Poland thinks Iran’s role in Iraq has been “positive”?

Here’s a strange one from the Iranian Fars news agency, reporting on the visit to Tehran at the weekend of Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Jacek Naider. He met with the Iranian foreign minister, then with his counterpart:

The Polish official […] held talks with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs Mehdi Safari in which he said Iran's role in Afghanistan and Iraq is positive and constructive.

Um...If Naider did say that - and a call to the Foreign Ministry in Warsaw today seemed to indicate that he did: or, at least, they found nothing strange in the remark - then I wonder what they make of that in Washington, which constantly accuses Tehran of funding the Shia militants that have given the US so much trouble since they invaded Iraq in 2003.

And Afghanistan? Nobody would suggest that Iranians support the Taliban. In fact, Iran has long been disgusted by Pakistan’s kid gloves approach to them, both when they were in power in Afghanistan and since they took to the mountains after the US invaded with the help of the Northern Alliance.

But Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - the man, lest we not forget, whose presence at a recent UN conference was the official reason why Poland refused to go to the anti-racism shindig - paid a visit to Kabul last week. He said the problems in Afghanistan were caused by foreign “colonial forces” who had destabilised the region. One of those foreign forces is, of course, Poland.

So the current Polish love-in with Iran is rather odd. But maybe not.

Warsaw signed a preliminary deal with the Tehran government last year to gain access to Iran’s rich gas and oil deposits. Iran could be part of the Polish government’s long term plan to wean itself off its dependency on Russian gas.

The US would not take too kindly to any significant trade between Poland and Iran, however - as long as Tehran pursues its nuclear ambitions, be they peaceful or not.

Which brings us to the anti-missile shield, planned to be situated in Poland and the Czech Republic. The official reason for the plan, says Washington, is to protect the US’s Nato allies against attack from rogue states - meaning places like…Iran!

Whatever is going on here - diplomacy is a strange art at the best of times, but this story is so complicated it makes my brain hurt - there is one thing that Poland’s deputy foreign minister said in Tehran at the weekend that we can all agree on: Iran is so important to the region that solving problems without them is simply impossible.

Poland to ban Che Guevara T-shirts?

The icon of many a young, idealistic bedroom revolutionary, Che Guevara - a regular on T-shirts the world over - could become outlawed in Poland, if the government gets its way.

Yes, the often-called “liberal” government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has proposed to make all images that promote dictatorship, communism or fascism illegal from public display. This would also include banning the sale and display of images of not just Hitler - who never has been a popular culture icon to display on your favourite T-shirt - but also Marx, Lenin and Che Guevara.

Thenews.pl reports that: “Elzbieta Radziszewska [minister of equality] wants to expand Article 256 of the Criminal Code which proposes a two-year prison sentence for producing fascist or totalitarian propaganda or which incites racist sentiments. The Minister now seeks to expand the law to include books, clothing and other items.”

But…um…why?

“Adopting such a law would aid the fight against racism,” adds the minister, helpfully.

Oh, really?

Of course, it is easy to sneer at such nonsense. But what a Western reader should realise is that this is the ruling political elite’s attempt to create a “Polish PC”. where certain images and sentiments are controlled, regulated. Where western liberal PC has speech codes of what is, and what is not, acceptable, here is Poland’s government trying to regulate which signs and symbols are publicly acceptable to display.

This right wing, conservative government - and much of the opposition parties in parliament - see the world very much in the same way as many of their liberal equivalents do in the West: that symbols, words and gestures are dangerous and should be banned.

Both mentalities have the very patronising view that people are so vulnerable that they could be affected by exposure to offensive and obnoxious signs, resulting in an immediate change of behaviour so severe that it could be a threat to society at large.

Broadcaster and writer Kenan Malik shows clearly in this extract from his new book that attitudes, certainly in the UK, have changed radically from 20 years ago about how willing governments and organisations are to ban offensive images, speech and even thought.

So the Polish government’s urge to ban, admittedly genuinely offensive symbols in Poland, plus a few cartoon revolutionaries such as Che Guevara, should be put in the context of a more broader fear of free speech outside of Poland as well.

When ruling elites are so afraid of anti-orthodox opinions and symbols they so show weakness, not strength.

Poland joins UN conference boycott

The United Nations in Switzerland descended into farce today as Poland, the US, Germany and many more boycotted a UNESCO conference on fighting racism in fear that the Iranian president would turn up and accuse Israel of “racism.”

Well, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad duly obliged. In his speech to the depleted hall - he was the only head of state that bothered to turn up to the event - he said:

"In compensation for the dire consequences of racism [during WW II] in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine."

Oh, dear. Poor old Ban ki-Moon, head of the UN. This was meant to be the usual touchy-feely conference where everyone joins hands and makes cooing noises about how they are gonna fight racism and all the other nasty things in the world. And then the Bad Man turns up and spoils it all by saying something’ stupid like accusing another country of racism.

In fact, Ban ki-Moon had wagged his finger at Poland and the other nations which boycotted the whole shindig.

“Some nations who by rights should be helping us to forge a path to a better future are not here,” said the Secretary General of the UN, expecting everyone to put up with being lectured by the President of Iran on human rights and all that stuff, in a desperate attempt to look good to an electorate back home which looks like will give him a bit of a kicking in presidential elections scheduled for this summer.

While President Ahmadinejad was droning on about Zionist conspiracies many of the delegates who were there - from France, from the UK - walked out.

The conference was hilarious on many fronts:

- Quite apart from whether you think the Israeli state’s policy to the Palestinians is racist - and it probably is - what is the point of having a conference about tackling racism if you don’t want anyone to mention the “racism” word?

- The Iranian President has said many racist things about Jews in the past. So why did Mr Moon expect Israel to turn up? And if they did there would have been a BIG ROW and the United Nation’s fantasy about spreading peace and love throughout the world via dumb conferences like this one would have looked even more silly than it does, right now.

- Did Poland only cancel going to the conference “at the last minute” this weekend, as they claim, after the US’s last minute decision not to go, either? Hmm…

- Why bother with these ridiculous UN talking shops in the first place? The UN is really just about nations which won WW II consolidating their power. So this is an organisation that justifies global inequalities and accompanied militarism and always has done. And then it stages conferences on equality and expects people to take it seriously!

The result of the latest comedy sponsored by UNESCO is that many of us are scratching our heads and wondering just what is the purpose of the United Nations? It is neither united nor does it represent, much of the time, all the nations of Planet Earth.

Time for a rethink, Mr Moon.

More?

Poland's foreign ministry web site on why they didn't show

Mourning sickness in Poland

The fire killing 22 - maybe more - people in a sheltered housing building in the north west of Poland over the Easter holiday was tragic and sad. But why have the minute of silences and the state pronounced day of mourning turned into minutes and days?

Nobody knows why fire swept through the building housing families down on their luck on Sunday night/Monday morning, killing 22, including young children. Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who was at the scene early Monday morning, said that there was probably a fundamental fault in construction - which was an interesting observation as the building was constructed in the 1970s.

Twenty two lives lost is tragic - that those lives were some of the most in need of help from society is all the more tragic. And a minute of silence at public events and a day of mourning is not nearly enough to pay respect to the victims and their grieving families. What would be more use, of course, would be more concrete and lasting help for Poland’s poor. That would be a more fitting tribute.

Instead, what we get is President Lech Kaczynski announcing, just hours after the event, that there will not be a day of mourning in Poland but Three Days of Mourning. This means that many public events - even a concert in Warsaw dedicated to the life and memory of John Paul II - will be cancelled until official mourning ends on Friday.

Is Poland joining the current trends in the West, where prolonged public shows of emotion and concern are almost obligatory?

I care, therefore I am?

Editor of the spiked web site, Mick Hume, termed this development ‘mourning sickness’, the key event in the UK being the death of Diana, when the British ‘stiff upper lip’ turned into a quivering bowl of jelly. Where Britain was once a place reticent to show its emotions is now a place where to burst out crying in public - like Chelsea captain John Terry did so memorably after missing a penalty in the European Champion’s League final last year - somehow makes that person more admirable.

Poland is a country that has seen many tragic events, most of which are slightly more significant than missing a penalty against Liverpool. It’s sadness is part of its history. But the inflation of a minute of silence into half hours of silence and a day of mourning into half a week, is puzzling. Being resilient and strong used to be values respected in Poland - instead, what we get, is an officially organised sob-fest.

It also does nothing to combat the real reason why those poor people died at the weekend - poverty and neglect of a public building full of people who nobody much thought about, until now.

Afghanistan - where western leaders go to ‘find themselves’

When western political elites appear in Afghanistan - President Lech Kaczynski was the latest to turn up today - it reminds me of the old hippy trail, when disaffected, angst-ridden sons and daughters of ruling elites and the middle classes travelled from Istanbul to Kabul in ‘search of themselves’ and a meaning of life back home seemed unable to provide.

But what did they hope to find among the poverty, backwardness and poppy fields?

President ‘Kaftan’ Kaczynski was in Afghanistan to meet the 1600 Polish troops stationed there and later went on - after his plane was late - to Kabul for meetings with President Karzai. The Afghan leader was probably beside himself with gratitude for plucky Poland’s help in trying to stabalise a country that was never stable in the first place. Kaczynski promised more troops - 400 are leaving soon from Poland to be stationed in the Gahzni province - but he almost certainly parroted concern in Washington and London that Karzai was “not doing enough” to deal with the corruption, the war lords and the resurgent Taliban.

The West is tiring of their (democratically elected) cheerleader, and would prefer someone else to take charge.

Note the outrage - from Western leaders - at the move to make formally legal a practice that has been, up to now, put in place by local custom, that the ten percent Shia Muslim population should abide by the medieval dictates of Sharia law, where women’s status is second class, at best. This really was screwing things up for President Obama etc - Afghanistan is his Big Foreign Policy Mission. With Afghani legislators acting like they didn’t particularly want western NGO-sponsored women’s drop in centres littering up the place, and acting a bit…well, backward…is no help at all. How would Washington justify the American troops dying for such a great and noble cause?

Luckily, Karzai backed down and revoked the offending legislation. Few! But still, thinks Washington, London, Warsaw…“Wouldn’t it be better if we got someone else to run the place?”

Afghan is where some of the Western political elites are getting their kicks - this was meant to be the theatre of the ‘war on terror’; this was where the bad guys have to be whipped; this was where the poor people of Afghanistan could gratefully receive “humanitarian intervention”.

With the Soviet Union gone, where else would those guys get their reason to be; their sense of purpose? Like the hippies of old, places like Afghanistan have become a place to find oneself, when finding a sense of purpose at home is increasingly difficult for them.

In Poland, being the good boy of NATO is the number one foreign policy goal. Afghanistan is the perfect opportunity to show willing. When the US asked for more troops to go and fight the Taliban, many of the European governments started staring at their shoes, or noticing bits of fluff that had to removed from their suits. Not Warsaw! You want more troops? Even at a time when we are slashing our defence budget? Nie ma problemu!

Poland wants to be the NATO guard dog of its eastern borders, too. This is a consensus that crosses political divides in Warsaw. This is what Poland’s leaders need to feel useful, give them purpose.

Who is the bigger hippy?

It gets all the more complicated when President Kaczynski and Prime Minister Tusk are currently involved in a bloody battle over who is the more important as far as foreign policy is concerned, the underhand ruthlessness of which would make a Taliban leader look like a wuss.

The latest shenanigans at the NATO summit in Prague last weekend illustrates the point, nicely.

President and government had agreed to not back the eventual winner, Rasmussen, straight away, but try to wheedle a few concessions out of the other NATO leaders - like Turkey eventually did. Last week, the Foreign Ministry sent a note to President Kaczynski with the title: How to play the diplomatic game. Kaczynski obviously took a brief skim-read of the contents and, riled by the patronising title of the memo, chucked it into the bin.

So at the dinner last Friday night, before the summit proper, Kaczynski - suffering under his usual political-turrets-syndrome - blurted out that “Poland will support the Great Dane.”

Oops! Game over.

Foreign Minister Sikorski, who was basically rejected as a candidate for secretary-general because the Russians wouldn’t like him, must have been spitting blood. Kaczynski had done it again! Who was ruling Polish foreign policy, anyway?

And so the farce continues…

The political elite in Poland has had a hard time in Poland since 1989 convincing Poles that they are worth taking any notice of. And then something like Afghanistan, the EU, NATO come along, and suddenly they can feel important in high places. Afghanistan has become like opium for our leaders. They can’t get enough of it.

the beatroot in Rome - part II

Back in Rome to see the ruins of the old Roman Empire, and a troubled press secretary of the gaff-prone, current one.

Italy has been trading on its past for quite a while now - centuries, even. And it’s all here in Rome: the emperors, the popes, the Renaissance, the food…the Fiat 500. I was so busy the first time I was in Rome - in October last year - I didn’t have much of a chance to see it in all it’s crumbling, fading, graffiti covered glory.

First stop was down to see the Coliseum, the Forum, the sites of glorious and/or dodgy Caesars and Senators.

The old ruins are magnificent, of course, though Italians have a talent for turning the profound into tacky tourist traps, complete with ‘gladiators’ arguing about whatever Italians are constantly arguing about; those annoying ‘living statues’ you see everywhere these days at these sorts of places, who stand still for a living for hours on end and expect people to drop money into little plates at their motionless feet; and, of course, the ubiquitous Peruvian pan-pipe players.

Moving swiftly on, down the Spanish Steps, which overlook Via dei Gucci Victims, where women with more euros than brain cells try to buy themselves an outrageously over-priced personality, with brand name attached. Tutti belli!

The centre of town is a little disappointing, but delights can be found, over the river where the old, medieval Rome can still be glimpsed - the perfect place to indulge in pasta and lamb, washed down with the Frescati from the hills of nearby Lazio. Balissimo!

We wanted to see the Vatican art museum - I had heard it was rather good - but didn’t want to queue for a couple of hours for the privilege. So time for a little favour. And a chance to see a couple of very nice people who work in the Holy See press office and let them know how Cardinal Dziwisz‘s film, Testimony - which they worked tirelessly on when we were there last October - did in Poland. Maybe they could get us in quickly? They did. Bless them!

It was a Saturday but the Vatican’s chief press officer was at his desk, with a copy of the Lancet opened in front of him. Pope Benedict was in Africa and had made an “unguarded remark”, said press officer, about how condoms were worse than useless as protection against HIV/AIDS - in fact they made things worse - and abstinence was the only real protection from getting sick. The esteemed medical journal is not pleased:

“When any influential person, be it a religious or political leader, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record. Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide.”

Oh, dear!

It’s the Vatican line, as we know, but apparently this was not on the list of things that Pope Benny was on the continent to preach about. This was meant to be a happy, controversy free trip to solidify the presence of Rome in one of the only parts of the globe where church congregations are growing - and not shrinking, like back home in Italy.

Signor Press Officer said the whole situation was rather “worrying.” And I got the impression - and it is only my impression - that the current pontiff is not seen as the safe pair of hands in front of the media that his predecessor, Pope John II, was. Pope Benny has a habit of putting his foot in it, unlike Karol Wojtyla, who played the media events like a church organ.

After the AIDS remark cue the outrage. Pope encourages ‘skin-skin’ in Africa! The Roman Catholic church is responsible for the spread of HIV!

I have argued here, as others have elsewhere, that the link between Catholic teaching and HIV rates is spurious - mainly because the nations with the highest HIV rates are not particularly Catholic. The spread of AIDS there is, at root, to do with poverty and underdevelopment. But you feel for the current Pope’s communicators. He doesn’t make their jobs any easier.

Bottoms

The Vatican art museum - no queue, in through the exit door - is better than I expected, by the way. Seemingly kilometers of corridors, lined with fantastic paintings, tell the story of Christian art, from the very old to the modern. It’s all there: Matejko’s rather gruesome depiction of Polish King Sobieski’s smashing of the Turks in Vienna - and they were worried about Danish cartoons! - right up to Munch, Chagall, Francis Bacon, even a Dali.

But it all just softens you up for the finale - the Sistine Chapel! It’s awesome. And while staring at one of Michelangelo’s many paintings that cover the ceiling I had a flash of inspiration - a revelation - about the origin of the term “mooning” - of showing one’s botty cheeks in public as a leisure activity. I had always assumed it was named after Wildman Drummer of the Who, Keith Moon, who liked to display his buttocks regularly. But, well, maybe not. See Michelangelo’s The Creation of Sun and Moon.

Back in April

I wish I could say that there have been no posts because I have been involved in heroic acts, which have changed the coarse of history. Or that I had been doing worthy things for the good of Humankind. Or even that I forgot my passwords.

But no…just a bit knackered, still. Going to Rome, and will post in first week of April.

Buddy, can you spare a grosz?

Solutions put forward to stave off the worst of the global financial meltdown - now knocking angrily at the door in Poland, like some aggressive and impatient Repo Man - have split into good old fashioned rightwing and leftwing remedies. But are they all missing the point?

The deliciously named Moody ratings agency alarmed everyone last week when they published a rather moody warning that they might downgrade credit ratings of Western banks active in central and eastern Europe (CEE). Austrian banks are particularly heavily exposed after lending the region 230 billion euros, the equivalent of 70 percent of Austria’s annual GDP. If the banks went tits up in this region they could take down many of their parent banks in the West. As manager of Manchester United, Alex Ferguson once said: “It‘s squeaky bum time,” for bankers everywhere.

The zloty has sunk against major currencies over recent weeks faster than a man with a skyscraper-load of concrete in his boots. The majority of mortgages in Poland, as elsewhere in the CEE are taken out in foreign currencies. Our flat is on a euro mortgage and repayments have risen by 15 percent since last November. The majority took their loan out in Swiss francs, a plan that now looks like it had more holes in it than Emmental cheese.

After initially seeming to be getting away with it, many central and eastern European countries are now forming an orderly queue outside the doors of the World’s bank manager, the IMF, for help. Ukraine, Hungary, Belarus… There is a plan on hold for Poland, if needed.

Each month macro economic analysts sit down and key new data into computer models, press ‘send’ and watch as the screen flickers up yet another GDP growth prediction that is even more gloomy than last month’s. The government thinks maybe 2.5 percent for 2009; the World Bank this week said two percent, most independent analysts are even more moody: one percent, maybe no percent.

CEE countries inside the EU who are in the Euro Zone - Slovenia, Slovakia… - are best placed to see out the recession. Those in the EU but outside of the Euro Zone - Poland, most of them - will have a harder time but should get some protection from Brussels. Those in the CEE but outside the EU, however, appear stuffed.

The government in Warsaw looks as shocked as everyone, these days, at the pace of it all. One minister said this week that they had tried to play things down initially, because they “didn’t want to worry people.” But now the government has scrambled a package together to try and steady the ship, a bit.

Prime Minister Tusk said that if the zloty falls to 5 to the euro then his government would intervene. The day after, when the zloty didn’t fall quite that low, the finance ministry started selling euros anyway.

The pro-EU Civic Platform government have emphasised that getting into the ERM-2 mechanism as quickly as possible would help protect the zloty from such instability (although it didn’t help the pound much in the early 1990s). May or June seems to the target date.

The government has a four point strategy, apparently - bills on bank bailouts, on equity for national trading bank Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, on credit guarantees for businesses, and on tax relief for direct investors.

“I‘m no Obama”

But Donald Tusk warned that there would be “no massive injections” of cash into the economy. Tusk said that he was “No Obama” - as if people hadn’t actually noticed this before.

And here politicians in Poland are falling into two camps, much like the old left and right days. On the right, Donald Tusk - but in the left hand corner is Jaroslaw Kaczynski, calling for a programme of public works - a la Maynard Keynes - to protect jobs and stimulate the economy.

It’s no surprise Kaczynski is on the state borrowing and spending side of the equation. For all the emphasis on his social conservatism, he and Law and Justice have always been left on the economic front. Law and Justice, the conservative-socialists!

The World Bank report was actually much less gloomy than most. It said Poland would ride out the storm better than many in the region. But it’s still going to be rough, though not the Great Depression. There are no precedents to this. It’s something new.

And that makes me think that all the bailouts and other sticking plasters aren’t really coming to terms with what is behind this: an over producing but under consuming south Asia, and an over consuming, under producing West. This is about fundamental imbalances. But nobody seems to have a plan about that.

Friday quiz (on a Saturday)

Q: What have former President of the Republic of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski (he's the one below) and World’s Most Wanted, Super Terrorist, Uber-Weird Beard and Cave Dweller, Osama bin Laden got it in common?

Answer: They are both fans of Arsenal FC!

Kwasniewski used to work in a pub opposite the old Arsenal football ground in north London and ended up going to see ‘the Gunners’ often.

Osama bin Laden was also a keen follower of Arsenal when he was in London in the 1990s. In fact, after 9/11 the club actually put him on the banned list of unwelcome spectators - like some Super Hooligan! Quite why he supported that particular club and not, say, Queen’s Park Rangers, Fulham, Chelsea or West Ham is probably down to him having the misconception that he could rearm the Muhadjeen via the Arsenal.

Normal service will be resumed soon

Just a bit knackered…

Brutal Taliban beheading shocks Poland

“And we were so close to getting him released…,” said Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, after confirming that Piotr Stanczak, the Polish engineer kidnapped four months ago in Pakistan, had been beheaded by the Taliban.

The now expected grisly video of the moment of death is being circulated on the internet adding to the utter horror that this type of story produces.

What’s worse, the voice of Stanczak appears calm on the video - it seems certain that he was presuming that he would soon be freed. He was just reading out a text that the Taliban had prepared for him: Poland to get out of Afghanistan; prisoners must be released…the usual stuff. They had let him shave and had given him back his normal clothes. It’s not the voice of someone who thinks they are about to die - in a most disgusting way - in only a few seconds time.

The recriminations have started: did the Polish government, the Pakistani government, do enough to get him freed? Prime Minister Tusk said over the weekend that they had never any intention to pay the ransom fee that the Taliban were demanding. But they certainly were in close contact with Pakistani special services who did have contact with the Taliban. How would Sikorski be so certain that they were so close to securing Piotr’s release?

I got a couple of nice emails at work today from Pakistanis saying how sorry they were about what happened to “Mr. Peter”, as he became known in the media over there. And I don’t think anyone in Poland blames Pakistanis for Stanczak’s death - only the deeply medieval and alienating Taliban - people who appear so brutal and not-of-this-world they may as well be aliens from Planet Weird Beard.

There will be questions of what, exactly, is Poland doing mixed up in this war, launched as part of Bush’s War on Terror. Obama has refused to use those words consecutively, but he seems even more keen than his predecessor to get sucked in, ever deeper. Is this sort of intervention ever constructive? Can you bomb and occupy a country out of the stone age? Were the Taliban so upset when the US invaded Afghanistan? Did the region become more stable as a result?

Is the Pope a Muslim?

The video is here - warning - I have not watched this all the way through - I just can’t look at this kind of thing - so I don’t know if this is the shorter version - which spares us the details - or the longer version, which doesn’t.

Make PiS, not War!

Is the leader of Law and Justice (PiS) Jaroslaw Kaczynski turning into a peace-loving hippy?

At the party’s congress at the weekend he said that Polish politics must end the squabbling that has so characterised it since 1989 and that it was time for the government and his party to “Make peace… Poles want peace.” Observers are wondering if Kaczynski has not been rollin’ and smokin’ a little too much wacky-backy, lately.

The party congress was part of a new initiative by Kaczynski to change Law and Justice’s image. And it needs to - recent poll results put PiS twenty percent or more behind Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform. So, whereas focus groups have been telling him that he and Law and Justice are seen as conflictual and aggressive, Jaroslaw and his merry band are now presenting themselves as people of reason, of consensus, of peace. A bit like...Barack Obama, perhaps?

But can Jaroslaw keep it up? He has been picking fights with communists, liberals, old colleagues from the Solidarity movement - and who knows; maybe even his pet cat? - for most of his life. So will the new Man of Peace image sit easily with him? Well, already he is struggling. Jaroslaw only gets out of bed in the morning to pick a few fights.

Prime Minister Tusk - who wants a cross party consensus on ways to fight the little spot of economic bother that Poland is now in, along with the rest of Planet Earth - wanted to turn up to the party congress and say a few soothing, almost presidential words a la Obama… “Now is the time when all Poles should come together...etc,” to the PiS party faithful. But Kaczynski refused to invite him to the congress, only to a side meeting after it was all over. “Civic Platform never asked me to one of their congresses,” grumbled Kaczynski today, slipping back into the old bruiser routine he does so well. “If the government wants cooperation then they have to get rid of all their propagandists…”, he spat, referring to Civic Platform’s much talked about PR machine and maybe even alluding to Janusz Palikot, who anoounced, yet again via his blog, that he was at the congress “in cognito” - although how anyone with his hair style can be “undercover” anywhere except at a blind old people’s home, is anyone’s guess.

But perhaps Jaroslaw has changed? Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks and old leopards can change their spots? Maybe his conversion to the ways of peace - a kind of Polish Dalai Lama - happened when he disappeared from the political limelight and media for more than a couple of months last year. But where did he go? Maybe to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury to hang out with what is left of the Grateful Dead and the rest of the flower power children generation, to toke on a few spliffs and wind daisy chains around the toes of Vladimir Putin…

The Real Football Factories International

Just as an appendix to the previous post, if you want to watch a really compulsive documentary on Polish football hooliganism then I have to recommended The Real Football Factories International.

It’s a British made documentary inspired by the hit series Real Football Factories, which was about UK soccer hooligans and what the government did about it at the end of the 1980s.

The Real Football Factories International looks at football ultras, or “firms” as we call then in Britain, in many different countries, such as Brazil, Russia and many more. But the best episode is the one about Poland, made a couple of winters ago at the height of a resurgence of football related violence here. People were dieing.

It captures some of the most amazing footage of football violence - and the reasons why these guys do this stuff - I have ever seen. The central section of the film, about the rivalry between the teams from Krakow, Wisla and Cracovia, is breathtaking. The documentary has since become a cult success in the many countries that it has been broadcast.

At this point I should say that I had a hand in making the film. The producers got in touch with me via this blog, actually, and asked for help in getting contacts, etc. I also met the team in the Holiday Inn in Warsaw just after they spent an amazing couple of days with the hooligans of Krakow. They asked me lots of questions about how the UK got rid of its hooligan problem and I answered them as best I could.

They also interviewed many other people for the final “analysis” section of the film. The chairman of Legia was one. So was Simon Mol, who was then prominent in the “Kick racism out of football” campaign in Poland.

Unfortunately, just weeks before the broadcast premier of the documentary, Simon Mol was arrested for his now infamous behaviour. I then got an anxious email from the producers of the film: is Mol a kosher person as a “talking head”? I had to tell then that, in the present circumstances, he was not.

So, for that reason, or maybe for reasons of art - the footage of the Wisla/Cracovia game is so amazing and central to the film that they needed little extra - they cut Mol from the programme and many other ‘talking heads’. Except one.

See the rather entertaining documentary here (it‘s on youtube so split into five different parts). And I promise you that, although the British presenter is an actor, everything you see is how it happened. No set ups.

Is Poland’s racism even worse than its roads?

Well you would think so judging by what some say awaits black players when they come to Poland and Ukraine for the Euro 2012 soccer championships.

The story, the journalistic narrative, of UEFA 2012 is already a long and well trodden one: Poland and/or Ukraine is not going to be ready. The roads, highways, stadia, hotels will not get built. The Polish football association, PZPN, is corrupt to its crossbar and can’t be trusted to do anything, anyway.

But now there is another “threat” to the games in “eastern” Europe - racism.

A conference in Warsaw this March is being organised by the Polish football association, in partnership with the European governing body UEFA and the footballers “trade union” FIFPro under the slogan Unite Against Racism.

Racist chanting has been in the headlines quite often over the years - some fans in Spain have perhaps now got the worst reputation for this, recently. So what to do about this is a relevant discussion topic at these kind of conferences.

In the letter of invitation sent out by the Governor of UEFA to the 250 delegates which are expected to turn up in Warsaw on March 3 and 4 it says this:

We now want to create an opportunity to review progress and renew our call for action. In particular, we want to record positive developments and in view of EURO 2012 look at the challenges facing us in the east and what more the European football family can do.",

So what are the challenges “facing us in the East”?

Mihir Bose is a reporter for the BBC who set out for Poland last year to investigate how big those challenges are. And, well, he found lots of “challenges”. On his blog post about his trip he says:

Racism may never be fully eradicated from football, but what I found during an investigation into the problem in Poland was truly shocking.

And this in the country that will co-host the 2012 European Football Championship…

…In a street in central Warsaw, not far from the hotel where I was staying, there was a lot of graffiti about 'white power' and the Ku Klux Klan, all associated with the city's main team Legia Warsaw…

…the president of Legia Warsaw, Leszek Miklas, an impressive and honest man, readily admitted that 15-20% of his club's fans were neo-Nazis….

…I went to a Legia Warsaw home match at the Polish Army Stadium, where the team fielded black players without any visible problems, although I was not able to go anywhere near the stand, which takes up a whole side of the ground, where the 'ultras' gather.

Before the match I had been to a bar near the ground where the hardcore supporters meet.

It was made clear by some fans, who feared for my safety and that of my crew, I should leave.

All nasty stuff, of course. And it’s shocking that the chairman of Legia seems to think that 15 to 20 percent of his supporters are neo-Nazis!

I have no idea how many of the banana throwing types - and it happens occasionally at Polish football grounds (as it did in the UK in the 1970s and 80s) - are actual, conscious neo-fascists and how many of them are simply stupid idiots using anything to have a go at the rival team’s players. And I don’t think anyone else does, either.

BBC journalist Bose wonders, however, later in his post about what all this means for Euro 2012? “ [T)ackling such deep-seated racism in time to welcome a Europe of all colours may be much more difficult than building roads and stadia,” he writes.

Is Poland’s racism really worse than its roads?

The view that Bose paints on his blog and in the film which he made about racism in Polish football (see here) does not ring true with people I have talked to about this, who do go to games most weekends.

On the Pitch Invasion er… ‘blog-zine’… responding to the Polish Hooligan = Nazi question, and the accusation that Nazi symbols, etc, are often seen at Polish footbal grounds, Michal Karas writes:

My first-hand experience is that this is very uncommon, although I can’t deny the problem exists.

During my five years on Wisla Krakow’s fanatic terraces, I’ve twice heard such disgraceful chants sung by a couple of isolated individuals. One is “Our role model is Rudolf Hess” and another “We have a hero — Adolf Hitler”, which sadly rhyme in Polish, making it even more grotesque. I did not hear these during games, but somewhere near the stadium.

Racism in general is, unfortunately, more common. Throwing bananas onto the pitch still happens occasionally — I recall a few cases during the last decade. Monkey chants also happen from time to time. These are, of course, deeply deplorable acts and need to be eradicated. The question, though, is whether racism is as wildly prevalent in Polish football as the BBC report ended up concluding, with the studio panel suggesting 20% of fans are racist.,

Karas then contextualises the remarks made by the Legia chairman - reminding us that the board of Legia was in dispute at the time with its fan clubs. After the Vilnius pitch invasion (video from a 'hooligan' with a camera before the riot, I think, here - it later got as silly as this) Legia, having been banned by UEFA from European competition, started banning anyone from their stadium thought to be leading the Nieznani Sprawcy (Unknown Perps) 'ultra' group in these and other activities. But this ban was not for racism. So painting all of Legia’s football hooligans as being racist was a convenient tactic by the Legia chairman in his battle to clean up the image of Legia generally, as this negative image is hindering getting the club readmitted to European tournaments.

If you read Karas’s post and then Bose’s it’s like seeing two different countries - or maybe, two very different halves of a game of football.

So I hope the summit in Warsaw in March will be looking at the real extent of racism on the terraces in Poland, while keeping some sense of proportion on this. There are some nasty little racists at Poland’s football stadia, but believe me, Poland’s roads are a lot bigger threat to the fabric of society - and international football tournaments - than those idiots.

Obama, Guantanamo Bay and the ‘CIA prison’ in Poland

The phone rang at work this afternoon, as the gloom of the winter’s afternoon descended on Warsaw.

On the other end was a sunny, North American lady who said she worked for the BBC. She had a question, which went exactly like this:

“President Barack Obama has ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and all rendition camps, one of which was in Poland. Are Poles pleased with Obama for that?”

To tell you truth, I was slightly at a loss how to answer this. But this is what I came up with:

“Well…um…you do know that the evidence for a ‘CIA prison’ in Poland is deeply controversial? No government has admitted knowing anything about this and if you ask Joe Kowalski if he thought there were these places in Poland he might tell you that there probably weren’t any?”

“Poles don’t believe there were prisons in Poland,” she said, slightly taken aback that this story was not a done deal. “Yup,” I said, maybe slightly presumptuously, as I have never seen an opinion poll on this.

But I still think I am right. The very idea of a “CIA prison” in Poland is still quite an exotic one here. And it’s not really an issue that Poles feel connected too, anyway. I suppose ‘prison’ is preferable to early stories on this, which described this supposed place as the “new Auschwitz”, a deeply dumb and offensive idea. So, some progress of sorts, I suppose.

But it shows how it has now become common sense that there was these prisons in Poland to those like the journalists at the BBC. My own opinion, after following this story for over two years is that there was indeed something in Poland up until autumn 2005, but to describe what was probably a stopping off point while prisoners were rendition to somewhere else is not quite the same as saying there was a ‘CIA prison’. I think some elements of the Polish secret services did know about this - but how much politicians knew, and how out of control the secret services were at that time, is open to speculation.

Whatever - I hope I didn’t spoil one of the BBC’s “Obama good news” stories. Closing down the obscenity of Guantanamo is deeply welcome. Obama will also outlaw methods of interrogation which involve the “enhanced techniques” like water-boarding which Bush and his cronies always maintained “were not torture”, but, in fact, were just that. As to the slightly naive reporting of the BBC, well, that’s what they mean by a “dumbed down news media.”

Hey Bush!

One of George’s lines has come back to haunt him. Thenews.pl reports.

Press reports claim that outgoing US president George W. Bush failed to contact any Polish politicians while bidding farewell to various heads of state at the end of his term of office.

President Bush made phone calls to leaders of the major global powers, writes the Dziennik newspaper, including Russian PM Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of France Nicolas Sarkozy.

The outgoing president also found time for a conversation with leaders of Denmark, Georgia and Greece.

But he apparently had no time for Poland’s politicians…

{…} In a presidential debate in 2004 with the then Democratic party contender John Kerry, - about the international nature of the coalition that invaded Iraq - the challenger said that the countries involved were only Great Britain, Australia and United States: “That’s not a grand coalition, we can do better," he said. Bush replied: “Actually, he forgot about Poland.”

It appears, this time, President Bush was the one who forgot about Poland.

Sss…boo…bah…sss…

Yup, much of the world has just breathed a sigh of relief. It’s over. Bush is finished.

The mistakes he made in his time went way, way beyond the linguistic, the grammatical. I just re-read Bob Woodward’s State of Denial, about Bush and the war in Iraq. It’s a much, much better book than Woodward’s first on the Bush presidency - Bush ar War - where his access to meetings of all the principles, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, was unparalleled. He was literally embedded into the regime. But with that closeness went Woodward’s critical distance. An awful book.

But State of Denial details the conflict and chaos within Bush’s administration as it ‘prepared’ for war brilliantly. Read it for all its shocking and awfulness.

The picture will stay always in my mind of how Woodward describes Bush sitting in the Oval Office listening to many people who knew that the US was about to make a terrible mistake and giving him detailed evidence of why this was so , and George looking as if he was concentrating as his little legs danced and jigged under the table.

Bush did things by instinct and he didn’t like it when someone was shattering his view that he must be, almost divinely in the right.

And now he has gone, off to his Texas ranch to set up a couple of Bush foundations and maybe even a library (with books full of words with no more than two symbols, natch...)!

But how will Obama approach Poland, America’s sometimes awkwardly over eager ally in Europe? Will Obama remember Poland?

He has a great chance to drop the anti-missile shield. Too expensive; maybe doesn’t even work; finance crisis, remember?

But nothing much is going to change as the US, Poland and all the others get bogged down ever deeper in Afghanistan. That will be. No change.

And I hope he doesn’t go, economically, down the protectionist route, like Democrats often do. That certainly won’t be in anyone’s interests.

But Poles generally don't share the huge expectations which now are going to weigh down on Barack’s shoulders, like they do in America, and maybe even in a European country like the UK, as well. Obama is a centre-right pragmatist, with a bright new shiney style. That’s it. He is movingly significant because of who he is - the first black president of the United States of America. But his politics? I think we should all calm down a bit.

And now Bush has gone, who are they gonna blame for all the other stuff he wasn’t responsible for? Maybe one day we are going to miss Old George. No more scapegoats.

Gaza and the blood libel

Shaky unilateral ceasefires give the populations of Gaza and the border towns a break. But will this stop the opposition protests against Israeli militarism dipping in to a disturbing echo of the past.

The photo above was taken by a spiked journalist when reporting on the large demonstration in London last weekend. “Israelis eat babies…etc.”

I don’t know about you, but what came to mind as soon as I saw that were three things: a political cartoon, a painting by Goya and the old rancid chestnut about how Jews ritualistically slaughter babies. Coincidence?

Babies, as you can see from this video clip, did seem to be a theme of the demo in London. Why? Well, the Israelis had bombed a UN facility earlier that week where many children and women had taken refuge. But babies die in all wars - many have died under the bombs of Americans, the British, Russians and more in Baghdad, Kabul, Belgrade…. Many have died in suicide bombs all over the world. Children die in war, terrorist attacks. Especially in wars and terrorism these days.

But the protestor dressed up as an Israeli with the baby was obviously drawing on a reference to an award winning cartoon which appeared in the UK Independent in 2003, which was based, in turn, by Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son.

When the cartoon (click on photo to enlarge) appeared many were horrified. It seemed to draw upon the old myth of what is known as blood libel, a belief, quite common in Europe in less enlightened times, that Jews ritually sacrificed the children of Christians.

In fact, as you see by this (disgusting) video, a few cranks still believe this to be so today.

Whether the fool who dressed up as the Israeli with the child knew about blood libel, or even the cartoon, or the painting by Goya, I have no idea. But the protests against Israeli occupation have become synonymous, for many, with a protest against Jews in general. Starbucks, for instance, has come under attack for being a cappuccino Zionist, seemingly for no other reason that its owner is Jewish and a few weird rumours going around the internet. The boycott Israel types don't like Marks and Spencer, either (Michael Marks was a Jewish refugee from Poland before he moved to the UK to open up the shop with Mr. Spencer. And constantly we hear the comparison of Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto.

So perhaps both the protestor in London and the cartoon in the Independent do delve back into the European dark ages.

And those depictions of Jews with children have a long and ignoble history. For instance, one good example of the prototype for cartoonists and protestors to be inspired by can be found in St Paul’s church in Sandomierz, south Poland. Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

When protestors supporting Palestinians sink to this depth then you can count me out. Not all criticism of Israel is anti semitic, as some claim, but some confuse an Israeli for a Jew, generally, and it is becoming acceptable, in some right on circles, to make anti semitic references. That must stop.

EU Entropa exhibition pisses off...people!

An exhibition, Entropa, at the European Union Council building in Brussels, by wacky Czech conceptual artist David Cerny has upset Bulgarians! And it depicts Poland as a bunch of crazy pro-gay monks! Ha, haagh…wheeze…!

The exhibit was meant to be by 27 different artists representing something about the 27 different cultures of the European Union. Brussels was pleased! And then the pieces were delivered. And they were a bit…hmmm.

You know…isn’t representing Germany with a “hint of a swastika”...

...Denmark as a series of Lego bricks (pfff!) Netherlands as a row of mosques sinking in a sea...

...and Bulgaria as one of those toilets with just enamel footplates to stand on and a hole in the floor...

...a little bit...you know...insulting?

"Entropa is an art piece, not a political statement. It is funny and ironic because sometimes you can use humour as a catharsis," Cerny said.

Ha, ha, haagh...giggle, snigger...

“It is a mirror in which you bend yourself and you smile and you think 'this is it'. No one should take it seriously."

Oooo, ha, ha...mirror...bend...ooooh...catharsis!...ha, ha...tickle...oh, stop it!

It has since emerged that there were no “27 artists”. The whole exhibit was produced by small team of wacky Czech artists. Oops! The EU art commissioner in Brussels must feel a little bit of a twit.

And those conceptual artist! Don’t you just love ’em! (I am sure Dada-ists are turning in their…toilet bowl installations, as I write.)

I don’t know which is sadder: the state of some contemporary art, which has to delve into crude stereotypes to get its kicks; or politicians like a Giertych, or a Kaczynski who provided, on an enamelled plate, the crude stereotype of Poland in the first place?

hat tip: radio journo Gabriel Stille

Jaroslaw or Jaroslawa?

Self styled ‘controversial’ member of parliament for the ruling Civic Platform party, Janusz Palikot (photo), has just appealed on his blog for former prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski to declare whether or not he is gay.

Palikot, the richest man in the Polish parliament - both in terms of wealth and thickness of hair - has used his blog in the past to shoot off accusations against the Kaczynski twins before - in fact his blog has got him into legal trouble. He has called the president of Poland - Jaroslaw’s twin brother Lech, “an idiot,” and wondered whether President Lech’s health problems were down to his love of the bottle, and demanded to see the head of state’s health records.

This time Palikot - who is a kind of Civic Platform version of Law and Justice’s Jacek Kurski, a political ’attack dog’ who says all the things the more establishment politicians would love to say but haven’t got the guts to do so - digs in to the old rumours about Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s sexuality.

By the way, my girlfriend tells me that the photo above of Palikot was taken during an appearence on the media about the very serious topic of rape, which he was speaking very seriously about. The effect, of course, was ruined by the dildo. But that's Palikot all over.

On his blog this weekend Palikot is reacting to comments made by Nelly Rokita, now an MP for Law and Justice and wife of Jan Rokita, one of the most prominent politicians in Civic Platform, who retired formally from politics shortly before the last election in October 2007.
Nelly - one of the more eccentric members of parliament and one of the decidedly weird politicians to come out of the Krakow scene (the other is her husband Jan) - pleaded recently in the media for Jaroslaw to settle down and get himself a nice wife - as he is one of the only top politicians in Poland not to have the prescribed ’happy family’, and contents himself to living with his mum and pet cat.

Palikot asks if Jaroslaw is actually Jaroslawa, the female form of his name. “Is Jaroslaw a woman,” asks Palikot. He also writes that it is common for one of identical twins to be homosexual.

The Civic Platform politician says he doesn’t mind one way or another whether Kaczynski is gay, but he “should tell the public” if he is. Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski have made many anti-gay comments in the past and have been criticised by human rights groups for their stance on the issue.

Whether or not outing politicians is a good and productive thing to do is debatable. But here’s the irony - by insinuating that a gay is “a woman” as Palikot does shows that the self styled controversial and “liberal” politicians of Poland are still pretty primitive themselves.

Using the Holocaust to beat the Israelis

Protesters around the world are right to condemn the Israeli militarism in the Gaza Strip - but the comparison that many are making with the 1941 - 43 Warsaw Ghetto is historically illiterate and dumb.

Thousands marched in many countries last weekend against the repulsive action of the Israeli armed forces against Palestinians. A few hundred people stood outside the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw in protest at what is yet another example of Israel’s lashing out, counterproductively, at its Arab neighbours.

Thousands more marched in places like Amsterdam and London. And I would have marched with them were it not for the ridiculous slogans like “We are all Hamas now,” (oh, no you are not!) and “Gaza is the new Warsaw, ” (oh, no it isn’t). These are pantomime protestors protesting something they know little about.

Ambient music wiz Brian Eno, at the rally in Trafalgar Square, called for Israel to stop making, “a Warsaw ghetto in the Middle East.”

Meanwhile, the Socialist Workers Party (yes, they do still exist, apparently) was handing out its latest comment on the situation:

A quick look at a map shows that this has little to do with stopping Hamas from sending some missiles into sections of Israel, and everything to do with strangling an entire population of people, with the aim of either destroying the leadership that was democratically elected by the Palestinians themselves or dislodging that support from the Palestinian base. I think drawing analogies between what Israel is doing and what the Nazis did in the Warsaw Ghettos of Poland is entirely appropriate.

And of course the bloggers think they have found in Israel the new Nazis.

After all, the situation faced by the Gazans is ominously similar to that faced by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War Two. Penned in by the Nazi occupiers, the ghetto Jews suffered and starved and lived in endless fear of instantaneous death.

But it is not just the latest Israeli action that brought this analogy crawling out into the daylight. Back in 2003, two British leftwing MPs, Oona King and Jenny Tonge made the same charge. The Guardian reported:

Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was today compared to the Nazis' creation of the Warsaw ghetto by MPs who recently returned from the region.

The controversial comparison, drawn by Oona King and Jenny Tonge, will anger the pro-Israel lobby and the visiting Israeli finance minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who met Tony Blair at Downing Street this morning.

Labour MP Ms King, who is Jewish, said Gaza was "the same in nature" as the infamous Polish ghetto.

"No government should be behaving like that - least of all a Jewish government," the Bethnal Green and Bow MP said.

Do you like the bit about the “infamous Polish ghetto”?

This comparison with the Warsaw ghetto is mindless and moronic. Israel is not embarking on the Final Solution of the Palestinians.

Quite what they think they are doing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a good question, however, and I am not even sure the Israeli government knows what exactly. Trying to stop the thousands of rockets that have been raining down on Israeli border towns? Well, even the Israeli side is saying it will never stop all of them. And if Israel thinks that Gazans are suddenly going to start blaming Hamas for being at the wrong end of Israeli rockets, guns and an invasion then they are very stupid indeed. Hamas will just get more popular with Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

And on the other side, it is not even clear why Hamas has been lobbing rockets in Israel for two years. These rockets, which have a very low degree of accuracy, can fulfil no military objectives at all. None. So why does Hamas do it? Are they trying to illicit responses from the Israelis, like the one they are reaping now, in the hope of outside intervention from …well, who? The European Union?

Though the suffering of Gazans is great it is not on the same scale as what happened to those trapped in the Warsaw ghetto. Virtually nobody was left alive in the ghetto after the Nazis decided to trash it. And no Palestinians have been packed off the extermination camps.

Another difference is the amazing resistance the Jews put up against the Nazis, with hundreds of thousands of casualties in many of the ghettos across Poland.

I don’t see any of the above happening in Gaza right now. When protestors - who know little of either Gaza or Warsaw - shout slogans involving “holocaust”, or “genocide” or “Warsaw ghetto” they degrade all those terms and memories, and put off one person - me - who would like to join them in condemning Israel and its stupid, bloody attacks.