Is Poland Corrupt?

Homo Sovieticus

This question keeps popping up. Commentators, business people and politicians outside Poland are keen to know whether Poland has been able to shed the post-communist tag which is so often associated with corruption. Is being a post-communist country tantamount to being corrupt? Poles themselves, Polish politicians, entrepreneurs and sociologists are eager to be rid of this deep-rooted problem. Opposition parties (regardless of who is in government at the time) criticise the ruling class for being ‘corrupt’ while often ignoring obvious examples of corruption, nepotism and a variety of abuses in their own ranks. So is Poland corrupt? Is it more or less corrupt than other countries in the world? In Europe? In Central Europe? Is it more or less corrupt than it once was? Is the attitude and behaviour of Soviet Man, Homo Sovieticus, a relic of the past or still prevalent throughout Polish society?

Indifference Reigns

The term Homo Sovieticus was coined by Aleksandr Zinovyev but used to much effect by the Solidarity philosopher priest Józef Tischner. Five characteristics of Homo Sovieticus can be highlighted: (1) Avoidance of individual responsibility; (2) Passive acceptance of authority; (3) Indifference to common property and petty theft; (4) Indifference to the results of labour; and (5) Isolation from global culture. Sounds familiar, eh? The avoidance of individual responsibility can most certainly be seen in Poland’s urzędy (offices). Statements like, “It’s not my problem” or “It’s beyond my remit” may be less frequent than, let’s say, ten years ago but the attitude can still be found. Poland’s low turnout in all elections can be put down to point (2), whereas the state of public toilets is well-explained by point (3). The wonderful Polish saying Czy się stoi czy się leży dwa tysiące się należy best illustrates point (4).

Corruption is King

This attitude of being overly demanding and needy – point (4) – linked also to the ‘victim complex’ and constant desire for ‘compensation’ is frequently reflected in Polish right-wing politics. What is more, point (5) can be seen in these same right-wing parties and some Catholic circles. This was especially true prior to EU accession, however, of all the five points, the fifth seems to be waning fastest, especially in Poland’s major cities. We will have to see if this attitude erodes in the provinces. Perhaps the key to the dissipation of corruption, or at least its weakening, lies in the idea of Homo Sovieticus. If Poland is to effectively do battle with corruption, nepotism and the suchlike then the highlighting of these five points should perhaps be the backbone of future central and local government policy. Poland managed to improve its CPI (Corruption Perception Index) from 49th in 2009 to 41st in 2010. Let’s hope this positive trend continues…

Poland Has a Cross to Bear

Shit Hits the Plaque

Things have really reached boiling point and one could colloquially add that the shit really has hit the fan in Poland. A ‘faecal’ assailant soiled the plaque commemorating the death of President Lech Kaczyński and 95 other passengers in the Smolensk air tragedy. A 71-year-old threw a strategically aimed pot of poo at the memorial tablet in central Warsaw. He was arrested by police and taken away. This follows several months of  squabbling over what should happen to the cross that was temporarily erected outside the Presidential Palace by scouts in memory of the victims of the Smolensk tragedy.

José Luis Zapatero & Jarek Kaczyński - Feel the Love

It all started when President Bronisław Komorowski announced that the temporary wooden cross should be transferred to a more appropriate place, specifically Saint Anne’s Church, not far from the Presidential Palace. The cross is of course a religious symbol and not a symbol of state and it is inappropriate to leave it outside the Presidential Palace. His comments kicked off a storm with Jarosław Kaczyński claiming Komorowski was anti-catholic and a proponent of the evil of what he termed ‘Zapaterism’.

Crucifixion Anyone?

The odd thing is that no one, apart from Jarosław Kaczyński, seems to know what evil deed it is that Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has done. With a lack of decent policies, sound ideas and competent opinions, Kaczyński has been using the cross as a political makeweight. In fact, he has said that the policies of Law & Justice (PiS) will now revolve around the Smolensk tragedy. Kaczyński is literally crucifying his own party and followers in pursuit of his own personal mission. His personal loss seems to have clouded his judgement and the cross has begun to symbolise his hurt rather than the mission of Christ and his followers. Those so-called ‘defenders’ of the cross are to Catholics what hooligans are to regular football fans.

Christian or Fascist?

A fine example of the utter blindness of these so-called Christians was their behaviour when the day came to move the cross. Priests from Saint Anne’s came to lead the cross in procession from the Presidential Palace to Saint Anne’s Church. The reaction of these ‘Catholics’ was to scream and shout at the Catholic priests calling them traitors and, of all things, “Jews”. Odd, to say the least. We have reached an impasse and the only real way to resolve it is for the two main protagonists, President Komorowski and Jarosław Kaczyński, to sit down and reach an adequate compromise. Then again pigs might fly…

Moose on the Loose

It’s amazing what a week’s holiday can do for the mind, body and soul. Not to mention one’s perspective on the things that are happening in the world at large. After spending a week away from Poland the first piece of Polish news I hear (or rather, the first piece of news that is anywhere remotely interesting) was the astonishing fact that a moose had spent much of Monday (yesterday) morning running around the streets of Warsaw. Apparently, the poor fellow had been frightened out of Kampinos forest by herds of weekend tourists wanting to breathe in the fresh forest air.

Anesthetised Public
The reason why this piece of news made the headlines is two-fold. First of all, we’re in the media silly season where all manner of rubbish hits the headlines due to the simple fact that there’s nothing much else going on. However there is a lot going on at the moment in Polish politics. Too much. This leads me to believe that the Polish media (and almost certainly Joe Public, i.e. ‘Jan Kowalski’) has become ambivalent, desensitised and downright fed up with the ever-growing chaotic maelstrom of Polish politics.

Biggest Megaphone
Poland’s political elite class has degenerated into a bickering gaggle of washerwomen content only on out-shouting each other. Water-tight argumentation, mental dexterity and lexical prowess have been replaced by public slanging matches, coalition in-fighting and below-the-belt calumny. It’s ugly, it’s petty and a complete waste of time. The news that Law and Justice (PiS) has been using state departments (and underhand techniques) to dredge up ‘dirt’ on opposition politicians no longer comes as a surprise to anyone anymore. The era of the Moose is upon us…

Love the World with Ping-Pong

I found a website the other day the address of which I cannot for the life of me remember but I spent at least half an hour downloading pictures from it much to my delight. The author of the website has decided to give a visual account of some of the world’s dignitaries, sports people, actors, actresses, musicians and more through the world-encompassing, peace-bringing and love-giving sport of table tennis. I thought I’d share some of the pics with you all.

Lech Wałęsa (giving it to the Commies)

Fidel Castro (face contorted in sporting strain)

Prince Charles (notice hand NOT in pocket)

Chairman Mao (loving it)

Pope JP II (blessing bats in holy happiness)

Arnie (getting ready to terminate his opponent)

Borat (prior to an important Kazakh match)

Pavarotti (singing to victory)

Marilyn Monroe (looking good, with bat)

Liz Taylor (resting between Cleopatra shots)

Cher (I’ve got you, bat)

André Agassi (not looking convincing)

Ronaldo (where’s the ball, Ronnie?)

Star Trek (even in hyperspace…)

Christina Aguilera (dirrrrrty batter)

Popeye (ping-pong and spinach for the masses)

Mr Ed (boyhood horse hero & intelligent equine)

Anyone fancy a game? I’m pretty good with a bat myself…

Foot in Mouth Disease

I have a theory that the level of a country’s cultural development and civilisation can be gauged by the standard of its public toilets. Obviously, everything is relative but take a look at service station bogs in Sweden, Holland or Germany and take a look at the holes in the ground you find in Northern Africa, for example. Everything else comes somewhere in the middle and in this way we can establish where a county can be found on the cultural continuum.
Well, I think it’s a good theory…

My other theory is that you can gauge the state of a country’s political culture/development/class by the amount of absurdity contained in the country’s legislation or by the amount of surreal decisions announced by its politicians. Which brings me to Ewa Sowińska, Poland’s controversial Children’s Rights Ombudsman.

Sowińska recently made the news by writing a letter to the Pope claiming that the forces of darkness (in the guise of certain independent media) were closing in on Poland and Poland’s church hierarchs and were attempting to bring down Holy Mother Church through defamation, criticism and a consolidated attack on Archbishop Wielgus who was set to become Archbishop of Warsaw but had to step down after it was found that he had collaborated with the communist Secret Police (see previous blog entry). When asked why on earth the Children’s Rights Ombudsman was writing an official letter to the Pope on government headed paper she replied that the good Archbishop spent many hours teaching children and this was, therefore, a matter for the Ombudsman. Hmm…

Anyway, this time Sowińska – of the far-right League of Polish Families - has excelled even herself. She has expressed concerns about the sexuality of Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies who, she believes, is quite obviously gay. She came to this conclusion upon noticing that dear old Tinky has a penchant for carrying handbags. Sowińska is so intent on pursuing her anti-gay crusade that she is currently in consultation with psychologists about this matter. If convicted, charged and found to be gay, Tinky Winky will be banned from Polish TV as this is a blatant case of the promotion of a gay lifestyle which is abhorrent to all God-fearing League of Polish Family members.

I wonder if she’s ever seen Little Britain…

Vetting? What Vetting?

I have specifically, in premeditated fashion, avoided making any entries on my blog this week in order to avoid becoming too embroiled in the political crisis that has been unfolding around the ruling of Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal concerning the constitutional nature of the much-maligned Vetting Act.

Now that all the hoohah’s finally come to a (judicial and legislative) end, I have decided to comment on the bizarre goings-on. It all started when parliament, including ruling coalition and the majority of opposition Civic Platform (PO) MPs, decided to pass an amendment to the (anti-communist) Vetting Act which widened its jurisdiction to encompass, amongst others, journalists and academics who might have collaborated with the Communist Secret Police (SB).

The ramifications of the new Act became apparent to all and it meant that those touched by the Act would have had to submit vetting declarations to the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in order to obtain a certificate of ‘moral health’. In practical terms, this meant that almost a quarter of a million (!) people would have had to submit these declarations and then have to wait for the IPN to verify them. By all accounts, the IPN would have been hard pressed, working flat out, to get through all of these declarations in little over ten (!) years.

In real terms, this puts a shadow over Poland’s ability to deal with its communist past. All the former communist states, seem to have dealt with their shady history by simply opening up their archives to all. The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party have been fighting tooth and nail to prevent this from happening and many believe the archives of the IPN are in their hands and are being used for political ends.

To illustrate the political machinations of PiS let us look at the week’s events. The deadline by which all vetting declarations were to be made was May 15th. The Constitutional Tribunal, as the primary authority responsible for ruling on questions of the constitutional (i.e. legal) nature of legislation, promised to rule on whether the Vetting Act is in accordance with the Constitution by the 11th May for the good of the people, so that the quarter of a million people affected (and confused) by it would know whether or not to submit these declarations.

Ludwik Dorn, Speaker of the House (and therefore supposedly objective) called for the Constitutional Tribunal to not rule on whether the Vetting Act was in accordance with the Constitution so soon. No clear reasons were given. After the Tribunal ignored his pleas, PiS played their ace card and submitted a petition stating that information on two of the judges of the Constitutional Tribunal had been found in the archives of the IPN; the idea being that they collaborated with the Secret Police. When pressed by the Tribunal, the PiS MP responsible for the petition crumbled but a shadow of doubt was cast on these two judges who had to be suspended for the time of this ruling. An hour later, their IPN files were found to be cleaner than clean. How the PiS MP got his hands on these files so quickly is still a mystery to many.

Even with the loss of two judges, the Tribunal was able to conclude their ruling and as the black clouds thickened and the heavens opened above Warsaw the judges declared that nearly half of the regulations in the Vetting Act were not in accordance with the Constitution. President Kaczyński and PM Kaczyński were quick to point out their displeasure. However, in all of this it has become apparent that this is more than just a battle for the realisation of one party’s vision of vetting but a power struggle on the future of Poland’s legislative system.

Five reasons to worry (Part II)

In the previous post, I mentioned why Poles may feel worried by what is going on in their country. We looked at three reasons for this feeling of uneasiness: political zeal, intolerance and lack of integrity. In this post, we look at the final two.

Fourthly (political instability), after over a week of uncertainty, Poland’s Sejm chose a new speaker of the House. Marek Jurek resigned in a huff annoyed that his pet project to tighten anti-abortion laws was not passed. He was also miffed at the fact Jarosław Kaczyński et al did not show him their full support in – what he believed to be – the most important moral battle in the history of modern Poland. In his place comes Ludwik Dorn, a controversial figure who is disliked, although respected, by opposition politicians. He is famed for his eloquence and sharp wit, but is also known for his inability to bring people together and guilty of dividing opinion – a dangerous quality for the Speaker of the House. He is also the man that coined the term wykształciuchy and has shown hostility recently to Poland’s academics. Poland’s lack of political stability and the country’s political divisions have long been the cause of both stagnation and petty conflict. We shall see whether the new Speaker can bring an element of calm to the disorder

Fifthly and lastly (non-diplomacy), Poland’s government seem to be continually embroiled in some ever-growing absurd political saga. It became clear that the government was unable to deal with the art of diplomacy with Law and Justice (PiS) aimlessly hopping from political incident to political incident. First we had the so-called potato crisis in which Lech Kaczyński was likened to a potato, then we had the energy crisis which did not do much to endear Poland to the EU, soon after came the Russian meat ban crisis. Not all these problems were directly caused by Poland’s government, for example, the Auschwitz problem or the Prussian claims problem but one can’t help thinking that the government should invest more time in tact and diplomacy. We are now witnessing a more sinister crisis concerning the Anti-Missile Shield which some believe could re-ignite the ferocities of the Cold War. Add to that recent unrest in Estonia and Poland’s support of the Estonian government and we could be facing an international impasse. Let us hope and pray Russia’s increasing belligerence can be curbed.

However, what is most important for Poles is the feeling of security and stability after so many years of pain, strife and division. The power of diplomacy and unity has never been so important.

Politician Speak with Forked Tongue

The world is full of politicians who deliberately (or even unwittingly) try and effect language. Historians give countless examples of witless (or even intelligent) political schemers who have made their mark on language. Either through the coining of new compounds, bizarre collocations, alternative set phrases and mixed metaphors or through commentary about politicians by observers are we forever introduced to a variety of odd constructions that sometimes bubble and sink in the linguistic melting pot or float to the top like unwanted excrement refusing to disappear.

Poland’s politicians are no different and are busy at work trying to stamp their authority on the Polish language. I was filled with linguistic glee (whatever that is!) when I learned that Roman Giertych, of ultra-catholic, right-wing fame, won his battle for the re-introduction of uniforms in Poland’s primary and high schools because of the fact that some people have begun calling these uniforms Giertyszki or Romanówki - a great example of Polish’s delightful penchant for possessive-diminutives. This also reminds me of Borówki (which also means ‘berries’) referring to the team of people closely associated with Marek Borowski, leader of the SDPL.

However, what really drew my attention to the linguistic shenanigans of Poland’s political classes was Transubstantiation in which we find the following examples of political gobbledygook:

łże-elity,   bure suki,   lumpen liberałowie,   wykształciuchy

All these words are usually uttered with venom (or bile, take your pick) and are generally always directed at politicians of the ‘liberal persuasion’ (don’t say it out loud – this is Poland) by members of Law and Justice (PiS). Anyone who belongs to any sort of elite, intellectual grouping, academic team or is a liberal (struck out to make it less offensive) can be classed as one of the above.  As Transubstantiation tells us (but with additional commentary of my own) łże-elity are the ‘lying elite dogs’; bure suki is another subtle reference to dogs and it generally means ‘drab dogs/bitches’ (how nice!); lumpen liberałowie is a classic and shows the disdain with which PiS views liberalism – these are the ‘lowly liberals’, the ‘uber-scum of Poland’; the final one wykształciuchy is a brilliant perversion of the word ‘educated’ giving it a contemptuous coating. I’ve heard it used to refer to academics and journalists who refuse to be vetted by government authorities.

Whatever you think, you can’t say that politicians don’t have the gift of the gab. Yes, they’re ill-mannered, unfriendly and unethical, but they have the ability to make me smile when I hear the verbal garbage they use. The phrase that seems to have the greatest political (and statistical) currency in Poland at the moment is IV RP which has nothing to do with Received Pronunciation but is an abbreviation of czwarta Rzeczpospolita or ‘Fourth Republic’, a fantasy utopia coined by Poland’s President Lech Kaczyński to imply a new state that aims to cut all ties with the (post-communist) ‘Third Republic’ (1989 and onwards). The idea is interesting but has met with little support outside government circles leading to the even newer concept of the ‘Fifth Republic‘ put forward by Lech Mażewski.

We certainly do live in interesting times.

Ego Surfing

Ego surfing I think it’s called when you look for yourself on the web. Obviously, I’ve done it. I’ve done it lots and lots of times. The term brilliantly sums up the process of using the internet to pander to our egos.

Anyway, in an effort to break with my usual preoccupation of looking for myself on the internet – I mean I know what I’m going to find – I decided to search for the most bizarre links I could find using my own name as a reference point. My search didn’t go unrewarded.

I found that my name (or rather my surname) was shared by a host of wierdos, oddballs and freaks. Well, at least in my warped way of thinking. I tried to put myself in these situations and that’s when it started to get wierd. Uzar is many things on the internet – I’m Turkish, I’m an evil aquatic being, a body builder, a jailbird, you name it.

Once I trawled through the usual crap including my academic publications, radio work and other bits and bobs, I decided to filter out the serious stuff and focus on the wierd. As I mentioned, I share a surname with famous body builder Mike Uzar - I sincerely hope he’s family (!); I was sent to a page called – get this – “Find a Grave” – thoughts of DIY grave-digging sprung to mind; I found a news article about good old Charlie Uzar, one of the oldest inmates around – 96 years old and still in prison. Last but most certainly not least was the infamous (no, I’ve never heard of it before) film entitled Uzar’s Revenge which I simply must get hold of. It sounds like an absolute gas. My namesake is an evil alien aquatic scientist. If anyone out there is able to get hold of this, let me know.

And the point of all of this? Life’s a lot more amusing then we might think.

Eco Disaster

It has finally happened. The Podlasie Provincial Governor has given permission for the construction of the highway that will cut through the heart of the wetlands of the Rospuda Valley, one of the most unique peatland regions in Europe, not to mention the world.

According to the majority of ecologists, the so-called Augustów bypass will alter the Rozpuda Valley ecosphere beyond recognition. Many were hoping the central government would teach the local authorities a lesson in eco-protection. However, Poland’s Environment Minister rubber-stamped the decision and construction work is set to begin in the next few weeks, if not days.

The European Commission has threatened the Polish government with sanctions if the construction of the road goes ahead. These are not idle threats. The Commission ordered Spain to stop all traffic on a newly-built road that cut through an important natural region. Millions of euro, therefore, have been spent on a road that cannot be used. Poland’s ecologists and a large group of citizens are hopeful these EU threats will bring the government to its senses.

Several large protest groups have formed whose aim it is to undo the petty money-driven administrative decisions that could eradicate one of the last surviving biospheres of this kind. You are free to contact the Environment Ministry directly here or sign the petitions that might hopefully make a difference (‘Mire Conservation’ Petition; ‘Save Rospuda’ Petition and ‘Baltica’ Petition). A little bit of solidarity could help right the wrongs of those who have no concern for our environment.