THE END OF AN ERA OF BAITING

MICHAŁ KARNOWSKI

I may not be wrong if I assume that most Readers of ‘Niedziela’ share concern with me about the fates of Poland and see an urgent need of a big change. Even if we are personally successful, children are healthy, we have work or pension and we can somehow live in a good way, the situation of the national community is worrying. The authorities holding the power in Poland in many places behave not as heirs of independence trends but partitions. They eliminate patriotic teaching at schools, finance the most perverted works, attack the Church with arguments of tsar demoralizators already described by Stefan Żeromski in ‘Sisyphean work’, reduce the army, liquidate economic potential, and have pleasure in looking at dying villages and towns, at emigration of millions of young people.

Why was did they easily behave so? What methods were successful so long and so effective at the cost of health service, which were used to plan sale of forests secretly, attack everything what is holy for Poles? The answer is quite complex and concerns the form of mass media, most of which are subordinated to de-nationalized cynics, pressure and financing by extremely leftist trends in the European Union, tiredness of the society starving at the communist times in Poland, having a low level of dignity. Polish patriots have a limited influence on these factors. The only thing which can be done is to oppose, stay persistent and build one’s own business and media resources. And it is being done.

However, there has always been and is still a factor depending on us, Poles: the ability to cooperate. Because this authority was able to be persistent only thanks to the fact that our social life was dominated by egoism, inability to look more broadly, rejection of solidarity. Historians and sociologists will probably describe this time one day, as an era of baiting. For in the last decade the authority had much freedom in making some people rebellious to others: the young against the old, nurses against doctors, parents against teachers, clients against post officers, tax-payers against shipyard workers, union employees. Whereas, each group became a target of a perfidious attack, and priests and the Church were them all the time. Accusations about greediness, high salaries, alleged privileges were made like lethal grapeshot were fired,. With media support it was, unfortunately, effective. And each of the mentioned groups was deprived of dignity and workplaces.

There were attempts to apply the same method towards miners in the last weeks. The governing coalition of the Civic Platform and the Polish People’s Alliance decided about the structure, authorities and tax surroundings of mining for nearly eight years, tolerated all kinds of thefts, used miners in electoral campaigns. And when its governments brought a catastrophe, when everything collapsed, the ones who were to be blamed were…….miners. and again salvos were fired off: that employees are greedy, that union workers are licentious, that mines are unprofitable and everyone pays money for them.

However, this time it was not successful! Poles, supported miners, and miners supported one another, and they were supported by whole communities. Solidarity woke up and the baiting was not successful. It is difficult to overrate the significance of this change. The hope that the Poles will find enough strength to implement a change in Poland and start repairing the country and the community, gets revived again.

AA

„Niedziela” 05/2015

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