland’s answer to the brothers that ruled all that they could see...

...but it ended in the death of one of them.

Romulus (the founder of Rome) would slay Remus over a dispute about which one of the two brothers had the support of the local gods to rule the new city and give it his name.

One day, when Romulus and Remus arrived at Palatine Hill the two argued over where the exact position of the future city should be.

Romulus was set on building the city upon Palatine Hill, but Remus wanted to build the city on the strategic and easily fortified Aventine Hill.

The two agreed to settle their argument by testing their abilities by the will of the gods.

Each took a seat on the ground apart from one another. Remus had a vision of six vultures (which were considered to be sacred to Mars, their father), while Romulus saw twelve!

Remus was enraged by Romulus’s victory, and as the victor began digging a trench where the city's wall would eventually be (753 BC) Remus ridiculed some parts of the work and obstructed others.

At last, Remus could stand it no longer and leaped across the trench his brother had dug (an omen of bad luck) and a fight to the death began.

But Romulus was stronger and killed his brother there and then.

Romulus named the city Rome after himself, and served as its first king along with the Senate.

As he grew older, however, Romulus bored of democracy and ruled alone as a dictator.

One day, when Romulus and all the people of Rome had gone to Campus Martius, a sudden storm arose. The darkness became so great that the people fled in terror.

When the storm was over, the Romans returned. But to their surprise, Romulus had disappeared, forever.

Which of the Kaczynski brothers, Lech or Jaroslaw, is Romulus? Who will see the greater number of vultures?

Update, Friday: Lech Walesa, one time ally of the Kaczynski twins, was on television this morning saying: “Yeah, the Kaczynskis are used to fighting – they spent the first few months of their lives fighting for their mother’s tit!'

He always did have a way with words, did our Lech.

Miss World 2006 in Poland: beauty with a purpose!

The Miss Word contest, to be held in Warsaw this September, will solve Poland’s unemployment problem, apparently (photo: Lucky Aneta Kręglicka, Poland’s only winner of Miss World, 1989 – obviously a political vote in the year of the Round Table).

You thought it was just a ‘bit of fun’, didn’t you? You thought it was about ladies in swim suits and evening wear who, when interviewed by some MC, declare that after the contest they want to, ‘do lots and lots of work [giggle, giggle, gurgle] for charity!’

You thought it was just a load of boobs, legs and hairspray.

But no. The Miss World contest, to be held in Warsaw on September 30, has a social purpose. Course it does. It’s going to solve the 16% unemployment problem all by itself. And more!

Radio Polonia:

Miss World finals to be held in Warsaw will generate 20,000 jobs, 16 million zloty (or 4 million euro) in additional budget revenue and will ensure the development of the tourist sector for the coming years.

Radio Polonia doesn’t say where these 20,000 jobs will come from. We can only surmise.

150 hair dressers...

...er...I give up: where are they coming from?

‘Miss World 2006 Contest, the event that grabs the attention of millions of people worldwide, will take place in Warsaw, Poland. This is a great success and a wonderful opportunity for our country – said Elżbieta Wierzbicka, the President of the Contest Commission, President of the Miss Polonia Office.’

That’s from the Warsaw City Hall web site.

‘Apart from the most important event of the Miss World 2006 Contest, which is the final ceremony itself, Warsaw will also organize four accompanying events, including a solemn opening gala.’

Solemn? What are they talking about? The web site gushes that the decision...

'...is a clear message basically to every country in the world that Poland and Warsaw are able to organize events of a top, world-class level’ – said Tadeusz Deszkiewicz, Head of the Office of Promotion of the Capital City of Warsaw.

Blimey! And I thought it was about which girl has the nicest tits! But there is the money angle:

It is obvious that the local authorities see the Contest as a huge promotional opportunity which, if used properly, may bring material benefits for the cities, their regions and citizens.

Ah, I see. Warsaw residents will benefit enormously. Can’t wait!

The Warsaw Voice, which never misses an opportunity to ‘promote’ the capital, oozes:

The competition will be broadcast by 200 TV stations from across the world. Apart from Olympic Games and soccer championships, the Miss World finals is the event that arouses the greatest amount of interest around the world. Dozens of Polish Internet forums are already full of enthusiastic comments.

Are they? I don’t think so. The Miss World Contest was in its hayday over thirty years ago. Since then the main TV channels in countries like the UK have dropped the live broadcast for the same reasons that they dropped the Benny Hill Show in the 1980s.

It’s a boring event watched only by men with a very, very small...circle of freinds.

Trivia: In the 1980s, to counter outrageous accusations that the whole contest was a sexist load of bull, the organizers added a personality and intelligence test!!!

Question: Why is the winner of the rival Miss Universe contest always from Planet Earth?

Answers on a post card to the usual address.

Tensions in Polish foreign ministry over German potato jibe?

Warsaw’s ambassador in Berlin admits that President Kaczynski has gone over the top by demanding an apology from the German government.

FT.com:

Speaking in a Financial Times interview in Berlin, ambassador Andrzej Byrt (above) said Warsaw’s reaction to a controversial satirical article [see here and here] in a German newspaper in which the Polish president was compared to a potato had been “too emotional”…

The German government has cited the principles of press freedom and says it would be inappropriate for it to apologize.

Ambassador Byrt then repeats what many think about the PiS government: that they are naïve about, and disinterested in, foreign affairs.

“There is an over-sensitivity in Poland, because many new politicians hardly know foreign countries. They believe they control foreign reactions [to events in Poland] in the same way they do in Poland itself. To do this with foreign partners is perhaps not very sensible”.

Strong stuff. That such a high ranking Polish official should admit that calls for the German government to apologize are a little ‘emotional’ shows some disquiet over the antics of the Kaczynskis administration within the administration itself.

We also know that if you break from the official government line here then you won’t keep your job very long.

So what gave Ambassador Byrt the balls to say such a thing at such a delicate period in Polish - German relations?

Well, Byrt is scheduled to end his term as Poland’s Ambassador in Berlin at the end of this month.

Aha!

Was John Paul II a Marxist?

Er...no! But a little known work by Karol Wojtyla confirms that the neo-con view that he was a champion of unfettered capitalism always was a bit of a fantasy.

The Zycie Warszawy newspaper is accusing the John Paul II Institute in Lublin, south east Poland, of attempting to “censor the pope” by withholding a text written in 1953/4 - Katolicka Etyka Spoleczna (Catholic Social Ethics) - from the late Pope’s Polish beatification tribunal, which ended April 1 after just five months’ work.

In the text, Wojtyla traces communism back to Christian tradition. One section is subtitled, “The Objective Superiority of the Communist Ideal.” In it he says:

“In line with patristic traditions and the centuries-old practice of monastic life, the church itself acknowledges the ideal of communism. But it believes, given the current state of human nature, that the general implementation of this ideal -- while protecting the human person’s complete freedom -- faces insurmountable difficulties.”

“Class struggle should gain strength in proportion to the resistance it faces from economically privileged classes, so the systemic social situation will mature under this pressure to the appropriate forms and transitions.”

….….The church is aware that the bourgeois mentality and capitalism as a whole, with its materialist spirit, acutely contradict the Gospel.”

According to respected religious correspondent, Johnathan Luxmoore, who worked in Warsaw for ten years and broke the story of the ‘forgotten text’ last January:

‘The text contradicts views promoted by neoconservative thinkers who depict the pontiff as a lifelong fan of U.S.- style liberal capitalism. It also raises questions of why, when every detail of Wojtyla’s life has been combed over by researchers and biographers, mention of this 511-page work has apparently been avoided.

[The text] shows Wojtyla had acquired by his early 30s a sophisticated knowledge of Marxism and an empathy with its critique of capitalist injustices. It shows he had already rejected both “socialist totalism” and “individualistic liberalism” as prerequisites for a well-organized society.’

When communism ended in 1989 in Poland, the Pope was hoping for a ‘third way’ between capitalism and what went before. According to Michael L. Budde in A Church Divided:

“John Paul’s concerns with economic justice are deep and important. He seeks to put the Church on the side of the have-nots of the world economy, and he says that the rich North will be judged by the poor South for its “imperialistic monopoly of economic and political supremacy [gained] at the expense of others...'

And this is crucial if you want to understand the Polish government today. Like Pope John Paul II, the Law and Justice party, and the minor coalition member, League of Polish Families, are social conservatives. But on economic matters they have a deep distrust of the free market.

Marcin Krol, Rector of Warsaw University sums up:

'The debate the Pope began on the relationship between the free market and moral problems remains unfinished. Eliminating the abuses that accompany capitalism and harnessing it for the benefit of society and human morals still needs to be tackled. John Paul II had the courage to raise the fundamental questions that needed asking.'

JP II was a lethal enemy of atheist communism but he was no fan of free market capitalism either. And the 'forgotten text' which has led to much debate in the Polish media shows he had a knowledge of the works of Marx that will suprise many a neo-con.

His name is Jaroslaw and he has a grip of iron

Wprost jokes on the new head of government’s control freakery…

Q: Why doesn’t the new Prime Minister,Jaroslaw Kaczynski, ever wear a watch?

A: Because he’s the guy in Poland who decides what time it is.

Finally some sanity coming out of Warsaw

An Iranian news agency reports that the Polish government thinks any US military action against Tehran is ‘unlikely’.

When the UK’s then foreign minister, Jack Straw, said in May that a US military strike against Iran would be ‘completly nuts’ many agreed with him. And then what happened to poor old Jack?

Tony Blair promptly gave him the sack.

Well, the Polish government is giving the same advice to the US – don’t even think about it.

The Iranian Fars news agency reports:

Mr. [Stanislaw] Koziej [under secretary of defense] said the experiences in Iraq, which greatly divided Europe, did not make it easy for the world to react in Iran. "I personally believe that military intervention in Iran is improbable," Mr. Koziej said. "So we should get used to the fact that we will have to deal with Iran as an established nuclear state."

Poland has been falling over itself to appear the US’s keenest ally in Europe in the ‘war on terror’ and other abstract nouns. But Iran would be a step too far for the Polish voter, who is already decidedly unimpressed with the disastrous war in Iraq. In fact, Poles were not too keen on the invasion in the first place.

Fars goes on:

In a separate interview, the undersecretary at the ministry of foreign affairs, Witold Waszczykowski, said it was vital to keep the US engaged. "We think that the American flag is waving in Warsaw above the roof of the American embassy and this is the only place you can find the American flag - it's a bizarre situation because in such a friendly country … [the US] is supposed to be much more visible," Mr. Waszczykowski said.

Mr. Koziej said public opinion in Poland did not support the country's presence in Iraq, the war having claimed the lives of at least 17 Polish soldiers.

So the US’s best friend in central Europe is gently telling Washington: ‘don’t bomb Tehran, as we will find it difficult to support you.’

Good advice, fellas. Keep it up. It might become a habit!

Poles get double vision

Update: Sixty percent of Poles think that having the brothers in the top two government jobs is bad for the country, according to PBS

And so it came to pass: the Kaczyński brothers double act that they promised last year would never happen, just happened.

Rzepa quotes Jaroslaw Kaczynski: ‘We decided to take the risk and have a Prime Minister and President who are brothers.'

Opinion polls have been pretty consistent. Poles would rather not have identical twins who not only shared the same egg but also share the same political outlook in the two top jobs.

So why take the 'risk' in the first place?

Jaroslaw Kaczynski said at a press conference yesterday that the now ex-prime minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz’s talents were needed to secure a win in the mayor of Warsaw vote this autumn.

Marcinkiewicz is easily Poland’s most popular politician with support that crosses the party political divide. The formal explanation for the sudden resignation is that Marcinkiewicz is to be groomed for the post of president of Poland sometime in the future. But others see different reasons behind the move.

The riff between Marcinkiewicz and the Kaczynskis must have got rather significant over the last few months. Marcinkiewicz is obviously his own man, appointing Pawel Wojciechowski as the new finance minister without asking permission from Jarolsaw, the real power behind the government.

And it looks like the first thing Jaroslaw will do now that he is prime minister is give poor old Pawel the boot and get someone else to head the finance ministry.

The weirdest part of all this is that the government is making Andrzej Lepper look like one of the most reasonable men in the cabinet! He has been on the TV lots sounding like the ‘honest broker’ between the different factions within the government.

His party, Samoobrona and the far-right LPR are now in a position to push for more say in what will effectively be another new government. They will threaten not to vote for Jarolsaw unless they get more concessions out of him. This will include demands for more social spending in the 2007 budget.

The ‘liberal-conservative’ opposition Civic Platform has predicted a drift into even more extremist policies now that the Kaczynski twins will be running the legislative and the executive.

But Platform’s bleating sounds rather lame. It was they, after all, who voted against the possibility of a general election earlier this year when Law and Justice could not manage to form a coalition.

What Poland needs more than anything is a period of political calm and stability. But that, sadly, is just wishful thinking.

The long hot Polish political summer continues.

A chip on his shoulder?

What’s so bad about being called a potato?

So the President of Poland doesn’t like being called a kartoffel by German journalists, huh?

Reporters Without Borders is as outraged as this blog that someone should get upset about being called a harmless vegetable.

Reporters Without Borders denounced today as “disgraceful” the Polish government’s “over-reaction” in demanding that Germany apologise for a German newspaper article making fun of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his brother.

From one root vegetable to another – rejoice, Mr. President! It could have been worse. They could have called you a burak!


Vegetables of the world unite!

Polish Prime Minister resigns

Nobody seems to knows why but it looks bad news for PiS. (photo: Marcinkiewicz with opposition leader, Donald Tusk – a new alliance?)

Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz has left the government. Either he resigned – as he says he has – or he was sacked, as the government appears to be claiming, Friday evening.

Watching the TV news now, the announcement – which government spokesmen made this evening – has clearly taken the government by surprise. In fact, I can say that this has caused havoc among the, possibly, ex- PM’s ex-party, the ruling Law and Juctice (PiS). No prepared press statements by either side, just a scrum of reporters chasing quotes.

The speculators are speculating on the news programs but we’ll know more facts tomorrow when the government will make a statement. But it seems likely that Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin of President Lech, will take over as PM.

One rumor is that Marcinkiewicz has resigned to fight the mayor of Warsaw elections, which PiS do not have a decent candidate for.

The latest opinion polls show PiS in a two point lead with 29% over Civic Platform, so maybe they can afford a few changes?.

But this seems unbelievable. If that was the case then the news would have been stage managed, planned to get the best publicity. Breaking news on a Friday evening, when the media is winding down for the weekend, is rather unusual.

Others say that this has been on the cards for months.

Few had heard of Marcinkiewicz when he was given the post of Prime Minister after last fall's election. He was given the position because the opinion polls were clear that Poles did not like the prospect of having identical twins in both president and PM roles.

Well, it looks like they are going to get them now.

PiS have the problem that Marcinkiewicz was their most popular politician. With an approval rating of around 65%, Marcinkiewicz is the most popular politician in Poland by miles!

Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his brother Lech, have seen their ratings fall since the election quite dramatically.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski was also said to be a bit upset that Marcinkiewicz did not consult him before appointing Pawel Wojciechowski as finance minister after the resignation two weeks ago of Zyta Gilowska.

Marcinkiewicz was their best asset. But he always was a duck out of water in PiS. His economics are free market, while the Kaczynskis are more statist.

One thing is for sure: it seems everyone has been suprised that this has come now. Except, maybe, for Marcinkiewicz. And Tusk? Is it crisis management down at PiS headquarters this weekend?

More?
Polish government starts process of self destruction as the prime minister resigns, Polish Outlook, July 8

MSM and the ‘citizen journalist’

Bloggers writing about blogging is dull – but people – both bloggers and non-bloggers - get confused about the difference between journalism and blogging.

I have been blogging for over a year now. It’s a hobby much like long-distance running. I have done both. Both get addictive. Both demand that you do it, in some form, virtually everyday. Both need commitment. Both demand that you are in it for the long run.

I do it cause I like it. I do it when I get home from work and sometimes very late at night.

I have always written copious amounts of stuff about all sorts of things. Much of the time I get paid for it. But I used to fill up notebooks full of stuff just for my own amusement, as well.

And then blogs came along and it seemed only natural to write and publish stuff on that. The freedom of expression is total and you can indulge yourself. The blogger is the boss of his blog. No outside pressures.

Contrast that with getting something published in what the blog community calls ‘the mainstream media’ (MSM).

The content of what you write about, and the subjects you write about, are mediated by several ‘filters’. The owner, the editor, the advertisers, consumers. There is also the most powerful self-constraint of all: self-censorship. You know how far you can go, you need to try and be objective, you try and be ethical, you need to fact check, you are careful for reasons of professional self preservation.

I get many emails from people. One recently said very nice things about the blog and said that it helped him keep up to date with the country that his family is from (I think he is from the US).

I wrote back saying thank you but warning him that if the beatroot was the his only source of news about Poland then he would be getting a partial picture of the country.

I always meticulously put links from where I get information from, in English, so that everyone can be involved and can see I am not just making facts up.

But the subjects on this blog are ones that are of interest to me. That’s the only editorial consideration. If others find them interesting (or annoying) then so much the better!

But when bloggers claim that they are ‘citizen journalists’ – an expression I do not like – they forget that, fundamentally, blogging and journalism are very different things. Bloggers go through none of the ‘filters’ that journalists working in MSM do.

And I think it is wise that readers of blogs and writers of blogs remember that.

General Franco – Polish hero?

A bit of a fuss at the EU parliament as far-right MEP Maciej Giertych praises Spanish dictator.

Yes, you did read that right. During a parliamentary debate in Strasburg on how nasty General Franco was (?) Maciej Giertych, far right father of far right education minister Roman Giertych, said he longed for the days of strong men ruling Europe with an iron first. Quoted in EU Observer, he said:

'The presence of such personalities as Franco, Salazar or DeValera in European politics guaranteed Europe's perseverance of traditional values. We lack such men of action these days.'

Yeah, I’ve read about it in the history books. Goose stepping in long shinny boots; when men were men and Bavarian sheep got nervous? That kind of thing?

Giertych told an opened mouthed EU parliament:

‘We observe in deep sorrow some attempts of historical revisionism which tends to criticize all that is traditional and Catholic while portraying in a positive light all that is lay and socialist.’

Oh, I see. He supports Franco because he ‘kept the commies at bay’ - that kind of argument. Like the one they use to justify Augusto Pinochet?

And then I lose Giertych’s argument completely:

‘Let's not forget that Nazism in Germany and fascism in Italy were also spiced up by socialist and atheist taste.’

Er...what?

German socialist leader Martin Schulz wasn’t having that:

‘What we have just heard is Mr Franco's ghost. It was a fascist speech and such a statement has no place in the European Parliament,’

Schultz then started shouting “You Nazis” at protesting rightist Polish MEPs.

All in a days fun, these days, down at the EU parliament.

The culture war in Europe continues...

Iran to stage Slawomir Mrozek play

Iranian director Mohammadreza Khaki plans to stage The Portrait at Tehran’s City Theater.

Opening night for Mrozek’s play is July 23. The director has been trying to put on the play by one of Poland’s best contemporary writers for ages, apparently.

“The play has a realistic structure. In fact, it is a fantasy which gradually turns into a realistic story,” says Mohammadreza Khaki.

All sounds a bit dull. Why have the Iranian authorities been slow to grant permission for The Portrait, then?

Maybe because the play – very much in Mrozek’s Theatre of the Absurd style - is, according to critic, Jacek Sieradzki, about two characters:

‘…Bartodziej prays to a portrait of Stalin, appearing to be a "child of the idol, one who seeks meaning and life fulfillment in ideology. Bartodziej is burdened by guilt and strives to impose order on his inner chaos by finding a punishment that would fuse his life into a sensible whole. But a second protagonist, Anatol, just released from prison where he was sent after being betrayed by Bartodziej, also turns out to be a "child of Stalin."

Jan Blonski wrote:

‘Both Bartodziej and Anatol are worthless people. And this renders them capable of serving a false idol, one capable of turning these weaklings into heroes - at least in their own eyes.’

Now I get why it will be a great play to put on in Tehran. Dictatorship, false idols, weaklings who think they are heroes...

Sound familiar?

President Kaczynski runs for cover...updated

...and calls off Weimar Triangle 15th anniversary celebrations after suffering mysterious illness.

‘The Weimar what?’, I hear you cry. It’s an informal alliance first formed between France, Germany and Poland back in 1991. It’s really a series of summits where leaders sit around and talk about stuff.

The celebrations for this ‘triangle’ were complete in the town of Weimar, where the first talking shop took place. And then, with French and German bags packed and ready to go, President Kaczynski, right at the last moment, says he can't come! ‘Due to an illness’ the presidential palace announced but without filling in the details.

And then it emerges that the president has an extreme case of Belwederska Belly, which he picked up at the weekend.

Still, cynics will be cynical: this is a president who is not really into foreign affairs. He doesn’t like traveling abroad. Not really interested.

And France and Germany can’t be his favourite countries. Some Poles still haven’t got over Jacques Chirac’s remark after Poland supported the US position before the Iraq war. He said, rather patronizingly:

"It is not well-brought-up behaviour. They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet,"

So President Kaczynski might well prefer sitting on the can all day with Chirac’s Revenge than he would spending a day sitting around having to indulge in diplomacy small talk on a pleasantly sunny afternoon.

Update Tuesday morning:
The talk now surrounds an insulting article in a newspaper printed in Berlin at the weekend about the Kaczynski brothers, which many are speculating led to the presidents ‘diplomatic illness’.

The article does seem rather childish: it refers to the diminutive height of the two twins, calls them ‘a couple of potatoes’ and says something nasty about their mother.

Now here’s the weird bit: the article was put, in full, onto the Polish Foreign Minsitry web site! The person that did that was the director of the web site, Pawel Dobrawolski, someone who has long experience as foreign spokesman for the various right wing governments here – and someone I have spoken to many times and is a very nice, helpful guy.

Dobrawolski has now been given the sack.

But did the German ‘potatoes’ give President Kaczynski his ‘bad stomach’?

The plot thickens.

FEAR - Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz...

...is the latest work by Jan Gross, the historian/sociologist who scandalized Poland five years ago with his book about the Jedwabne massacre.

Well, it looks like he will ruffle a few feathers again with his new book about the Kielce pogrom of 1946.

I haven’t read FEAR yet so I can’t review it.

But here it’s reviewed by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel for the Washington Post.

Basically, the now almost conventional view here of the Kielce pogrom was that this was a ‘provocation’ by communist secret services, etc. Much of the violence, goes this view, was done by the communist authorities themselves.

What I gather Jan Gross is saying is that the political situation in Poland made ordinary Poles believe that Jews sided with the communists – many communists were Jews, in fact.

So when a kid (Henryk) claimed that he had been abducted by Jews (he hadn’t – he had just gone to see his friends for a few days!) he was readily believed.

And that’s when the ordinary Poles went into a frenzy of killing, which ended with scores of Jews dead.

What was left of the Jewish population after the war thinned out still further, leaving only a few thousand left (and most of those left in 1968).

What is for sure is that Jan Gross (one of those who left in 1968) will again become a bit of a hate figure here for dragging up an uncomfortable past once more.

On a similar theme please see the last three comments - started by 'yulia' at the end of the post here.

More?
Elie Wiesel Accuses Poland - commentary by Adam Michnik, gazeta.pl
Excerpt: From "Fear" - Washington Post
Remembering Kielce, Jerusalem Post, July 2
Poland marks 60th anniversary of Kielce pogrom against Jews, European Jewish Press, July 3
Poland Prepares to Mark Pogrom Anniversary, Los Angeles Times, July 3

Beatroot launches the Polish Pro Corruption Party (PPCP)!

Samoobrona lawmaker (law breaker) Renata Beger, has been convicted of falsifying her electoral sponsorship list.

She made up 1700 names out of thin air, apparently. The signatures were hand written, so she must have been up all night, poor love.

She has received a two year suspended sentence for her trouble.

All rather embarrassing for her party, Samoobrona, which has led the crusade against political corruption.

Renata first came to attention when she was on the special parliamentary commission looking into the ‘Rywingate affair’, a tale of high corruption during the previous SLD government.

In an interview to a woman’s magazine at the time, she confessed to finding her boss, Adnrzej Lepper a bit sexy (?) but also admitting that she was a very amorous person herself, saying that she had ‘kurwiki in her eyes’ – an extraordinary expression which could be translated as ‘the look of a prostitute in her eyes’.

Gulp!

But dear Renata has inspired this blog to start its own political party – the Polish Pro Corruption Party (PPCP). Renata can be our president (if she promises not to give me any of that kurwiki nonsense!).

The PPCP will stand in the next Euro elections. We think Brussels is not corrupt enough and could learn a few tricks from Poland.

PPCP doesn’t mind if we haven’t got any support as we’ll just make up our signatures anyway.

We welcome backhanders and back scratching. Our accountant will bribe himself to falsify the accounts.

Our election slogan will be: VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN!!!

How unemployed is Poland?

Official figures say it’s just over 16.5 percent. But things are a bit more complicated than a simple statistic.

The figures only record those who are registered unemployed. But since benefits can only be drawn for six months – that leaves the numbers of the unrecorded unemployed much higher than 16 percent.

Or does it?

Unemployment grew rapidly after the changes in 1989. In 1990 around 6 percent were recorded out of work. By 1994 that figure had risen to 16 percent. The rate dipped down again to under 10 percent in 1998, only to rise steadily again thereafter. This year has seen a slight decrease.

Youth unemployment is around a massive forty percent.

One of the most notable features of Poland’s economy is that GDP growth has been around 5 percent for a long time now but the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high – the highest in the EU.

One answer could be that the productivity rate of each worker has gone up significantly. Which is good.

But it also could be that many of the unemployed either do not want jobs that are offered to them or that employers can’t find the right type of staff with the appropriate skills.

Good piece – as always – in Polish Outlook about unemployment this week:

In the city of Slupsk the unemployment rate is approximately 30%. A car repair shop needs to employ eight workers. It offers a monthly pay of 2000 zloty which is much higher than the 800 to 1000 zloty offered to people by many of the large retailers. They have been unable to fulfill the positions for some time. It is reported that they believe that people have registered as unemployed [in the town] but are working illegally and are not interested in taking on another job.

Outlook also says that some employers are wary of employing younger workers as most only stay in the position for half a year and then leave for larger cities or go abroad to London or Dublin and get work there.

Conclusions we can draw, I suppose, are these:

• there are significant skills shortages in certain areas of the economy.
• the labor code is not flexible enough to deliver the right workers to suitable jobs
• the population is not geographically mobile enough to fill jobs in certain areas
• many are long term unemployed and have become unemployable
• many are working in the black economy

Of course, the more people working 'on the black' in an economy the less tax they pay, starving the government further of funds to do something about unemployment. But at least they have some income to pay VAT!

The government made a pledge during last year’s election that solving the unemployment problem would be a priority. This means that they have to maintain high growth and increase the amount of skills in the workforce to meet the changing nature of the economy.

But they also have to grasp the nettle and change the labor code, which, at the moment, discourages employers taking on new staff. It is very hard to sack someone for incompetence, for instance. They also need to make it cheaper for employers to take on new workers.

Unfortunately, changing the labor code and lowering taxes on businesses will be resisted by much of the coalition, who are old style protectionists and what Andrzej Lepper mysteriously calls ‘social liberals’ (/).

And that’s a shame. Unemployment is one of Poland’s biggest problems. If they don’t solve it soon then more and more young people will just pack their bags and head for the UK, Ireland, Spain...even Finland!!!