One of my favourite characters from the Polish Pantheon is Stanisław Ostwin, who was originally called Szmul Ostwin. erstwhile he was 15 years old, he escaped from practice with a shoemaker and joined the Polish Legions. It was the first time he chose Polishness. He did this for the second time erstwhile he became a State Police Police officer in independent Poland. He chose Poland for the 3rd time erstwhile he became Catholic. one more time he chose Poland erstwhile he joined the National Armed Forces. And the last time he chose Polishness, erstwhile caught by the ubeks heard the proposal that he Jew, join them, to ‘his own’. He replied, “Honor won’t let me.” And he is 1 of the most beautiful examples of Polishness as an act of will for which this choice paid the price of life – says prof. Tomasz Panfil.
Dear Professor, Poland or this country?
I think that for the 2 "political tribes" inhabiting the territory located between Oder and Nysa Lusatia and Bug, both. 1 tribe speaks of “this country”, and the Polish survivors are persistently talking about their homeland, about Poland.
Polish country or European province?
The answer here is simpler.
The Polish State has been crucial to Poles for a 1000 years. However, many alleged Europeans will most likely be more crucial in the EU's transnational structures.
Polish or European?
And here we come to the most important, that is, what the people of the Polish state inhabiting the soul play.
One soul is played only by the song “Money” Pink Floyd, and others play “Rota” due to the fact that they do not want “Germans spit on their faces and babies”. Those who play money in the soul have the rule that money has no nationality.
In turn, those who play in the soul of Rota know that the money of nationality has. They realize that what is Polish may not always be better, but surely much more worthy of support, due to the fact that it contains crucial intangible components.
Who's more so? Who's gonna survive? Polish or European?
I fear that Poles will share the destiny of sparrows.
Sparrows?
Yeah.
Once there was a tremor in Poland. Sparrows were everywhere: in villages, in region towns, in the markets of voivodship cities, even in Warsaw, Krakow or Łódź.
Then came modernity... Modernity with combine harvesters, which, by collecting grain, will not neglect or grains. Modernity with absolutely sealed silos that replaced the breathable barns etc. And the sparrows became a vanishing species. They are now only island, where they inactive have food.
The sparrows will no longer feed after the harvest... The modern economy, highly efficient, technologically kills something that has been an integral part of our Polish scenery for centuries.
Unfortunately, Poles are like sparrows. They're killed by modernity.
We held on erstwhile the planet around us was in 1 way or another unfriendly. We didn't quit erstwhile we were indifferent to the world.
When capitalism and Poles came, according to their enterprising nature, began to gain money, our GDP began to highest year after year, then the planet around us became curious in Poland and stated that specified a Poland based on values and at the same time capitalist did not fit this image, with the imagination that alleged liberals dreamed.
For liberals, a rich, capitalist and developing country cannot be a Catholic country, a country based on conventional values. A rich country cannot be a country where there is specified a phenomenon as social solidarity, where there is national solidarity, where the nation is the most crucial player. For the widely accepted thesis in the West is followed by Max Weber that innovation, entrepreneurship and the resulting prosperity are immanently linked to Protestantism, and especially to the Calvinist work ethic.
As a result, Europe has begun to modernise us, introduce further "gender", further progressive ideas, fight our vasculism and our Catholicism. What? And unfortunately, Poles began to die like sparrows due to the introduction of harvesters and silos.
And here are 2 questions. Will we – Poles last modernity? Do we inactive have a chance to show Europe that capitalism combined with conservatism is possible?
I think conservative capitalism is possible, Professor...
Europe says that not only liberal capitalism is possible.
But this liberal capitalism, if you look at it well, is socialism, so as not to say neo-communism...
Yeah. We Poles loved capitalism... We Poles first in the period of the Second Republic and again in the last 30 years showed Europe and the planet that we are large in “capitalistic blocks”. For years we Poles have been able to combine capitalism with conservative thinking, as John Paul II wrote in the encyclical “Labor exercens”. We, Poles, were able to carry out what president Ronald Reagan proposed at 1 time, that capitalism in a society based on conventional values is simply a game in which everyone wins.
In modern liberalism, however, not all of us win. The biggest corporations win, the richest ones win. Those who can afford dumped prices are winning, which is to destruct little competition by concentrating capital. Those who can afford hostile takeovers win.
One simple example: a Ukrainian frozen company bought out a Kalisz frozen company, then fired employees and sold out buildings... Is that capitalism? Even so, it is not our Polish model of capitalism. This is an highly liberal model. A model for destroying competition. The model, unfortunately, is dominant today...
The Ukrainians know him very well, for this model is in the field of agriculture, for example, where there are giant corporations, and the individual agriculture, which began to revive, simply ceased to exist, due to the fact that individual farmers in 1 way or another were linked to giant farms.
In specified a model, farmers are sentenced to sign contracts with “great” due to the fact that they themselves would not be able to last on the marketplace due to the fact that the large is always able to apply dumping, buy a clerk, apply all the dirty tricks to destruct the smaller ones from the market... In Ukraine, that's normal...
Until recently, there had not been a day for us not to hear that border services were stopping transports where raspberries were mixed with plastic and cereals were mixed with expired randap. How did something like this come and go to Poland? It's a miracle individual bribed and individual took a bribe.
We have fought this to a certain point until the Union has said that we cannot halt exports of Ukrainian grain and another agri-food products....
I agree, Professor. I myself wrote many texts on Ukrainian grain and conducted many interviews. But I think it's the tip of the iceberg...
Of course I do!
I am talking about this due to the fact that I am close to the border and to those Polish farmers who tried to convince the government that the interest of the Polish state is to support Polish agriculture, not Ukrainian agriculture. That is social solidarity, that is conservative capitalism!
Is there as many papphobes in any of the "serious countries" as in Poland? In any of the "serious countries" as many citizens as in Poland say that they are "Europeans" or "inhabitants of this country"?
No major country has been subjected to centuries of propaganda of shame. For example, France has never agreed with Germany to convince the British that they are self-righteous ignorant people who besides do not wash. Never did Britain agree with France to practise propaganda for 200 years saying that Germany is simply a grump, and that only Berliner Wurst, or Oktoberfest, counts for them. Unfortunately, we Poles are specified brainwashing in the form of propaganda of shame subjected to at least the mid-18th century.
Therefore, this long process of formatting the brain, formatting the mentality of Poles at any point just started to bear fruit. We can be arrogant that we have defended ourselves against this for so long, but unfortunately, at last the barriers broke and Poles began to criticize their past, scold on tradition and consequently dislike Polishness.
Such, in apology, Kuźniar publically informed that he was ashamed of Poland, that he was ashamed of Poles, due to the fact that they are publically eating egg sandwiches... The same Kuźniar cheated on American shops: he took goods from them, e.g. children's clothes, utilized them during his stay in the US, and before returning to “this country” he returned due to the fact that American law permits it. And he was publically bragging! He publically promoted himself to a large shrewd man, to a modern liberal, and at the same time claimed that Poland is simply a dark house, due to the fact that there is no specified thing.
This man, as I mentioned earlier, was “shamed” for Poles due to the fact that they eat egg sandwich due to the fact that they embarrass him due to the fact that they are unbred peasants...
Another “worldly European”, “the boy of Mitteleuropa” Jerzy Stuhr declared without shame that as he is abroad, he is ashamed to talk Polish... Stuhr, however, was more honest, due to the fact that his obituary did not say "Poland", but "the boy of Mitteleuropa", or German legal and political structure, in which Poles are a subordinate nation ordered by Germany.
Stuhr admitted that German is better and Polish is bad... There are many like him... They will not say that they are "sons of Mitteleuropa", but that they are "Europeans", which besides emphasizes their historical ignorance and ignorance. Do you know, Mr. Editor, who first utilized the word “European”?
I have no idea, Professor...
Originally, the word was “Europeans” and meant the people of Europe, who are united by the Roman-Christian civilization, i.e. Christian respect for human dignity and Roman respect for law. This concept was created in the 16th century by mayor of Lublin, Sebastian Klonowice.
Klonowice wrote that Europians must face Muslims. The Europians were so a social category of people united by the Christian religion and the foundation of Roman civilization.
Now all those who say they are Europeans don't really know what the word means or what it originally meant... Of course, they will say that the European is “a typical of European civilization” ... The problem is that their model of civilization has nothing to do with Christian respect for human dignity, nor with Roman respect for the law. Their civilization model is included in the mocking note bene track Pink Floyd "Money"...
In the past, as the prof. mentioned, the abroad financed the paternity movements in Poland and it was abroad that paid for promoting negative stereotypes against Poland. Today, the abroad country does not gotta do this due to the fact that the people of this country do it... The people we choose to rule...
Here we could go back to a conversation that we had any time ago, that it is very hard for statesmen these days.
We have now multiplied 4 - year - old politicians. Each of these four-year-old politicians will give money to pseudo-examine specified Barbara Engelking due to the fact that she is afraid that if she does not, they will describe him in newspapers and point fingers, and thus won't win in the next term. specified a politician does not see that he is backing a task that is wrong, which does not service the good that does not service the truth, and does not service the national community. He's backing a task for peace of mind.
Holy peace is simply a terrible thing. On the altar of holy peace people are able to offer a lot, including the interests of Poland and the interests of Poles...
But here I would argue, Professor. In my opinion, four-year-old politicians are a "dying species" and their place is taken by "politans". There is no longer virtually any reasoning from election to election, only “from poll to poll” ...
If it were that simple, the Prime Minister and politicians of the current agreement, on September 1, would say that on September 1, 1939 Poland was attacked by Germany. But they didn't say that, they were just babbling about the “attack from the East”...
For politicians of the current agreement, it does not substance that most of us have a clear opinion on 1 September. For them, values or guidelines from a different direction are crucial in this substance and many others. They don't care what a Pole in White or Nysa says. They're curious in what Germany will say in Berlin, or Germany, German female in Brussels...
It's just that individual chose these politicians...
He chose, but influenced by what? For example, under the influence of holding money from KPO and promising that as shortly as Tusk wins, the money from KPO will be launched.
For example, under various judicial difficulties created by the TEU and the promise that as shortly as Tusk wins, all these difficulties will be eliminated immediately.
Such examples can be multiplied and multiplied, and I have large regret about the erstwhile power, that all time in the dispute with Brussels she almost always gave way, alternatively than defending Polish interests as she said...
Why did this happen? Why have the announcements lost to practice and real action?
You shouldn't have asked me that due to the fact that I wasn't and I'm not a associate of the erstwhile government team. I can only explain any mechanisms to my students... The problem is, I had 9 last year, but that's a subject for another discussion...
How to convince, above all, young Poles that Poland is simply a value? How do you explain that Poland is not “the state of Tuska” or “the state of Kaczyński”? How to tell them that Poland is more than PO and PiS?
Yeah. “The State of Tusk” ... “The State of Kaczyński” ... And where is Poland in all this? In short, Poland is where it should be: in hearts, in consciences and in the minds of people for whom it is inactive a value.
Poland is more than a state governed by the current political agreement.
Poland is simply a 1000 years of history, a 1000 years of culture, a 1000 years of Tradition.
The citizens of our Poland are not only those who walk or do not go to elections. Polish citizens are besides erstwhile generations and future generations.
The Poles are those who think of Poland, who are arrogant of their ancestors; those who worked for the homeland, and how it was essential to fight whether it was for fatherhood or for homeland. The very wording of these words shows how close 1 is to another.
The Pole, whose road is Poland, besides thinks in terms of the future, that the time will come, that the regulation of the current political strategy will end and that Poland will request to be rebuilt, will request to be restored to the value with words changed by swindlers, as Tuwim wrote.
This is Polish thinking!
Thinking about Poland is not just about KPO, as we were told. It's not that 1 or the another minister will transfer money from the back pocket of his pants to a tiny pocket on the front of his shirt. Poland is something much, much bigger. Something that is hard to describe in a fewer words and values that cannot be expressed either in gold or in the spring.
Poland is something that makes a man arrogant to be who he is. The Pole is arrogant of both large things and tiny things, for example, how beautifully everyone stands on defender and sings the anthem, that 1 of our fellow countrymen will win the planet Cup medal or the Olympic Games, as we accomplish together economical success against the various actions of the European Commission.
Poles work, Poles act reasoning not only about their own individual prosperity, but about the common good.
Poles are a complete denial of people like Forge! It is those who did not flee to taxation havens, they only employment Poles and pay taxes in Poland, specified as 1 of the manufacturers of toes and another snacks, who, even though 1 of his production halls was burned, did not fire people, but helped them. How did the Poles respond to this? They started buying products manufactured by the company in order to aid the company get back on their feet, so that it would not deficiency money to pay salaries for employees who were not fired as a consequence of the hall fire... This is conservative capitalism in which money has a nationality. This is thinking, this is an action that I – Pole am arrogant of too. And I bought these fingers too. Poland is manifested in spontaneous actions aimed at the poor, innocent, injured – like late by floods.
For each of these examples, hundreds, thousands, each of them, after looking in the vicinity and further.
Unfortunately, there's another side to the medal... There are things we should be ashamed of. I mean, for example, the fouling of the Polish language.
I'm in quite a few pain from all sleaze I hear in public. I'm sick of the curses spoken by seasonal four-year-old or polling politicians, who talk in elegant restaurants with exquisite dishes talking in gutter language, alternatively of commas utilizing words. It hurts me that 8 stars can number on specified a large applause and delight for so many of us. It hurts me that from the vulgar slogan Marty Lempart and prof. Iwasiów made a political manifesto and people liked it. And most of all, it hurts me erstwhile the profanity comes from people's mouth in shirts with patriotic slogans. "God, Honor, Homeland" and k... Worse than sad.
Language sprawling is 1 of the most crucial elements of the demolition of Polishness. due to the fact that the defilement of the language is the demolition of social norms.
I admit that erstwhile I was eighteen or nineteen myself, I utilized to swear. They besides cursed my colleagues at the method school, but we did not do it in front of girls, with older people, on the street, at the bus stop, etc., only in our own company. What's today? present girls curse “better” than boys. What effect does this have? Just like we saw on the alleged black marches...
Using Marxist explanation of history, whether the economical model or the social model, language is the basis of social relations. By destroying the base, i.e. destroying the language we defile human relations, defiling culture, destroying civilization, killing Polish...
Finally, let me ask you about Wilfred Leon. After being won by the Polish volleyball players of the Olympic Reserve in Paris, in which Leon made a measurable contribution, liberal-left journalistic cream and political publication of malicious comments in the style: “How is it that the real Poles are not disturbed by Leon’s skin color?”, "How is it that the real Poles are not disturbed by Negroes in Poland's representation?". What's interesting is, they're the only ones who wrote about Leon's skin color, only they paid attention to him... Wilfredo Leon, in my opinion, is an example of the fact that Poland is not just a "test of blood", but something more... What is “something more”?
When a man is young and is not full aware of the complexity of the world, he can think “I am a Pole due to the fact that I was born in Poland due to the fact that my parents were Poles due to the fact that I went to Polish school.” But erstwhile a individual is simply a small older, he starts to realize that Poland is actually an act of individual will, due to the fact that it is not genes – they are never homogenous, but always diverse and complex – they decide about our identity. We decide ourselves.
Leon is Polish due to the fact that he decided to do so. As Herbert wrote, “the choice to stay here confirms all dream about palm trees.”
I could spend quite a few time and space here to show what a immense function those who were not born from Polish parents and their first language were not Polish, and without which Polish culture would not exist. The first example: Haller, and I am not reasoning about the general, but about his ancestor, who in the 16th century came to Krakow from Swabia and founded a Polish printery.
continue: Kolberg, Brückner, Gebethner, Arct, Wolff, Meissner, Weigel, Haberbusch, Blickle, Wedel... They were Poles by choice. Like Tuwim, Słonimski, Leśmian, Hemar and another masters of Polish language. They were all Poles by choice. They chose the Polish language and, consequently, they chose Poland. They chose Polish to compose the most beautiful poems.
One of my favourite characters from the Polish Pantheon is Stanisław Ostwin, who was originally called Szmul Ostwin. erstwhile he was 15 years old, he escaped from practice with a shoemaker and joined the Polish Legions. It was the first time he chose Polishness. He did this for the second time erstwhile he became a State Police Police officer in independent Poland. He chose Poland for the 3rd time erstwhile he became Catholic. one more time he chose Poland erstwhile he joined the National Armed Forces. And the last time he chose Polishness, erstwhile caught by the ubeks heard the proposal that he Jew, join them, to ‘his own’. He replied, “Honor won’t let me.” And he is 1 of the most beautiful examples of Polishness as an act of will, for which this choice paid the price of life.
Sometimes a single choice is enough, and sometimes it is essential to confirm it in the way of life.
In fact, you can be a Pole erstwhile and for all, but you can become a Pole. This Polishness can be updated as the choices are made.
Being a Pole, being arrogant of Polishness is an act of choice, repeating it – and in tiny things (like the purity of language) and in larger things – it is perfecting Polishness in itself.
God bless the conversation.
Tomasz D. Kolanek
