Nation, i.e. long duration

Marcin Masny

Historians struggle with the lack of access to sources. Since there has been no access to the global sources of the elites for the last two hundred years.

Why do we celebrate all holidays every year? Because mankind does not remember anything longer than a year. Because of the election cycles politicians are able to remember some things even for four years, at the most five years. The present Polish government is making strange businesses hurriedly. Bad examples are the dangerous and shady privatisations as well as the only allegedly unimportant issue of communal flats. The government wants to deprive the local governments of more money by giving them the authority to rob citizens. As far as communal flats are concerned it is plundering called ‘usage costs,’ i.e., huge bureaucracy that must earn on this segment. After the elections it will be very funny if both triumphant opposition parties benefit from the solutions, which are to save the present government. No more digressions! The historians, whose backgrounds are the authentic right-wing trend, have always managed to discern traces of eternity in history. Whereas the historians representing the revolutionary left-wing trend have tried to look for something what will compensate the lack of eternity. This something is ‘long duration.’ The elites of strong nations, e.g., Russia, China and Germany, have one thing in common: they care for a secure supraindividual being from generation to generation. A group of people also wants to go beyond the individual being and to live as long as possible. As I have already written for ‘Niedziela’ this ‘long duration’ has its sense because it is an imperfect but striking sign of eternity. Both in the democratic part of the world and in the non-democratic one there are most frequently elites that choose their successors; they invite them, educate them, make them dependent on themselves and on group being, and finally, entrust them with further struggle for duration of the state or national community. One can see excellent examples of that in Great Britain. The empire has created such elites but one hundred years ago these elites degenerated and 50 years ago they submitted Britain to new superpowers. But it is not unusual that some national elite degenerates but it is strange that nations endure as separate beings, copying their vices and virtues from generation to generation. The biblical division of mankind into peoples, nations and languages has not disappeared at all despite numerous efforts of the world conquerors and globalists. However, have these efforts been sincere? Perhaps nobody has cared for ‘united mankind.’ It is hard to evaluate. Historians struggle with the lack of access to sources. Since there has been no access to the global sources of the elite for the last 200 years. The trusted archivists of the ruling elites in Paris, New York, Washington, Palo Alto, Moscow, Beijing, Jerusalem keep their mouths shut. In this situation – by the way – no wonder that the Vatican archivists do not want to reveal their historical sources unilaterally. Something for something! Let Russia and America reveal something, too. I have just felt to make digressions… For three years all people have known that national movements are the future of Europe being in crisis. New phenomena are being shaped within the national trend. Therefore, we need prudence to differentiate three separate groups of leaders who will use national mottos. The first group is the leaders of global revolution, desiring to use the global trend to return to the national roots for their own purposes. The second one is the tribal warlords wanting to divide neighbouring nations even when their interests are convergent. The third one is those who understand the interests of their own nations in the perspective of long duration and even in the perspective of eternity.

"Niedziela" 16/2011

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl