Three Monkeys Online - the free current affairs & arts magazine

The people of Poland woke up this morning slightly dazed, slightly confused, by the million-strong army of industrious party activists who were busily engaged in removing and ecologically disposing of the election campaign posters that had appeared over the last six weeks of intense but cheerful campaigning.

Battered but proud, ex-prime minister Jarosław Kaczyński spoke to the reporters assembled at PiS headquarters as he struggled into his high-visibility overalls: “We didn’t make it but the important thing is - as a tough opposition party - to clean up this mess which the democratic process necessarily entails. I congratulate Donald Tusk and look forward to meeting him today on the [main Warsaw road] Trasa Łazienka as we take down our pictures.” He quipped: “Donaldek will be working up the right hand side of the street while I will be on the left.” His brother, Lech Kaczyński, president of Poland, will not be joining in the clean-up effort as the constitution forbids the president from interfereing in the democcratic process of elections.

There was jubiliation in the PO HQ. Donald Tusk, heavy-duty wire-snippers in hand, was carried shoulder high to the first lamp post on the left as you walk out of the building and triumphantly cut loose a large paste-board image of himself. To a chanting, clapping crowd he turned and said: “So that life will be better. For Everyone.” Taking their cue from the probable next-prime minister of Poland, some two hundred activists, young and old, flooded down the street, tearing tatty cardboard and paper election posters from the crash barriers on the central median. This was no time for narrow party-political interests. PiS, LiD and PSL posters were also removed by the enthusiastic volunteers as a team of professional outdoor advertising specialists took down a giant poster of losers Zyta Gilowska, Zbigniew Ziobro, Zbigniew Religa and Jarosław Kaczyński from an enormous billboard, replacing them with a picture of a bag of crisps.

Ziobro himself, although his right arm is in a cast, was on hand. “The injured hand didn’t prevent me from posing for the cameras as I cast my vote,” he said. “So why would it prevent me from doing this civic duty either?”

After extensive research (one and a half minutes on Google) I have been unable to find the source for “no matter who you vote for the government always wins.” It’s certainly true here in Poland, with local elections just over and a government still firmly in power.

An interesting difference of opinion has come out in the media, though. Today’s super Fakt tabloid says the turn-out was “marna” (miserable, lousy), while Gazeta Wyborcza says excitedly that it was “?wietna” (splendid, excellent). Fakt announced a turn-out of 34%, GW of 45-49%. Piotr Pacewicz, in GW, actually writes

Serce ros?o wraz z rosn?cymi w ci?gu dnia szacunkami frekwencji wyborczej. Na pewno b?dzie o kilka dobrych punkt�w wy?sza ni? w wyborach parlamentarnych 2005, kiedy przestraszyli?my si?, ?e z udzia?em w g?osowaniu b?dzie coraz gorzej.
The heart has swollen along with the increasing turn-out estimates during the day. It [the turn-out, not the heart, presumably] will certainly be a good few points higher than in 2005’s parliamentary elections, when we feared voter participation would be ever worse

Yes, he really wrote that, and he’s a grown man.

All news is local, they say, so here’s what Poland looks like going by the pages of a classified ads newspaper that comes out twice a week here:

Poles love cars. One third of the paper is given over to them. The section marked “hobby” is less than one page long, hopefully because hobbyists have their own, specialised publications and not because having a car is so much more important than having something to do with your spare time.

It’s surprising how many ads there are for bugging devices.

Or maybe not. (English transcript here.)

Gynaecologists sometimes advertise a “full range of services.” This is a widely-understood code for “we do abortions.”

When it comes to houses and flats Poles really, really like something called “mozaika,” which the dictionary helpfully defines as “mosaic (architectural term).” Having tiles (”glazura” (glazed tiles), “terakota”) in the house is more important than just about anything else, including insulation, but not as important as plastic windows. Something called “komandor” is also vitally important. Komandor is a brand of sliding door wardrobes. If you have the old-fashioned (read: communist) type of wardrobe door, which opens out on contraptions known as “hinges” you are a clod, a bumpkin. Remember: it’s not “location, location, location” here. It’s: “mozaika, glazura, terakota.”

Either the law turns a blind eye to it or it’s perfectly legal for employers to discriminate against people on the grounds of age and sex in Poland: “shopgirl wanted,” “waitress wanted,” “male receptionist wanted,” “woman aged 30 to 40,” “men aged 18 to 40″… and so on. Some clown in Warsaw is looking for native speaker English teachers with a “good accent.” Speaking of educational services, a fourth year English student will write your essays and assignments for you at the bargain basement price of 20 zloties a pop. In fact you can buy essays and theses on practically any subject you want. There’s really no need to attend all those tiresome lectures or sit in that library all day long. And since your underpaid (or just greedy?) teacher has about five jobs and is supervising 60 MA theses there’s a good chance you won’t get caught. (This progressive approach to knowledge (something to be bought and sold) has also resulted in Poland having wonderfully courteous and highly skilled drivers.)

And where would we be without a few cheap laughs at Eastern European fashion. From the clothing section:

“Gent’s Adidas tracksuit, navy blue, size XL, hardly worn, unusual design. 89 zloties”

“Leather jacket, Rambo-style, dark, good condition, 120 zloties o.n.o.”

What about the real news from Poland? A pharmaceutical company was caught selling faulty medicine. Instead of just ordering (on whose authority, by the way?) a recall of the product the primesident of Poland has shut down the whole company and blamed the “third republic” (i.e. the “uk?ad“) for the error. (The third republic means post-1989 Poland: Kaczy?ski desparately wants post-2005-elections Poland, ruled by PiS and assorted whacko opportunists, to be known as the “fourth republic.”)

In a news story entirely unrelated to this sleazy exploitation of a tragic mistake to make some cheap political capital, local elections are being held on Sunday. The good people of Gazeta Wyborcza apparently think voting will make a difference.

Meanwhile, further afield, the establishment has won yet another landslide victory in the US mid term elections, with members of the democrepublican party controlling over 95% of both the house and the senate.

Local elections are approaching and all over Poland (presumably — I haven’t been all over it myself) teams of workers are energetically engaged in infrastructural work. Roads are being resurfaced, roundabouts rationalised and parks prettified. It’s not fooling anyone: “kie?basa wyborcza” (election sausage) is what Poles call this transparent bribery of the general public. My personal favourite flavour of kie?basa wyborcza is the “kostki brukowe” (small, fancy interlocking paving stones that cost several times as much to lay as just about anything else) which pop up in the most unlikely places around Poland: not just on salubrious tree-lined boulevards in the big cities, but at seemingly random intervals alongside devestated, seldom-trod country roads.

And it’s all on the never never a friend who is running for election as a counsellor told me.

“Give Hamas a Chance” Gazeta wyborcza (28-29th Jan) magnanimously states on page six in the headline of a piece by Mariusz Zawadzki, datelined Gaza and marked “analysis”. The subhead (actually it appears above the grand headline) reads:

Democracy in the Middle East is bearing unexpected fruit. Elections are being won by the ultra radical Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Iran; by Shiite religious parties in Iraq, meant to be a model of modern democracy; and Hamas terrorists in the Palestine Autonomy.

“Unexpected�” Is this the standard of analysis we can expect in Poland’s paper of record? Zawadzki continues: “The problem is not Hamas but the spiritual state of Palestinians, who support radicals en masse“. The condescension continues: “They [Palestinians] have chosen a change but doubtless they do not know what it might mean.” Zawadzki, you understand, does know, what with being such an acute foreteller of the future that he failed to predict the radicalisation of Middle Eastern politics and the hardening of attitudes in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. While pontificating about the state of democracy in Palestine, Zawadzki mentions that some people fear that the new government might change school curricula to inculcate radical Islam ideals. Mr Zawadzki may not know this on account of being in Gaza (or on another planet) but something remarkably similar is happening in Poland - bringer of democracy to Iraq, that model for other democracies - right now. The new government plans to introduce patriotism lessons in school.