A week is a long time in Polish politics

It was the old British prime minister, Harold Wilson, who said ‘A week is a long time in politics’: he should have come to Poland.

It’s all been going off here.

Police raided the house of ex-construction minister in the previous SLD government, Barbara Blida, investigating allegations she had been involved in corruption when allocating building contracts. Blida went to the toilet, accompanied by a female police officer, when, somehow, she put a hand in a drawer in the bathroom, pulled out a gun and shot herself dead through the chest.

What had she been up to as minister of construction in that sleaze ridden, ex-communist government? How was she allowed to get hold of a gun when under police supervision? What was a gun doing in her bathroom in the first place?

Jurek and church

Only a few days ago, Marek Jurek announced, with a flourish, that he was resigning the powerful position of Speaker of Parliament, leaving the government and leaving the ruling Law and Justice party (see previous post)to set up his own party – the Polish Right.

Quite apart from the fact that Jurek’s Polish Right would not be ‘Right’ at all – it would be much the same as the current government: a conservative leftish party (a marriage made in hell) – we already have one of those nationalist-conservative grouping: the barmy League of Polish Families.

So the ‘right’ looked set to split and split again, and so split the ‘right’ vote in the process.

But now the talk is of Jurek rejoining Law and Justice. Maybe. But maybe not.

A week is a long time in the politics of Marek Jurek. But what has changed his mind and tempted him back with his old mates?

Cue – stage right – the entry of the good old Polish Catholic Church, which has been trying to mediate between Jurek and the Kaczynski government. Why? Because the church does not want further splintering of the rightwing (read ‘conservative-left) in Poland in case the real Left or secular liberals get in power.

That the Church thinks it has a role in Polish politics is a scandal. If Jurek does come back then I think quite a few Poles will vote in a way that will make the cardinals cry into their pulpits.

How to become exempt from lustration in Poland?

Become a Catholic.

I have had to go through the ‘auto-lustration’ process. Everyone who works in the media here, and born before 1972, has to sign a form saying that he, ''Is not aware or conscious of the fact that he worked for the Polish communist secret service.’

Me, a root vegetable from south London, a Polish communist spy?

I spent most of the 1980s half conscious in some university student bar near the Elephant and Castle.. So how would I know if, unaware to myself, the conscious half of my brain had been spying for the Polish communists, or any other communists, for that matter?

I signed this nonsense. I would have gotten in trouble, and my boss would have gotten in bigger trouble, if I had not. So I did.

But it appears that employees of anything to do with the Polish Catholic Church are exempt from the lustration process, because of the Concordat signed between the Vatican and the Polish state.

So the government thinks that I am a greater potential threat to Poland than some Polish Catholic university lecturer.

A week is not just a long time in Polish politics, it's a very weird week, as well.

Scientologists open office in Warsaw

Agggggghhhhhh!

Yes folks: it’s time to lock up your daughters – the scientologists have come to Poland.

If you thought the ‘Church of Scientology’ was just a bunch of slightly eccentric, small, tanned people who appear in Hollywood movies (like...er...Tom Cruise) then you would be mistaken. They are out to get your money, control your mind, and probably do nasty things to your grandma.

Polish Radio quotes Dziennik journalist Radek Gruca, who has ‘infiltrated’ the organization in Poland:

‘I did a few scientologist courses. I was told that you can be a Catholic and scientologist at the same time, which is untrue, because they believe in reincarnation, past life and aliens - this is all pretty weird.'

They are indeed pretty weird. But that’s not all. A Polish report by the National Security Bureau drafted in 1995 termed scientologists 'a religious mafia.' Journalist Ewa Wołczyńska has researched the subject:

'They present themselves as a movement based on religious and scientific ideas valued in today's world. But in fact, their doctrine has nothing to do with religion. They are accused of brainwashing, mind control, physical and psychological coercion in order to obtain money from their members. Scientologists target the wealthy and their founder himself was accused of embezzlement. Because of the dangers, this sect is banned in many countries.'

Bizarrely, the ‘leader’ of Scientology in Poland is Hanna Garbalska, a member of the Polish Peasant’s Party! Is she seeking to lure witless peasants into a life of misery and poverty? And don’t they have enough of the poverty bit as it is (why else would they vote for the Polish Peasant’s Party in the first place)?

You would think from the above descriptions that Scientology is as dangerous as anthrax! Keep away from them otherwise your mind will suddenly not be your own, you will lose all your money and your tongue will turn green!

I have had first hand experience with Scientologists. I lived to tell the tale. But only just…

Scientologists in Croydon!

It was when I was 19 years old and going completely crazy – like 19 year olds frequently do. We used to go to the pub, hang around drinking and taking all manner of illegal substances. I think amphetamines were a favourite for while (warning: speed is the nastiest drug there is and the beatroot says: ‘Do not try that at home, kids!).

Anyway, one day I was approached by a very sincere woman of about 30 years old with bad skin. She said she had seen me and my mates buying drugs and she would like to help us.

I thought she wanted to get us a better dealer. But no. She wanted to ‘cure’ us.

She gave me a leaflet with the logo Narconon emblazoned across it. She said that there were weekly meeting and ‘would we like to come along?’

So, having nothing better to do than take stupid drugs that we didn’t even really like, we went along.

It turned out that Narconon was a drug help center and a front organization of the local branch of the Church of Scientology.

We were encouraged to read lots of books written by Ron L. Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. The books were quite dull. Apparently I had been born before. ‘Maybe I was Jimmy Hendrix’, I remember thinking. Cool! Lots of stuff about ‘dianetics’ and ‘auditing’.

Auditing was the strangest part. Something about putting your hands on a couple of empty coke cans (I saw one of these at the Narconon center) which are wired up to a small battery. They ask you questions and if you give them the right answer you ‘pass’ whatever it is you are meant to be passing.

Me and my mates thought this was hilarious. Even more hilarious was when our Narconon contact told us that if we would like the ‘full program’ then we would have to pay her 300 pounds!

Three hundred pounds? Where would we get three hundred pounds from? And even if we had it why would we spend it on a couple of coke cans wired up to a battery?

So we went to a few more meetings to ask silly questions like: “Will auditing make Crystal Palace win the European Cup’? That kind of thing. But we soon got bored of that and went on to terrorize some other groups that thought they could make us ‘better people’ – like the Catholic Church or the Socialist Workers Party.

Why are Catholics so afraid of sects?

Don’t know – but I get the feeling that they see human beings like all conservatives, liberals and everyone else seems to these days. They think that humans are inherently vulnerable and unlike me and my mates back when I was 19, can be hooked to a sect much like they tell us that heroin will suddenly come out of the shadows and hook us to that.

In truth people WANT to become involved in Scientology or they don’t. And if they want to become involved in something as weird and stupid as Scientology then wouldn't it be better to ask: what is missing in the Catholic Church (or even secular beliefs today) that fails to attract the young? Don't try and blame that alienation on some supposed power that Scientologists do not have.

I mean – I bet Tom Cruise still has to stand on a box to kiss his leading lady. Ron L. Hubbard can’t do much about that, can he?

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

Population time bomb...tick...tock...tick

Polish Catholic-nationalists, and 'liberal' environmentalists, in their different ways, fear there is a demographic time bomb waiting to go off. Bang!

Poland’s population is shrinking faster than any other country in the EU. Strange that, in a country that claims to be 95 percent Catholic, don’t you think?

The average family in Poland has 1.22 children, and a couple of weeks ago the government announced tax breaks for working women with children which will cost the tax payer 17 billion zlotys (US$5.6 billion, €4.5 billion). At a time when the EU is pressing the government to cut its budget deficit, that's not going to help, fiscally.

Catholic nationalists (of which the governing coalition is full of) blame all sorts of things for this. Feminism is the main culprit, apparently. They would like women to get back in the home and return to what the ‘natural’ function of a woman should be: being a baby machine.

A report by the UN adds to these people’s fears. In half a century’s time Poland will be one of the oldest nations on earth. In a dozen nations - including Japan, Bulgaria, Macao, Hong Kong, Italy, Poland, Korea, Slovenia, Romania and Spain - four in 10 citizens will be 60 or older by 2050, the UN says.

Eeek!

Does this mean that Poland will simply fade away as a nation?

But scratch the surface and you will find that what these people are really worried about is that there will be no Polish Catholics - the 'true' Poles - left in Poland to light up the candles in church before Mass.

A shortfall of population can easily be addressed by immigration, of course. But that, as catholic nationalists like Maciej Giertych would say, would weaken Polish (read ‘Polish Catholic’) ‘civilization’.

But if immigration is the obvious solution, then where would it come from?

There is always the less developed countries. They have lots of babies, don’t they?

And the tree huggers don’t like it

Whereas catholic nationalists in Poland fear that the low birth rate is a threat to (Latin) civilization as we know it, western ‘liberals’ think that there is just too many people in the world.

It’s getting impossible, for instance, to pick up the UK Guardian without being confronted by some misanthropic gibberish like this from ‘columnist’ Juliette Jowit:

In the time it takes you to get to the end of this sentence, seven people have been added to the population of the world…..

Then welcome seven new people to the world, I say! It’s a great place to be, if you avoid reading the Guardian too often, that is.

Jowit works herself up into a froth of indignation about how we cannot deal with ‘climate change’ without cutting down the number of humans on the planet.

Some population activists argue the world can only support a population of two to three billion, even as few as 500 million in future [?!?]. But even if reducing the world's population is unlikely or distasteful, it is incredible that there is not even a debate about limiting and maybe one day reversing growth.

….some braver voices - Sir David Attenborough, Jonathan Porritt and Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, to name a few - have begun to raise the issue.

Well, Juliette (where does the Guardian get these morons from?) Sir David Attenborough, Porritt et al have not suddenly 'began to raise this issue', they have been raising it for sometime. In 2003, these people - who have formed the scary sounding Optimum Population Trust (sounds like a bunch of Nazis) - were calling for the UK’s population to be cut in half!

Attenborough, the BBC’s natural history guru, seems to prefer the company of tigers and algae to his fellow human beings.

But whereas these kind of people would be scoffed at in the past, today this kind of thinking is becoming almost mainstream.

It’s basically a form of neo-Malthusian ‘analysis’ – which progressives used to laugh at when I was at college in the late 1980s – which fits in well with the culturally miserable-ist times.

What both Catholic Polish nationalists, and the tree hugging human haters need to be told is that too many humans, or not enough Poles, is not the problem. The problem is the lack of faith in human ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

It just goes to show that neither conservatives nor liberals have the ideology to cope with the modern world.

A little more faith in humanity, and a little less fear of the future, will sort this out. Humans - even immigrants! - are not the problem, they are the solution.

Giertych-isms of the week

Roman wants any new EU Constitution (yawn) to include a ban on abortion and rights for homosexuals.

Education and deputy prime minister Giertych has been justifying what he said in Germany yesterday: legal abortion is a ‘form of barbarianism’, and homosexuals threatened the future of European civilization as we know it.

‘The propaganda of homosexuality is reaching ever younger children." [Giertych said in the speech released to the Polish media Friday].

"In some countries it is even forbidden for children in hospital to talk or read about mommy and daddy, because this allegedly violates minority rights. Let's free ourselves of this unwise political correctness."

"If we will not use all our power to strengthen the family, then as a continent there is not future for us. We will be a continent settled by representatives of the Islamic world who care for the family."

Of course, the image of gays ushering in the European Islamic Caliph is a delicious one and should be cherished by us all.

And it follows nicely on from the recent bizarre ramblings of his father, Maciej, whose nasty little pamphlet, Civilizations at war in Europe, proved that these are minds locked into a 1930s time-warp (see my review here).

Responding to charges that he is an anti-Semite loon, Maciej told the European Jewish Press:

‘Those who said [the pamphlet] is anti-Semitic haven’t read it. My impression is that critical comments come from people who have not read the book. They read only a few sentences".

No Maciej, I read the lot. Every word. It’s anti-Semitic tripe (and much more besides). The EJP continues:

He said his text, published in English, is an attempt to promote the teaching of Polish professor Feliks Koneczny, who has developed a "very interesting" method of classifying civilisations. "I am presenting his methods of classification," Giertych said. "It is in fact a contribution to the big discussion occurring in the world at the moment about the clash of civilisations."

I like the tense of ‘...Feliks Koneczny, who has developed a "very interesting" method of classifying civilizations.’ Note ‘who has’...but the guy died 58 years ago. Koneczny, and his ideas, are well and truly in the past (very simple) tense.

And that’s where the Gietychs should be. There has been a big fuss over the latest antics of the Giertych dynasty. But these people are no big deal, and their ideas – so antiquated – will gradually fall to bits like an old, pre-war, wardrobe.

Giertych-isms are well passed their sell by date.

The gibberish of Maciej Giertych

Take a deep breath and come with me as we delve into a mind stuck in the 1930s.

‘Jews form ghettoes’….’they settle in our civilizations, preferably among the rich…’

That’s one of the classic lines in a just released ‘scholarly pamphlet’ you can be sure will be on all Polish school students’ reading lists, any time soon. His son is the present education minister, Roman Giertych, and the magnificent piece of scholarship is LPR Member of the European Parliament Maciej’s rambling ruminations on Civilizations at war in Europe.

I just read the whole thing. It’s…..er...

Maciej Giertych goes neo-con?

No, no, no. This tract is not the product of the pre-Iraq war neo-conservative ‘battle of civilizations’, but back, way back to the 1930s, to nationalist politics frozen in time from 1945 - 1989, now seen staggering around Poland like a man recovering from long Soviet years of frozen animation, into the blinding light of post-Communist Poland.

That was a long sentence, wasn’t it?

Civilizations at war in Europe is based on what Giertych believes was a truly marvelous writer, odd-ball Polish historian Feliks Koneczny, the founder of the so-called ‘comparative science of civilizations’, who died in 1949. It takes in garbled sociology, tongue-tied linguistics, and a bit of 1930s race biology is thrown in for good measure.

Giertych on race

Civilization is a strong marriage barrier. People normally look for a spouse from the same [culture] as their own. They expect to share civilizational norms with the spouse. As a result the covilizational barrier becomes a biological one. In biology animals and humans develop as a consequence of isolation.

In the introductionary passage he seems to use the concept ‘human race’ and the differences between races of animals, synonymously. Whites, Arabs and Africans are, for Giertych, like the biological variations between wild cats and domestic cats.

That’s something mainstream biology gave up decades ago when categorizing humans. Human races – in the plural – is not a biological concept, but a social one.

But no matter, Giertych is not using race to explain the growth of societies – at least not in this essay. Civilizations are not formed from races, he says but from culture.
.
Giertych on Civilization

He says in the ‘method’ section that the categorization of cultures:

’…will be used hierarchically. Thus within the Latin civilization there are such cultures as British, Spanish, Polish and others. Within the Jewish [civilization] one can find Sephardic, the Hassidim, the Karaim and other cultures.”

Note ‘hierarchically’… But which civilization is on top, we wonder, breathlessly?

He spends rather a long time on trying to demonstrate certain defects in writing expressed in other than the Latin script. He claims that Chinese pictorial writing inhibits abstract thought [?] and that written Hebrew, because it expresses no consonants, leaves ambiguity in meaning[!].

Arabic script, though, is good, because you can scribble it quickly[!!].

Latin civilization (and he uses civilization and culture interchangeably) is the most enduring and successful [shock!] only spoiled if it comes under pressure and does not defend itself from either the outside (historically Byzantine and Turanian cultures, - meaning basically Russia and Germany) or from Jews from within.

It’s a Rip van Winkle world view in a 1930s rain coat. And there is a hole in his sock.

Giertych has a coded go at Law and Justice.

He fights his long dead 1930s nationalist dad’s battles for him, saying that Pilsudski-ites, followers of Marshall Jozef Pilsudski – and arch enemy of Giertych’s nationalist idol Roman Dmowski - were characteristic of the Russian and German cultures, in their preferred political system of a strong leader, leaving decision making to the higher-ups. That’s why they went along, as the Dmowski nationalists did not, with the Pilsudski led coup of 1926.

It’s a historical reference with a contemporary inference: the present Law and Justice led coalition government – of which Giertych’s League of Polish Families is part – consider themselves ‘Pilsudski-ites’.

Giertych’s whole view of today is informed by the nationalist struggles of the past. By bringing up Pilsudski as some kind of example of how Byzantine strong leader culture had infiltrated Poland’s ‘Latin’ culture, he is back fighting the inter-war struggle between the nationalist Endecja movement and the Sanacja government, filled with Pilsudski-ites.

Come on Maciej, isn’t it time to move on, old boy?

Giertych on Jews

Jews are not a race. So, logically, he says, almost proudly, “It’s a mistake to think that anti-Semitism is racism”.

Er….

“We [Poles] consider the Jewish people today as a tragic community, a people that has not recognized the time of its visitation,’ he says.

The real problem with these people, writes Giertych, is that they are still waiting for the messiah, when everyone knows he turned up 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. Jews have suffered for this religious blindness ever since.

The cultures that recognized Christ flourished, but the Jews did not, and:

‘…became wanderers, jealously nurturing their Chosenness, this messianic consciousness, which gives a defining mark to their [culture].'

The essay really starts to pick up speed now, and it all just comes tumbling out.

On intercultural relations

Cultures – civilizations – must remain separate, otherwise they weaken.

This is why a Jew cannot be a Pole. Neither can Gypsies.

“Can a Gipsy become a Pole? Though [sharing the same language and religion] I think most Poles would tell you, and most Gypsies, that no, they cannot.’

After a brief detour into the Arabs (they are coming to get us, you know) he concludes:

‘…differentiate civilizations are mutually exclusive. Integration, middle ground, the ‘melting pot’ are not possible.'....The war between civilizations will be fought in the schools. Who will have the greatest influence on the minds of the young? Who will education our children?

He then makes a little detour back, way back, into his family’s past, to a golden age when men were men and women did what they were told. He bizarrely accuses the work of Polish Nobel prize winning author Wladyslaw Reymont of exhibiting un-Polish, un-Latin, elements.

‘In 1925 my grandfather forbade my mother of a standard text in her school, Chlopi, by Wladyslaw Reymont, because he considered it had immodest content. The whole class read it, but my mother did not…she never did read the book.

Which European school today would respect such a wish….?'

Giertych’s essay is a hymn to the ‘Latin culture’ and how it should defend itself against the invasion of other cultures; divorce, homosexuality, abortion and the EU are all symptoms of this creeping occupation. Poles, with a higher sense of national identity, have a lot to teach other Europeans, if we are to won the war of civilizations.

and so it goes on...and on...It's a pamphlet that should not be put on the shelves of the national library, but the natural history museum, where it belongs.

Maciej Giertych’s diatribe to the dinosaurs, which, in its richness and modernity, and it’s breaking of intellectual barriers, will be poured over by scholars for years, is here. Do not read just before bedtime.

Remember the 100,000 World Cup East European sex slaves story?

Well, it was a load of...balls.

Remember the beatroot wrote back in May last year, just before the FIFA World Cup in Germany, that the Catholic News Service reported:

'Polish nuns, anticipating an increase in human trafficking and prostitution during the World Cup in Germany, have issued anti-prostitution leaflets in multiple languages for circulation during the competition.

"Our resources are extremely limited, but we're doing what we can," said Ursuline Sister Jolanta Olech, president of Poland's Conference of Superiors of Female Religious Orders. "We're deeply concerned at reports that men's lives are to be made nicer by importing 100,000 young women from Europe's poorest countries."

The story of the ‘100,000 sex slaves’ originated in the European Parliament (as 40,000) when the matter was raised by German Green MEP Hiltrud Breyer. The Polish nuns then added another 60,000 to the scare for good measure.

So German Greens formed an allaince with Polish nuns (and weirdly, George Bush got involved, too) against the more baser instincts of us thuggish football fan types, who like a nice eastern European sex slave after a good game of footie.

I also noted that the figure of 100,000 appeared to have been plucked out of thin air, much like a goalkeeper plucks a ball from the head of an attacking forward.

Well, Bruno Waterfield of the UK Daily Telegraph has seen a copy of the reports by the Council of the European Union - documents 5006/1/07 and 5008/7 – on the matter, which reveal the real number of the East European sex slaves imported into Germany during the World Cup. One hundred thousand? Well, Waterfield quotes from the report:

‘Of the 33 investigation cases reported to the Federal Criminal Police Office on the grounds of human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and/or the promotion of human trafficking, and which took place at the time of the 2006 World Cup, only five cases were assumed to have a direct link to the 2006 World Cup’, concludes the report.

‘The increase in forced prostitution and human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation during the 2006 World Cup in Germany which was feared by some did not materialise’,

So not 100,000, or 40,000, but...five.

The next time you see an unholy alliance of a German Green with a Polish nun, keep your cynical hat on, won’t you. Football fans are not a bunch of sex starved Neanderthal things.

Read the rest of Bruno Waterfield’s article here.

Popes should retire at 80

That’s one idea that JP II entertained during his long illness, says a new book by his Polish personal assistant.

Usually personal assistants' memoirs about the great and the good are of the ‘kiss and tell’ variety. But Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz’s book – My Life with Karol might better be described as a ‘pray and tell’. Perhaps we have discovered a new biographical genre?

AP reports:

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz said the late pontiff wondered before 2000, when he turned 80, whether popes should step down at that age. John Paul decided to consult with his closest aides, including his eventual successor, Benedict XVI…

JP II also considered resigning as the Parkinson’s disease got worse. And of course he was right. Everyone should have a retiring age. JP II must have been tempted.

But perhaps he kept going because he wasn’t too impressed by the Polish pension system? And who could blame him?

The only pope to resign because of the corrosive effects of old age was Celestine V, who assumed the papacy in 1294 at the grand old age of 85 - weird in itself as the average life span in those days was under 30 years old. Celestine resigned five months later, however, saying he was not up to the job.

Meanwhile, Pope John Paul’s sainthood is picking up a pace.

To be a saint you have to have a few miracles to your name. It used to take years for the sainthood process to complete. But in recent years, miracles have been much easier to find, apparently. In fact, John Paul himself waved the ‘5 year rule’ before the process could begin.

Examples of JP II’s miracle work are aplenty and coming in thick and fast. A nun in France claims that praying to the Polish pope caused her Parkinson’s disease to disappear.

Shame JP couldn’t cure his own Parkinson’s, then…

Stanislaw Dziwisz’s book will be published in Poland in June.

The EU, God and Poland...

...here we go again.

As Richard at EU Referendum notes, Angela Merkel is not just putting the blessed EU Constitution back on the agenda (big, wide-mouthed yawn!) but she is putting GOD back on the negotiating table., too.

Please….have mercy!

EU Referendum blog says Merkel regrets the big ‘C’ was not specifically identified in the original EU Constitution document as, "...[I] would have liked to have seen a clearer declaration on the Christian roots (of Europe) … No one doubts that they significantly shape our life, our society."

Richard then goes on to speculate that this is, “…primarily a [German?] ploy to exclude Turkey from the EU, or make it feel unwelcome – in the hope that this Muslim country would be dissuaded from joining.”

Well, maybe – although Merkel is chairwoman of the German Christian Democrat Union…

But putting God back in the ‘Constitution’ (Zzzzzz) is that rare thing: an issue that unites Warsaw and Berlin.

The Kaczynski brothers would gladly throw off that chip on their shoulder about being called a ‘potato’ by a German newspaper if they could join hands with Merkel over getting Christianity into the resurrected EU (yawn!) Constitution.

The previous (yawn, Zzzzz, snore!) constitution mentioned Europe’s ‘religious and humanist’ traditions.

Personally, I don’t see why we have to have any mention of this kind of thing at all. Basically, the treaty is going to be about how to manage an EU with 27 members in it. It should not be about forcing a collective value system on what it means to be ‘European’.

Richard at the EU Referendum blog concludes on the whole sorry non-debate:

Politics and religion, of course, is a dangerous mix but, when an idea is floated in the European Union, it does seen that you simply cannot say no. Like a recalcitrant child refusing to eat its breakfast being re-presented with the same meal again and again, the people of Europe, it seems, are to have God thrust into their lives – and a Christian God at that - whether they like it or not.

Amen.

Get any strange Christmas cards this year?

Well, several members of the Polish parliament did via email from the ultra-nutty anti-Semites, National Rebirth of Poland (NOP).

According to chief NOP crazy Adam Gmurczyk the e-cards are in reaction to ‘absurd political correctness’.

The two incidents of ‘political correctness’ he is referring to are: the binning by a department store in Germany of thousands of Santa Clause toys showing Old St Nick making a Nazi salute (though the Rossman store protested that Santa was innocently pointing to the sky); and the outcry in Poland by media and most politicians after a film was found showing members of the All-Polish Youth having a kind of outdoor ‘fascist BBQ’ three years ago, shouting ‘Sieg Heil!’…accompanied by a swastika burning in the background.

“It was enough for the All Polish Youth to make some gestures for journalists to think that Fascism had arrived," said Gmurczyk, dumbfounded by all the fuss.

But even Roman Giertych, Head of LPR and founder of the reformed All-Polish Youth in 1989, has since disowned them.

As regards the Nazi Santa toys...well, yes, they could be pointing at the sky as Santa spots where he parked his reindeer. Banning them was silly, but shows how sensitive anything resembling the Nazis still are in Germany today.

But Polish ultra-nationalists dismissing the furor over All-Polish Youth – and producing the very stupid Christmas card above - shows that these people have a rather warped idea of what the word ‘irony’ means.

In that context, the Santa Clause toys, and the Xmas card, become a sick form of ‘fascist ketch’.

Just to give you a flavour of National Rebirth of Poland’s er...’politics’ (the group has been going since 1981) a recent campaign during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict included a poster stating, "Bomby na Izrael - Już czas!!!" ("Bombs against Israel - it's about time!!!")

But I suppose me protesting against that kind of crap is just ‘political correctness’.

Jesus – King of Poland?

A very silly idea, of course. But nothing is too daft for some of Poland’s lawmakers.

46 members of the Polish parliament have tabled a motion to name Jesus Christ as the ‘honorary King of the Republic of Poland’.

The lawmakers are from the governing Law and Justice; alongside junior members from the coalition, League of Polish Families.

There is an historical precedent to this mad move, however. The Virgin Mary was made Honorary Queen of Poland 350 years ago by King Jan Kazimierz (who must have been a lonely soul).

Luckily, the motion has little chance of passing through parliament. But it does give me a chance to name the Beatroot’s Understatement of the Year Award to Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, who said of the wild and wacky idea:

"This kind of action, although it may stem from good will, sounds a bit like propaganda."

A bit like propaganda?

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.

The Polish version of those cartoons?

Insult religious feeling in Poland and you get six months community service.

In 2003, installation artist Dorota Nieznalska was convicted under Section 196 of the Penal Code, which prohibits 'offending religious sentiment'. The heinous offence relates to when the artist, for twelve months in 2001/2002, exhibited at the experimental Wyspa Gallery, Gdansk, a work called Passion (pictured above). According to Artliberated.com the piece consisted of:

…A photograph of a fragment of a naked male body, including the genitalia, together with the projection of an image of a man’s face in the course of a hard training exercise. The artist has concerned herself for several years with the problem of maleness and of the connection of its models with the Christian paradigm of culture. This work was a natural extension of this trend.

I should mention that the image was projected on a cross. Ooops!

Though arty critics may have just loved it (installations are still cool, apparently), for the Christian-nationalist League of Polish Families – who forced their way into gallery after they heard about Passion in the media - this was clearly blasphemous and an insult to Catholicism and Poland.

On 18 July, 2003, the judge agreed and sentenced Nieznalska to half a year community service, and a criminal record.

The artist is appealing against the conviction and the case is still going through the courts.

The Wyspa Gallery, which has been showing ‘challenging’ work since 1985, was forced to close down.

Artliberated.com comments:

The conviction of Dorota Nieznalska on the charge of insulting religious feelings is shocking proof that the fundamental statute of the Polish Republic is not respected in a country which until recently seemed to be a symbol of freedom. The principle of the freedom of expressing one’s views has been totally violated and has made the artist a victim of an ideologised vision of a religious state, which the League of Polish Families is attempting to impose on Polish society.

The PiS government is 100 days old today. What has been most characteristic, so far, of the new regime has been developments which seem to show that the League of Polish Families is not the only party to share the vision of a new Polsh constitution with Catholicism playing the moral foundation of the state.

Using the law as a way of stopping the media offend anyone has not been limited to works of art. See here, here and here.

More? See Dorota Nieznalska web page

Onward Christian soldiers

US religious advocacy groups think that Poland is ‘Europe’s Last Best Hope In The Battle For The Family’.

That’s the title of a press release issued last December by the US based Howard Centre for Family, Religion and Society (HCFRS), announcing that the World Congress of Families IV will be taking place in Warsaw, 2007.

But why Poland? Groups in America such as HCFRS and Focus on the Family consider Poland a place of faith in the middle of a secular, heathen Europe. The press release says:

“Europe is almost lost; to the demographic winter and to the secularists. If Europe goes, much of the world will go with it. Almost alone, Poland has maintained strong faith and strong families, though even Poland comes under severe pressure to change. Poland has saved Europe before. It is likely she will save Europe again. On family and population questions, Europe is the battleground in the early years of the 21st Century, and Poland is the pivot point. It makes abundant sense that The World Congress of Families IV meet among the brave people of Poland.”

The vast majority of organizations that make up the World Congress of Families are American, but one of the affiliated groups is the Polish Federation of Pro-Life Movements. On the administration board of PFLM are members from the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), like MEP Konrad Symanski.

According to World Congress of Families President Dr. Allan Carlson, Warsaw was chosen for its central location and potential to turn back the tide. “Western Europe is plagued by de-population,” Carlson said. “Western European governments (including the European Union) have adopted policies inimical to the natural family. We look to the new EU members in Eastern Europe – first and foremost Poland – to help turn the tide of family decline.”

But what can he mean? Poland has the 18th lowest birthrate in the world, so babies are not really filling up the cots in the maternity wards here, either.

The World Congress of Families will no doubt be talking in Warsaw about the new government’s initiative to beat the de-population. They are giving a massive 1000 zlotys (about 330 dollars!) to the mother for every baby born. That’s a one off payment, not a regular allowance.

Well, that’s going to solve everything, isn’t it? I can see it now: families turning themselves into cottage industry baby factories, churning out nappy-wearers. Perhaps they can get an entrepreneurial grant from the EU? Maybe if she took the right hormones, they can produce multiple births, and pocket the multiple cash orders?

To get rich that way, however, the poor woman is going to have to be constantly pregnant. To buy a small one bedroom flat in Warsaw she is going to have to produce about 120,000 of them.

And that’s a lot of diapers to wash.

Woman sees face of Jesus in a Polish dumpling

Donna Lee, from Ohio, US, says the image appeared in a pierogi — a Polish dumpling — as she was cooking it for Easter dinner at her home near Toledo. She says she's kept it in her freezer ever since.

She and her husband have now posted the item on E-bay, with a starting price of 500 dollars. So far, there are no bidders.

This comes in the wake of a Virgin Mary shaped cheese sandwich was sold on E-bay for 20,000 dollars.

Couple tries to sell Jesus pierogi on eBay