Totalitarian Return in Poland

Totalitarian Return in Poland

By: Erreh Svaia

“Communism is a monopolistic system, economically and politically. The system suppresses individual initiative, and the 21st century is all about individualism and freedom. The development of technology supported these directions.”

Lech Walesa

A little more than a year ago I was writing about my admiration for Poland, their culture, their history, their legacy, and their big role in the future of the world, as Poland was not only a big example of how to succeed in a post-communist world, but as our template on how to face globalization, authoritarianism, a future accelerated interchange between a more interrelated world.

Also almost a year, I was talking about the prominent role of countries like Poland, Turkey, Finland and Mexico in the integration of a more connected economy around the world, serving by connecting points between the East and the West and between the South and the North, but lots of things have changed in the world in the last months, fear and anger were exacerbated on purpose or involuntarily by geopolitical conflicts and the prominent role of these countries was altered forever, perhaps resulting in an opportunity gone forever, Mexico, still thinking how to integrate economies like Argentina, Chile and Peru into North American dynamics, while being plagued by violence and corruption, Finland, despite their star status in educational matters stunt with lesser growth, Russian menace and a possible retreat into the once successful Nordic model, while Turkey, once a symbol for the integration of the Middle East into the dynamics of the Eurozone, and a role model for democratization, is now seen as an authoritarian, mercenary state, using the Syrian conflict to attack the Kurds, and blackmailing Germany and destabilizing the EU with the refugee crisis.

But talking about Poland now is a more complex situation, an opposite reflection of the refugee conflict mixed with cold war era paranoia and ultra-right wing taking the power in a way that has never happened before the end of communism, this time is the right wing who exploit the fears of Poles, who are taking all of the political power and starting to diminish democracy and civil rights, let's not forget that if you want to think about the farthest extremes of the right wing think about the Holy Inquisition, and that might not be far from what is happening in Poland, where a bad combination of state power and the Catholic church is taking place.

First, we must remember the long time conflict between Poland's neighbors prior to World War II, with Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR, both states representing a direct menace to the sovereignty of the Poles, first the brutal Nazi invasion that kickstarted WWII, then the liberation by the allies, and finally the best repressive communist regime imposed on them, which made Poland to always distrust their neighbors and to stay alert at all time.

In a joint maneuver, the powerful social movement known as Solidarity, the Polish Catholic Church and the Vatican created a strong front against communist, it helped to make cracks in the Iron Curtain, and in the end it was one of the main blows into communism demise.

Perhaps paranoia is a bad adviser, and "Democratic" fighting between the left and the right wings continued throughout the years, even during the administration of Solidarity´s hero Lech Walesa, suspicion rose about his past (he was accused of been a communist informant), Solidarity broke up and new social movements and political parties came out of that, PiS, the party of the Kaczynski brothers was one of them, previously collaborators of Walesa, and later rivals, the sometimes irrational fear of a communist return, and the continuous rise of ex-communists politicians on the government, now turned into socialists inside the government exacerbated the return of the far right, again by the hand of the Catholic Church in an ultra-conservative movement that took the country by surprise.

The recent triumph of the PiS political party, the so called Justice and Law party, taking advantage of the Poles' fear of the return of Communism, interventionist Russia, European Union influenced Germany and an apparent invasion of Muslim population in Europe, made the perfect scenario for the triumph of the extreme right, one close to nationalism, populism, xenophobia and fundamentalist Catholicism, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of PiS (and the man in power behind prime minister Beata Sydlo) seems to be the big power behind PiS government, taking Poland in a contrary route form that of the whole European Union, now, it seems that Poland is giving the back to their roots, their history within Europe is starting to be re written, the government taking a strong stance of no acceptance of refugee quotas, blaming the refugees for bringing various diseases and accusing them of destroying Polish culture, and even taking strict measures against gay marriage and abortion rights, now in Poland ironically, the Catholic church can forgive a rapist with a confession, but the government can´t forgive a pregnant victim of rape.

Perhaps the rise of the PiS was seen as a perfect counter weight to turmoil in Europe, but things starting spinning out of control after PiS starting taking steps towards media control and backwards on human rights, as PiS now in government starting to control media, using it for propaganda purposes and in order to censorship freedom of speech, it is starting to look as if the fears inside the Poles mind is starting to materialize right in front of them, as a new authoritarian regime is looking to block freedom rights in Poland, the older Poles might remember how it was to live in a totalitarian communist regime, but they must fight and warn the young Poles (who seem to be becoming more and more aware thanks to civic organizations like the Committeefor the Defense of Democracy) that it also could turn into a totalitarian state if the right wing imposes it´s anti-democratic laws.