Fritzl, Austrians and ...Radio Maryja?

The shocking, disgusting and incomprehensibly cruel case of the Austrian ‘children in the cellar’ has made some commentators look for sociological causes, in some unlikely places, for what is really the individual act of a psychopath. Even Poland’s cranky, ultra-conservative anti-Semites at Radio Maryja have been dragged into the increasingly wild comment-fest.

Many commentators have tried to explain, what I believe is almost the unexplainable, by trying to find something buried deep within small town Austrian culture. And they seem to be finding it in a place even colder and darker than the cellar under Josef Fritzl’s house in Amstetten.

The locals knew something, didn't they? So why did they look away, pretend it wasn’t happening?

Apparently, it’s all to do with Austria’s anti-Semitic past. Yup! Of course it is. But not only Austria's dark past. Look at this bit from Howard Jacobson’s column in the Independent (UK).

As chance would have it – let's call it chance, anyway – the unremarkable provincial Austrian town of Amstetten has looked away before. There was a concentration camp in Amstetten. Not a big one. Just a sub-camp of Mauthausen, of which there were approximately 50 dotted around lower and upper Austria. Since Mauthausen's speciality was extermination by means of slave labour, in particular the extermination of politically educated and vocal enemies of the Reich, we might fairly assume that Amstetten's speciality was the same. It is also worth noting that Amstetten was a camp for women.

Whether it is equally worth noting that the Polish Catholic radio station Radio Maryja [my italics] – a continual embarrassment to the Vatican on account of its nationalistic and anti-Semitic utterances – has opened several bases in the Austrian Tyrol, the first of them in Amstetten, I don't know…

Well, if he doesn’t know whether it was worth pointing that out - and I would argue that it was ridiculous to point that out in the context of this story - then why bother in the first place?

It says here (under religious antisemitism) that the founder of Radio Maryja, the anti-Semite Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, decided in 1999 to expand his operations in the Tyrol region, adding to the base already set up in Amstetten, the town where the disgusting Fritzl imprisoned his daughter and children.

That said, the small town of Amstetten (eastern Austria) is not in the Tyrol region, which is in the west of Austria, as is the district of Amstetten - which is a different place. Could this be a mix up with Radio Maria International (which Rydzyk did have an involvment with back in the 1980s in Bavaria) which does have a place in Amstetten?

Whatever. What has that got to do with this case? Where is there evidence that any lingering anti-Semitism in Austria, or anywhere else, had anything to do with such a freak case such as this?

Maybe Brendan O'Niell in spiked is right. What Jacobson and others are alluding to is this: Catholic Austrians, like those Radio Maryja listening Poles, are not like us. They are from the East and so do not think and behave as we do in western Europe. They live in a denial culture, hiding from their past, deaf and blind to their present.

That the ultra-conservative loonies at Radio Maryja can be dragged into a case so shocking - because it is so unusual - maybe shows up something a little disturbing about some western European thinking about Central and Eastern Europe. It tells us nothing, however, about what caused a psychopath like Fritzl to do what he did.

Update - maybe someone can help, here.

In the Jacobson article linked in the above post it claims that Radio Maryja had a base in Amstetten and then expanded and has now many bases in the Tyrol region.

But the town where Friztl lived is in east Austria. Tyrol is in west Austria. There is also a Amstetten district in west Austria, but very far from the eastern town of the same name.

We have also failed to find evidence that Radio Maryja has bases in Austria, as is claimed in the Jacobson article and the other link I give in the original post.

What we have found is that another radio network, Radio Maria does have a base in Amstettel.

Father Rydzyk of Radio Maryja had contact with a Radio Maria in Germany in the 1980s.

Could Jacobson be mistaking Radio Maryja with Radio Maria?

Help!!!

The Rydzyk Tapes

Stop press….Vice Premier and Agriculture Minister Andrzej Lepper kicked out of government on connection with corruption charges….election possible…. more here….


The First Lady of Poland is a witch and should be the subject of euthanasia, and the President of Poland is a conman surrendering to the Jewish lobby.

Not my words but those attributed to Radio Maryja director, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, when he was speaking to a group of students at The University of Social & Medial Culture in Toruń.

The story broke in the weekly Wprost today and since then the government has refused to comment until the tapes of Rydzyk’s remarks have been verified.

Rydzyk – who has been accused of running a radio station and publishing empire where the odd anti-Semitic remark is not unsual – has not denied he made the remarks. He is just saying that the article in Wprost is a ‘provocation’. thenews.pl reports:

According to Father Rydzyk - the media have blown the case out of proportion and he himself would never even think about "offending anyone ". In his opinion, it is "Satan who’s putting stumbling blocks into his way", but "we should not be manipulated and get divided". Director of Radio Maryja added: "Satan doesn’t like those who commune in Christ".

The Redemptoristine from Toruń also said on his radio station that "the truth should be spoken out, even though it upsets Satan. We cannot exist without that truth".

Well, indeed. TV has being playing small snippets of the ‘Rydzyk Tapes’ all day but we have still not seen the whole transcripts.

Perhaps it was just Rydzyk’s hilarious sense of humour? But whether it is or isn’t, the remarks put the government in a bit of a bind. The Kaczynski government has given Radio Maryja special access to news conferences in the past as it believed that the Rydzyk empire was the only news outlet not under the control of the dreaded uklad - the only news source that the Kaczynskis can trust.

If this scandal is as bad as it sounds then the government has one less source open to it.

Tree hugging anti-Christs

The catholic church is turning against the Greens.

Some time ago you might remember that I was puzzled why a bunch of cross bearing Catholics were protesting against Greanpeace and other tree huggers who were protesting against the building of the Augustow by-pass through the Rospuda Valley nature reserve.

Some on the blog suggested that the crosses were just symbols of the graves being created by the heavy road traffic forcing itself through Augustow.

But I think they are wrong.

During the Lenten Meditations a few weeks ago, arch conservative Cardinal Giacomo Biffi (who Pope Benedict had entrusted the sermon too) said, as spiked reported:

Cardinal Biffi claimed that whereas Christianity stood for ‘absolute values, such as goodness, truth, beauty’, aside from a few hard core Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, the masses are being seduced by ‘relative values’ such as ‘solidarity, love of peace and respect for nature’. Greenness, if it became absolute, would encourage ‘idolatry’ and put serious ‘obstacles in the way of salvation’.

Er…

While I am no fan of the tree huggers, it’s a bit rich to try and paint Greanpeace as the anti-Christ.

But you see, arch conservative Catholics are turning against the Greens. With atheist socialism as dead as a dodo, they have had to create another hate figure: the environmentalist.


Update: I later find out that the photo above is of Peter Singer, tree hugging’s philosopher of choice and zoophile – I thought it was a photo of the Cardinal!!!

Abortion, euthanasia: so give us a referendum!

Pro-life and pro-choice supporters march through Warsaw today. (photo: Gazeta Wyborcza)

Two separate marches merged into a demonstration of 4,000 people in front of parliament, where lawmakers were debating amending the constitution to tighten Poland's anti-abortion law, already among the most restrictive in the EU.

See here and here for details.

The pro-lifers want to stop even women who were raped having an abortion, and want to enshrine into the constitution the ‘right to life from conception to natural death’ into the Polish constitution.

Usually, a change in the constitution requires a referendum to decide. That’s why there was one before joining the European Union.

So why do you think that the League of Polish Families, Radio Maryja – and the ruling Law and Justice – are trying to avoid having one?

Because they think they would lose.

I called for a referendum on this issue a long time ago. We need to debate this issue in this country.

The only folk who should be afraid of democracy are those who don’t feel very comfortable living in one.

See video of pro-life march at tvn24.pl

Happy birthday Radio Maryja

The radio station that everyone loves to hate (apart from a million anomic Poles, and the Polish government) is 15 years old this month.

“I'm standing here with the feeling that I'm taking part in something important. I'm taking part in the 15th anniversary of an institution ... that has played a great role in Poland's history," said Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski last week.

The Polish government is in the middle of a ‘moral revolution’, which ‘would not be possible without the Radio Maryja family’, Kaczynski gushed.

But what have others said in the past about Radio Maryja and father of the family, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk?

The papal nuncio in Poland, Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyuk, wrote to the Polish episcopate requesting their aid "to overcome difficulties caused by some transmissions and the views presented by Radio Maryja".

The Vatican has issued a serious warning to 'stay out of politics'.

The Polish Council for Media Ethics referred to the station's "primitive anti-Semitism".

A report in 2000 by Tel Aviv University began: “The popular Catholic nationalist radio station Radio Maryja is still the most influential source of anti-Semitic propaganda in Poland.”

Last surviving member of the Warsaw Ghetto, Marek Edelman, accused Maryja of broadcasting openly anti-Semitic comments.

The recently retired Archbishop Jozef Glemp charged Radio Maryja with promoting a specific type of religiousness, a selective approach to Church teachings and regarding itself as the only true church.

Etc...

So what kind of ‘moral revolution’ will Radio Maryja be helping the Polish government in, exactly?

Happy 15th birthday Maryja! Sto lat, sto lat...

More?
As a special birthday treat watch a 1 min 30 second video of how the peace loving, moral revolutionaries from Radio Maryja’s listenership react when they find out that the camera filming them is from the much hated TVN 24 round the clock cable news station. See video here

The Pope and Radio Maryja

Benedict tells ultra-catholic broadcasters: ‘lay off the politics’. The highlight of the pilgrimage will be tomorrow when the Pontiff makes a highly symbolic visit to Auschwitz. Radio Maryja won't be pleased.

Pope Benedict has been getting good crowds for his first visit to Poland since taking over the pontificate but nowhere near as good as what John Paul II could muster. In Pilsudski Square in Warsaw yesterday about 250,000 turned out (in the pouring rain) for mass and homilies. Whenever JP II turned up in the same place, however, he could expect around one million.

Still, half way through the four-day pilgrimage, attended by over 4,000 accredited journalists, it can be said that the visit has already been a success.

Pope Benedict is aiming to do three things with the trip:

1) To try and fill the very large shoes of John Paul II and make sure that Poland remains the most Catholic country in Europe.

2) To come down hard on the anti-Semitic and politically motivated Radio Maryja. Benedict has said on this trip: “The priest’s work is to know humanity and God, not politics” – making it clear that the close involvement between Radio Maryja and the current Polish government must end.

3) To visit the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz as part of the Vatican’s attempt to bridge the divide between Judaism and Polish Catholicism.

Pope Benedict also made the comment that the “aggressive pose of attacking behavior of previous generations must stop”, or words to that effect. Many have interpreted this as to mean Germans; but many more think that he is referring to the present governments attack on communists and liberals in Poland (the now infamous uklad).

Anti-Semitism in Poland and the rest of Europe

There has been a bit of a hot discussion on this blog as to the extent of anti-Semitism in Poland and other European countries. So, just to put the record straight, here are the results of an international survey of 12 countries in Europe by the Anti Defamation League on attitudes to Jewish people.

In responding "probably true" to the statement, "Jews have too much power in the business world," the 2005 survey found:

Hungary – 55%
Spain – 45%, down from 47%
Poland – 43%
The United Kingdom – 14% down from 20%

In responding "probably true" to the statement "Jews have too much power in international financial markets," the survey found:

Hungary – 55%
Spain – 54%, up from 53%
Poland – 43%
The United Kingdom – 16% down from 18%

You can read the whole report yourself here

While it has been noted that anti-Semitism is on the wane in Poland (and about bloody time too) with 43% of Poles still apparently believing nonsense of international Jewish conspiracies there is still lots of work to do here, to say the least.

For more on Pope Benedict's trip to Poland check out b16.pl

The Polish Taliban

Long laughed at by liberals as just a bunch of anti-Semitic nutters, the group of ultra-catholic nationalists at Radio Maryja have now angered the Vatican. Shame then that the Polish government seems to regard Maryja as its own private news agency.

NCTimes.com reports:

A committee of Polish journalists has condemned a broadcast by an ultra-Roman Catholic radio station for making "very nasty, anti-Semitic" remarks accusing Jews of making a business of Holocaust reparation payments.

The Media Ethics Council, a non-governmental watchdog, on April 4 lambasted remarks made by Stanislaw Michalkiewicz, a commentator for the Catholic station Radio Maryja, who on March 27 condemned international Jewish groups.

Michalkiewicz accused Jews of "trying to force our government to pay extortion money disguised as 'compensation payments"' for property lost during and after World War II, according to a report in the daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

He referred to such restitution attempts by Jewish groups as the "Holocaust business," the newspaper reported.

Of course, there is nothing new in anti-Semites claiming that there is a Holocaust ‘industry’ cooked up by Jews to continue their quest for world domination (snigger!).

But last week, a letter was sent from the Vatican through its nuncio in Poland asking Polish Church authorities to intervene in the activity of Radio Maryja. The Vatican was blunt: stop getting involved in politics.

Radio Maryja was set up in 1991 by Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. It immediately attracted a large following among the extremely alienated part of the Polish population, which fears secular capitalism as much as it hated atheist communism.

The station – listened to by maybe 1.2 million - has grown into a small media empire, which now boasts its own television station, TV Trwam and a daily newspaper, Nasz Dziennik.

The station sees a conspiracy (but of course) between ex-communists and Jews. It also has a problem with gays, foreigners in general and secularism in particular.

The Polish Catholic Church and the Vatican seemed to tolerate this sort of stuff for over a decade. What has changed recently is that the present Polish government, the social conservative Law and Justice, has been giving the station unique and exclusive coverage of news conferences, and the radio’s studios in Torun, northern Poland, are regularly ‘blessed’ by none other than Prime Minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who gives lengthy interviews to the ‘faithful’.

This has meant that Radio Maryja and the government are now seen to be joined at the hip.

Mainstream media here, which has long complained that Radio Maryja has been given preferential treatment when applying for broadcasting licenses, etc, are now hostile to the government's programme. This in turn makes the government rely more and more on positive coverage from Radio Maryja. and so the self-fulfilling prophecy goes on.

Can we expect the government to act on the Vatican's behalf and crack down on its only friend in the media?

Is the Pope a Buddhist?

Update - 13 April: Radio Maryja apologies for offense over antiSemitic remarks but doesn't sound very convincing.

Polish T-shirts not so ‘armless

Freedom campaign at university ‘offends many’.

Freedom of speech and expression is now hot news in Poland. Yet another story on the subject. When word got out that the organization Foundation for Freedom was taking their T-shirt for Freedom (Tiszert dla Wolnosci) campaign to Lublin University, the Archbishop of the city called on the Rector of the university to ban the exhibition.

So he did.

Why? Well, some of the slogans on the t-shirts might upset vulnerable people, apparently. Slogans written on the black shirts include: I am gay; I am a lesbian; I masturbate (are you offended yet?); I am an Arab (scary!); I don’t go to church; I had an abortion (you can't say that!); I am having a period (eeek!!!); and, I never cried when the Pope died…

OK, you can come out from under the table now.

“The texts printed on the T-shirts could have offended the feelings and beliefs of many people," Wieslaw Kaminski, president of the student union at the University of Lublin, told Rzeczpospolita.

“To write ‘I’ve got Aids’ or ‘I’ve had an abortion’ on a T-shirt, you would have to be devoid of all human feelings,” added Lublin bishop Jozef Zycinski.

Still, a campaign that had, so far, not made much impression in the media – the originator of the idea, Antoni Adamowicz, has been trying to provoke the authorities with his T-shirts, to my knowledge, since at least last November - is now splashed all over the front page and being talked about in the news programmes.

The show, which would have included celebrities modeling the offending garb, was partly sponsored by the human rights NGO Helsinki Foundation, but they cancelled the stall they were going to have alongside the offending T-shirts after the campaign was banned from campus.

But it’s another indication that the ‘don’t be offensive’ mentality is spreading in Poland, as it is in the rest of Europe.

It's also good to see that academic freedom and independence is alive and well and studying in Poland.

But it’s also doing no end of good for human rights campaigners here and keeps the issue very much in the news.

A poll by PBS pollsters today found that 48% of Poles think that freedom of speech is under attack from the new PiS government. The feeling is that religious groups, outside of the Established Church, are having an unhealthy influence in the governing of the country.

You can see the T-shirts at the Foundation for Freedom web site if you click down the righthand sidebar.