Our Man in Gdańsk

Polish Absurd – A Quickie

Flicking around the TV channels in a friend’s house last night I caught a bit of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As is usual with Polish TV there was a voiceover (not to be confused with dubbing). As is less usual, he talked viewers throught the songs...

Kurski Again

PiS deputy Jacek Kurski has been forced by the courts to apologise to Agora, publishers of Gazeta Wyborcza, for defaming them by saying they were in cahoots with a private company called J&S to attack PiS.

The man is a liar. He’s still on TV though. There must be a lesson in there.

That No Vote

The view from Gdańsk of the Lisbon aftermath is not too different from that in Bologna and, at a guess, everywhere else in Europe. My fellow monkey reports that the President of Italy said: "you can't think that the decision of little more than half of the electorate of a country that represents less than 1% of the population of the Union can halt the indispensable and at this stage impossible to delay, process of reform." The same contempt for democracy is in evidence in Poland, though it does not reach quite so far up the political food chain as the president. I'm afraid, however, that I don't have my fellow monkey's dogged determination to chase down the quotes and reference them all here. Well, okay, here's one: Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (chairman of the European Parliament foreign affairs committee and a PO party politician) blandly said that Ireland would have to vote again. The journalist raised the objection that the taoiseach had ruled out a repeat of the referendum beforehand, to which JS-W replied with a devastating use of logic that that was then and this is now: "Now we have a new situation and new solutions are required" ("Teraz mamy nową sytuację i potrzebne są nowe rozwiązania")

The press reports the views of what in Poland are called without any irony, shame or embarassment the "elites" so it is inevitable that there will be much Sarkozy and JS-W and little of the 53.4% Irish against. It hardly needs to be said that any and every EU country had the right to sink the Lisbon treaty by not ratifying it.

The reaction in the press has been one of dismay and concern at the "crisis," the "paralysis" etc. etc. that now faces Europe. Notwithstanding the paralytic crisis, the trains are still running here and people are still turning up at work. I have seen no panic buying. In fact, outside the august corridors of power, the reaction in Poland has been muted. The main story on all the TV stations after the deed was done concerned - as in Italy - a dubious decision by a referee, this time in a Poland match. The following morning on the radio I heard a debate which was carried on in rational, non-panicky tones and in which I distinctly heard one person say that forcing Ireland to vote again would not exactly be the height of democracy. The main story gripping Poland now is - in a return to the good ol' witch huntin' days of the bizarre Kaczyński government - whether Lech Wałęsa was a communist spy codenamed "Bolek." This story has come up before and been disproved to the satisfaction of the courts but two clever young historians claim that yes, Wałęsa was a spy, it's just that the files which would prove their case were destroyed. If Wałęsa was a communist spy (and he wasn't) he was (although he wasn't) an incredibly, spectacularly, world-historically bad one.

France Mobilises Troops

As it became apparent today that Irish voters had rejected the Lisbon treaty, France mobilised its army preparatory to invading the recalcitrant island. The action follows the warning given by French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner that Ireland would be "the first victim" if the Lisbon treaty were rejected.

As of going to press, counting has not finished and the French soldiers are as a result only on orange alert.

State to Subsidise Private Industry

In a straight news article it can sometimes be difficult to figure out where the reporter’s sympathies lie but for the careful observer there are a few clues. Take the article in today’s Dziennik about the decision to fund private third level colleges from public funds. The headline reads “Government to finance private colleges” (“Rząd dofinansuje uczelnie prywatne”). How very kind of the government (Donald Tusk and Co.). You can bet if the paper disapproved of this handover of public monies to private business the headline would read “Taxpayer to finance private colleges.” There are clues as to the sympathies of the newspaper within the article too. For instance “…as a result they [private colleges] will be able to reduce their fees” (“Dzięki temu będą mogły obniżyć czesne”). They could use the taxpayers’ money to reduce fees for the students, sure, or they could use it to increase dividends, buy walnut dashboards for the boss’s company car or just about anything really.

Stanisław Mocek, of the private school Collegium Civitas, has a wonderful comment to make on the matter: “…it’s time to end the stereotype of the division into public and non-public colleges and start dividing them into good and bad” (“…czas zerwać ze stereotypem podziału na uczelnie publiczne i niepubliczne, a zacząć je dzielic na dobre i złe.”) A stereotype? There is a difference between public and non-public colleges: the former are public and the latter are not. It’s not a stereotype. It’s a fact, not a terribly complicated one, I would have thought – but I’m not the pro-dean for didactics in a private university.

Translators’ Rights

After the years of whinging about lack of recognition, low status and how people think that anyone who knows two languages can translate translators – at least in Poland – are finally gaining some ground on their mortal enemies: original artists.

Today’s Gazeta Wyborcza reports how a translator, Hanna Szczerkowska, forced (by use of the courts) a theatre group to take their production of a play she translated off the stage. They had broken her copyright by – oh perfidy! – adapting her translation of a play by Adam Rapp. The production that took to the boards had rude words in it that were not present in her translation. They call it “ochrona praw autorskich” here: “protection of authors’ rights.” Asked for comments, one Dariusz Kosiński of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków described it as an ominous sign of the domination of authorial rights over all others. But no discussion of a matter that concerns the Polish intelligentsia would be complete without a put down of the Unqualified. Tadeusz Słobodzianek of The Drama Laboratory in Warsaw says “The improvement of plays is taken on by amateurs who have no idea about the written [sic] word.” Best leave things to the professionals, eh? Like Hanna Szczerkowska, who has demanded of another theatre group a 10,000 zloty forfeit if she is not given the script 10 days before the premier or if there are any changes in the script not previously agreed with her. Finally, the professionalism that translators have always dreamed of.

Acting

Sunday night and off with me to the theatre for some art. “Art,” as far as I can tell from the Polish theatre, means never saying. Shouting, sobbing, laughing (never for any apparent reason), whispering, moving from table to chair to settee to chair to table – all these are fine and acceptable but merely speaking or talking is not on. The violent and unmotivated mood swings become tiring after half an hour, torture by the end. The worst thing of all, though, is the complete inability to act drunk, a fault shared by many screen actors.
(I looked around during the interval: no one was reading any books.)

Allegories

Adam Hochschild, in his 1994 New York Review of Books review of Ryszard Kapuściński’s Imperium, writes (this is a back-translation from the Polish) “His latest book is less fantasmagorical than the previous ones because he does not have to hide behind allegories” -- as was the case when he was writing under communism. Much has been made of the allegorical nature of Cesarz (The Emperor) and Szachinszach, for instance by his English translators in Podróże z Ryszardem Kapuścińskim – opowieści trzynastu tłumaczy edited by Bożena Dudko: Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand draws the analogy with communist Poland although she stresses the book’s universality and William Brand mentions the role this allegory played in the reception of Kapuściński in the west.

Kapuściński isn’t always so mistily allegorical, though. Here’s a quote from Wojna futbolowa (The Football War):

Because it was an oligarchic government dependent on the United States the decree [concerning agricultural reform] did not provide for the division of the latifundia or for the division of lands belonging to the American United Fruit concern, which had large banana plantations on the territory of Honduras.

Kapuściński: the scourge of imperialists but sometimes the wrong ones.

Intelligentsia II

Last year I saw Michael Glawogger’s documentary Workingman’s Death and it occurred to me to wonder what was the toughest of all professions. Mining coal? Looking after the terminally ill? Smelting steel? Sitting at a cash register for ten hours without a break? The answer is none of the above. When it comes to being tough you cannot match the life of the Polish intelligentsia. That’s where the real ball-breaking goes down. Take an article in this week’s Polityka -- if you can take it, that is, you soft-soaped milk-sop. The article concerns one Izabella Cywińska (“Iron Cywa”), who has just taken over some theatre or other in Warsaw. Of herself she says she always had leadership tendencies. In 1970 she took over a theatre in Kalisz (where?) and sacked the entire crew. Tough but fair, I think you’ll agree: she says she found work for them all elsewhere. One Wiesław Komasa says of her that she likes talented young actors who require a heavy investment but give good returns. Of course if they require too heavy an investment you just fire them and get better ones. The journalist (Aneta Kyzioł) informs us ominously and inevitably that Cywińska is not afraid of “mocne teatralne środki” (powerful theatre means – sorry about the poor translation).

For a time Cywińska was even minister for culture. She caused a furore by saying that theatres under construction (for many years) in Lublin and Kielce should be turned into toilet paper factories. Needless to say, she’d do it all again, only this time “…I’d be harder.” What? Even harder then she already is? By my calculations, that would fall under the category of “well” hard, possibly even “well hard with a sarf London accent.” One of her protégés, Hanna Śleszyńska, supplies the obligatory compliment: “She is demanding but actors treated seriously give their all so as not to let her down.” The only question is who is being complimented? Even when Cywińska is wrong she’s tough: For a time she headed some cultural foundation some of whose funds were dodgily invested, mainly by members of the foundation. As a result she was forced to resign because that’s what being the boss means: taking responsibility for things that aren’t even (directly) your fault. That’s how goddam tough it is in the hot seat.

Good News

“Poles can pay less” is the cheering headline in April 4th’s Gazeta Wyborcza. This storyette, tucked away in the boring old business section, is about how a Polish building company operating in Germany has won the right to pay its workers less than the existing, collectively bargained industry rate in Germany. The European Court decided that if collective agreements were actually binding this would conflict with the freedom to provide services in the EU. The company pays its workers 47% of the agreed rate. It would be difficult indeed to find a clearer argument against the Lisbon constitution than this; hard to find more powerful ammunition for those kill-joys who say the purpose of opening up the EU to much more poorly paid workers was to reverse the gains made by workers in the west -- so naturally the story is on page 28, while all the front page attention in Poland has been on inter-party haggling, gay marriages, phantom German repatriation claims and so forth.

Bad and all as it is for unionized workers in Western Europe, things will be much worse for Polish academics – or will be if professor Żylicz, chairman of the Polish Science Foundation, gets his way. He is quoted in Polityka (April 5th), saying that in order to attract heavy weight grants to universities, academic jobs will have to be filled by competition. Fair enough so far but the jobs will have to be “contractual in nature, and limited in time.” So no more permanent jobs for lecturers. One objection seems obvious: what price academic freedom if in three years time your GlaxoSmithklineWelcomePriceWaterhouseCoopersMicroBasf grant runs out and you have to go begging for another “grant.” But what amazes is the casual consignment of a whole group of workers to permanent stress and insecurity. You can bet Żylicz would not so calmly, barefacedly suggest that miners or nurses have their careers destroyed and family lives ruined.

Quoted in the same article is professor Andrzej Jaszczyk of the Mining Academy, who repeats the very modish idea that academics should take part in exchanges with other universities. Again, fair enough but he also says academics should be forbidden from working in the same university they did their PhDs in: “Academics should be on the move.” Goodbye job security, goodbye sweet old hometown…

Polish Absurd (II)

The Lisbon Constitution was accepted by Poland’s parliament. This comes under the heading of absurd because of the storm in the teacup that preceded it: I’m hazy on the details but half-former primesident Kaczyński was for it when he was not former and agin it when he was. If you follow. It was good when PiS was in power (a triumph of diplomacy back then) but bad when PO was. (Gazeta Wyborcza (April 2) was rapturous about the Sejm’s acceptance. Ignoring their normally scrupulous separation of news and comment and their icy disdain for taking sides, the lead story began: “The three week conflict over the bill to ratify the Lisbon treaty [sic] ended happily yesterday.” Happily for whom?)

The Catholic University of Lublin of John Paul the Second [sic] is in hot water for handing out doctoral degrees when not entitled to do so. It’s a vexed and complex question of staffing and seniority but it can, fortunately, be summed up in one sentence: the boffins can’t count. The university did not have the required number of suitably qualified staff to award doctoral degrees in pedagogy and economics in the years 2005 – 2007. This could be bad news for deputy Joanna Mucha: she was awarded her PhD in economics in October 2007.

Andrzej Matejuk, the new police chief, announced plans to create a special unit to deal with football hooligans. His predecessor set one up six months ago.

Ad on the side of car the regularly parked blocking the fire access road to my block of flats: “Are you looking for Compensation and Damages? Call ….”

Jacek Kurski.

The television stations that still keep inviting Jacek Kurski on to their shows. Here’s what Kurski had to say for himself in April 4th’s Gazeta Wyborcza:

“I, Jacek Kurski, apologise to Donald Tusk … for making false allegations … that PZU, using taxpayers’ money, financed billboards of Donald Tusk with the caption ‘a man with principles’ …”

Kurski is a liar, in short. Not just in the way all politicians vaguely lie about what they will do if elected but a documented slanderer of a named individual.

Speaking of liars, today’s paper has an ad for a car which is rotten with lies. The ad announces a seven year guarantee. Check the small print and it turns out to be a five year guarantee (only the power transmission is guaranteed for seven years). The advertised price is 23,450 zloties. Again: out with the magnifying glass and you discover that this is only half the price of the car. There’s a financing deal on offer and, as required by law, the real annual percentage rate is dutifully given in the small print: 0% to 11.46%. Some help. Better still, the calculations used in arriving at the figures are based on a car which is not featured in the ad! It’s nearly as bad as the toothpaste that promises “3D” whiteness.

I say: here’s fun! In the Catholic University of Lublin of John Paul the Second on April 9th there’s a trade fair: “targi zakonne.” That’s right: fair’s fair and the trade is holy orders. Among the attractions of the day are a discussion entitled “Holy orders: Avant Garde or Antiquariat.” But it’s not all serious discussions about monks and nuns. Also on the cards is a “Pokaz ‘mody’ zakonnej” (Holy orders ‘fashion’ show).

Polish Absurd

Too make a long story short, a bunch of Polish spies (or Military Counter Intelligence agents) on duty in Afghanistan put photographs of themselves with their full names on a popular website here called “nasza-klasa” (our class). It’s a school reunion site where old boys, schoolmates, Taliban fighters and so on meet up to see how their old buddies have aged, got fat, got married, tried to occupy one’s country and so forth.

Prompted by this, I decided to devote this one to absurdities of Polish life. Like for instance, the requirement that in order to sit a driving test you must have done a course in a driving school. If you fail you have to do a supplemental course in a driving school. Guess where the examiners are recruited from? Well from the driving schools, of course. What matters is not that you can drive but that your driving school papers are in order.

Here’s a direct quote from Jarosław Kaczyński of PiS: “I am against a referendum because it would certainly produce unambiguous [jednoznaczne] results… I think that referendums should be held in those countries where public opinion is against [the Lisbon Constitution]. The people should not be cheated. The decent thing would be to have referendums in England [sic], France and Holland.” (Nasz Dziennik, March 12th, reprinted in Nie). On second thoughts, I’m not sure that is so absurd. He’s only saying what all the Eurocrats think: no referendums because people might vote for the “wrong” thing. When Ireland rejected the Nice referendum, the exercise was simply repeated until the people voted yes.

Nie also tells of the following happy situation in the administration of public health service in Poland: the NFZ (roughly equivalent to the UK’s NHS) draws up reports on abuses in the health services (overcharging the state in various ways) but the organ that is empowered to do anything about the abuses doesn’t get the reports because the NFZ is not obliged to hand them over, which it doesn’t want to do because if it did it (i.e. the NFZ) would get less money from the state to provide health services. Clear? Of course not.

I commented before on Konrad Niklewicz’s bizarre ideas about who should sponsor the debate on GMOs – i.e. the companies that stand to earn most from their introduction, not scientists, the state or, God help us all, opponents. And here a week or two later is the same Niklewicz writing about how lobbyists rule in Brussels. One example is the “Competitivness [sic] in Biotechnology Advisory Group,” of which the dismayed Niklewicz writes: “It does not have a single non-governmental organization representative; it has six scientists and twenty business representatives” (Gazeta Wyborcza March 28th). This article is shoved back to page 30, the business section, unlike the same author’s clarion call for business to lead the debate on GMO, which was on page 2.

Another curiosity of Polish law: it is possible to libel the dead. Roman Giertych has to publish an apology to the family of Jacek Kuroń for remarks he made in 2006. (Kuroń died in 2004.) I’d take Kuroń’s side against Giertych any time, living or dead, but in my innocence I really did think that dead people had no say in the matter.

When Minister for Justice Ziobro left office he had to return some of the gimcracks our rulers are given to help them oppress us. Specifically, something like three mobile phones and a laptop computer. Ziobro, a man of impeccable morals, obviously had nothing to hide and the damage evident in the returned laptop was purely from wear and tear. He was a hard man, Ziobro. The laptop is on the road to recovery of data now, though. The unencrypted data shows that he was writing the scripts for the State TV news service. On second thoughts, I'll put that in the passive voice: scripts for the State TV news service were written on his laptop. The encrypted stuff will be denuded and demasked in the next week or two.

It’s no wonder the present government is doing nothing.

Neglect

Jacek Żakowski is what passes for a left winger here in Poland. In fact he’s regarded as practically a Bolshevik, while the organ he writes for, Polityka, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, is considered almost socialist. Despite his undeniably communistic credentials the final few sentences of a recent article about the politics of doing nothing in the aforementioned pinko rag are worth quoting in full:

But somehow it has come about that in a country which – it is ever clearer – is involved in a civilisational leap, everything public has for years been consistently pushed into deeper chaos. The point of this is obvious. When TVP [public television] broadcasts only dancing on ice and the speeches of chairman Kaczyński, when the quality of public education has fallen well below private education, and when a visit to a specialist in a public health clinic means a three year wait everyone will finally agree with the ideological thesis that all public services should be privatized

Symbolic

The health service was in such a jock here that they decided to have a so-called “white summit” of various interest groups – doctors, economists and so on. I can’t recall off hand the name of my representative there but anyway, they’ve come up with a plan to get the health service out of the jock. The chairman of the steering committee, Professor Marek Safjan (he’s not a politician or a doctor or a patient but a judge), has some interesting comments on the nature of the consultative process: “our document must be accepted in full or rejected in full. There is no other way.” Perhaps he hasn’t got out of the habit yet of instructing juries. Among the proposals that I must accept or reject en masse is the introduction of a symbolic fee for visiting doctors. Perhaps I should rephrase that in case children or people for whom money is no object are reading: Among the proposals that I must accept or reject en masse is the introduction of a “symbolic” fee for visiting doctors. People regularly kill each other over symbols. Another proposal I must accept or reject is that of giving people the right to pay for operations in public hospitals if they don’t want to wait their turn (more commonly known as “bribery”). Naturally you would only be allowed to skip the queue on condition that this does not happen at the cost of patients waiting in the queue. (All in today's Gazeta Wyborcza.)

So it would seem that the white summit mountaineers have come up with the wonderful idea of formalising and legalising the existing jock.

Paying for Information

Gazeta Wyborcza is once again heroically forging the way forward in enlightening the benighted masses of Poland. This time the subject is GMOs. To the journalists’ dismay, most Poles don’t want them. In today’s paper Konrad Niklewicz has a short think piece on page two about the question: GW has been debating the subject for the last two weeks but what is really needed is a public information campaign. Who should organize it? The government? No (“niekoniecznie”). The problem with the government is that some of its members are opposed to GMOs. Also, its election promises included hostility to transgenetically modified plants. Niklewicz, therefore, rules them out. The initiative, instead, lies with industry and its related GMO lobby. So it’s okay for those with a vested interest in pushing GMOs to inform us about them but it is not okay for those who are opposed, even if they do happen to be our democratically elected representatives.

While we’re at it, why not have a chemicals and cosmetics company lead the public information campaign on the beauty myth? Or let the cigarette industry inform us about the dangers of smoking…

Niklewicz writes that BASF earned 57.9 billion euros last year. Just 1% of that would buy a lot of "study and education,” he writes, though he doesn’t put the words in inverted commas. By an extraordinary coincidence, BASF has an ad on page seven of the paper. Perhaps the company has already started informing us about GMO.