Tagged: PiS
Jan Gross and Polish Death Camps: Does Poland’s ‘historical policy’ threaten academic freedom?
By Daniel Tilles
While it is completely understandable that Poland wants to stamp out the misleading and offensive phrase ‘Polish death camps’, this should be done through education, not by threatening prison sentences for those who use the term, as the government has proposed. Even more worryingly, the new draft law on this issue – combined with a threat to withdraw a state honour from historian Jan Gross – has the potential to be just the opening salvo in a far broader attempt by the ruling party to impose its historical vision, potentially impinging on academic freedom, argues Daniel Tilles, a British historian based in Kraków.
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has long made clear that it wishes the country to pursue – in the words of President Andrzej Duda earlier this week – an ‘aggressive historical policy’, with the dual aim of fostering a greater sense of patriotic pride at home while enhancing the country’s image abroad. Continue reading
Polish government’s broken promises on British benefits deal: pragmatism or betrayal?
David Cameron meets Jaroslaw Kaczynski (Pawel Supernak/PAP)
By Daniel Tilles
By apparently agreeing to David Cameron’s proposal to restrict benefits for EU migrants in the UK, Poland’s government has made a dramatic reversal on its earlier declarations that it would never accept such discrimination against Polish citizens. Daniel Tilles asks whether this U-turn is the result of a pragmatic compromise or if, instead, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has used the rights of its countrymen as bargaining chip to gain concessions from the British that advance its own political agenda.
As I’ve written in these pages previously, a particular concern in Britain stemming from the unprecedented wave of immigration during the last decade has been over ‘benefit tourism’: the idea that some migrants are coming not to work, but to take advantage of the country’s generous welfare system. Such accusations have been directed in particular against Poles, who make up the largest group among recent European immigrants and who, as EU citizens, are legally entitled to receive benefits on the same basis as British natives. Continue reading
International Media and the Lazy Stereotype of the Polish Antisemite
(Updated in light of new evidence; see end of article)
Another article has appeared in the international media expressing concern at the actions of the new Polish government, this time from the Washington Post, which reports on fears of a ‘creeping coup d’etat’ taking place. However, as with much foreign coverage of the country, the piece is over-simplistic, exaggerated and fails to provide context.
In particular, the description of the new defense minister, Antoni Macierewicz, as an ‘outspoken anti-Semite’ is rather far-fetched. The accusation – which has recently appeared in a number of Western media outlets – is based on a slightly ambiguous statement made 13 years ago by Macierewicz in a radio interview, in which he appeared to partially endorse the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He recently attempted to clarify his remarks, claiming that his words had been ‘manipulated’ and confirming that he ‘condemns anti-Semitism in all its forms’. Continue reading
Poland’s Culture of Political Unaccountability
Having grown up in Britain’s political culture, I’m often shocked at the lack of personal accountability in Polish politics. On 7 May this year, general elections were held in the UK. The big winners were the Conservatives, who won a majority, and the Scottish National Party, who swept almost all seats north of the border. The morning after the election, the leaders of the other three main parties had all offered their resignation: Ed Miliband, despite increasing Labour’s share of the vote since the previous election; Nigel Farage, despite winning an unprecedented 13% of votes for UKIP; and Nick Clegg, whose Liberal Democrats performed disastrously.
Compare this to what has (or rather hasn’t) happened in Poland since Sunday’s election. Ewa Kopacz, despite overseeing PO’s dramatic collapse this year (it’s easy to forget that just six months ago the party was leading the polls), has offered no indication that she will quit. Indeed, there are rumours that she will try to cling on to her position. Continue reading
Left-Wing (Yes, Left-Wing) Party Wins Poland’s Election
Source: Paweł Kopczyński/Reuters
As the election results filter through, Poland today began to brace itself for life under a far-left government. The newly elected Law and Justice (PiS) party have promised to lower the retirement age, while providing free medicine and higher pensions for retirees; greater subsidies and insurance for farmers; more state-subsidised housing; cash handouts of 500zl a month to families for each child they have; bailing out households who took mortgages in Swiss francs and have seen their repayment rates balloon; and state support for failing industries such as mining. The estimated 45bn zloty annual cost of this radical agenda – enough to make Jeremy Corbyn blush – will be funded in part by higher taxes on banks and big supermarkets.
The above, of course, is something you will not hear anywhere in the international media, amid the welter of headlines decrying Poland’s new ‘right–wing‘ – or even ‘far right‘ – government. But it’s an important reminder that the left-right spectrum applies separately in economic and cultural spheres, and can often cut across them in ways that surprise or confuse westerners used to a simplistic division in which parties are on both counts located towards the left (the British Labour Party and American Democrats) or the right (the British Conservatives and American Republicans). Continue reading
Polish Election Briefing 2015: Who’s standing and what’s at stake
To see individual profiles of each of the main parties competing in the election, scroll halfway down the page or click here. But first, a briefing on some of the main issues that are at stake.
On 25 October Poles will go to the polls in what promises to be one of the most important and interesting elections since the return of democracy 25 years ago. In particular, it may help answer three questions, argues Daniel Tilles. First, whether the older generation of leaders, who have dominated politics since the fall of communism, are being pushed aside by a younger wave of politicians. Second, whether Poland will continue its evolution away from the multi-party turmoil that characterised much the post-1989 period, and towards a stable two-party system. And third, to what extent the Polish electorate has rejected the pro-European economic and social liberalism of the incumbent government, and instead turned to the more inward-looking national conservatism of the opposition. Given Poland’s growing economic and diplomatic clout, these are questions that all of Europe should take an interest in.
Poland’s referendum and election: The big issues no one’s talking about
By Daniel Tilles and Stanley Bill
Over the next two months, Poland will have one (and possibly two) national referendums and is likely to see a change of government. So why have some of the biggest issues involved – Poland’s electoral system, its constitution and the role of religion in public life – been subject to so little public debate?
The Poland that emerges at the end of 2015 is likely to be a very different country from the one that entered it. Already, the incumbent president, Bronisław Komorowski, who started the year with a 40-point lead over his rivals, has been dramatically voted out of office, replaced by his conservative opponent, Andrzej Duda. Now, the new president’s former party, the opposition Law and Justice (PiS), appears to be heading for a landslide victory in October’s parliamentary elections. In the meantime, one (and possibly two) national referendums will ask the Polish public to give their opinion on a range of important, from the funding of political parties to the retirement age.
Yet, despite these potentially momentous changes, there has been surprisingly little discussion among politicians, the media, and certainly the general public about many of the key issues involved.
