If you're in Poland today and you don't like PiS, you will be revelling in the fact that Trump won't be coming to Warsaw to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of WW2. If you're in Poland today and you don't like PO, you will be revelling in the discomfort caused to Warsaw's local authorities by the sewage leak into the Vistula.
I don't like Trump and I don't like Kaczyński, but the reason given for Trump staying stateside this weekend seems plausible. This, from the BBC..."Hurricane Dorian has maximum sustained winds of 130mph (215km/h) and is expected to grow stronger before making landfall in Florida... A state of emergency has been declared in Florida, where residents have been urged to stock enough food, water and medicine to last at least a week. Forecasters warn Dorian could be the state's worst storm since Hurricane Andrew killed 65 people and destroyed 63,000 homes in 1992." Anti-PiS commentators see Trump's excuse as a sign that the US doesn't take the Polish government seriously.
Meanwhile, the sewage leak from the Czajka ['Lapwing'] water treatment works is being used by anti-PO commentators to attack the PO-led city hall, in particular, Warsaw's recently elected mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. The sewage plant was massively extended in 2012, and on Wednesday this week a pipe under the Vistula bringing sewage from the left bank to the Czajka plant for treatment sprang a leak. The ensuing fuss was not so much about engineering as about mud slinging. Cue someone who worked on the plant extension in 2012 and said (on the pro-PiS media) that it was an environmental disaster waiting to happen. "Why did you stay silent for seven years then?" replied pro-PO commentators.
Turning events into triggers for splitting society, by dishing out the hate, is not the way forward. Rather, one should acknowledge the positive aspects of the other side whenever it merits doing so.
I don't like Kaczyński, but I absolutely see the improvement in the Polish labour market during the time of the PiS government. Unemployment is down to 5.2% (registered unemployed) or 3.3% (economically inactive). When PiS took office in the autumn of 2015, it stood at 9.8% (registered unemployed) or 7.1% (economically inactive). GDP growth (4.5% in the second quarter of this year) remains strong by the standards of western economies. This is a positive achievement for Poland and should not be ignored or belittled. Part of the praise here must be directed at prime minister and former finance minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who understands economics and is careful not to unduly worry investors. However, much remains to be done with Poland's economy, not least making doing business easier for the entrepreneur.
We are getting more tribal. We can see the mechanisms for stirring up division at work - be they politicians at home, geopolitics, social media amplifying voices from far left and far right, making it seem more acceptable to deploy extreme language and outright lies in the pursuit of political goals. And it is all too easy to slip that way, towards the barbarian, away from truth and light.
Sometimes its difficult, when facing an existential threat from people who don't even know why it is that they are threatening you - Brexit being my chief worry at this time. But let us not descent into barbarism, even if it is to defend that which one holds dear.
This time last year:
Progress on the Działka
This time five years ago:
Changes to Poland's traffic regulations
This time eight years ago:
Teasers in the Polish-English linguistic space
This time nine years ago:
Summer slipping away
This time ten years ago:
To the airport by bike
This time 11 years ago:
My translation of Tuwim's Lokomotywa
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3 comments:
Don't spit, but also don't hold back from engaging into substantive agruments, since this is what those from the other tribe (sadly, also many dumbheads from our tribe) are not good at.
Fine, the sewage treatment case should be handled by enginners not politicians. Fine, the Trump visit was called off due to hurricane, although American media reports of the US president relaxing on a golf course and taking breaks in play to receive weather updates rather do not put him in good light (ro just reconfirm he is a regular lout).
Part of the praise here must be directed at prime minister and former finance minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who understands economics and is careful not to unduly worry investors. However, much remains to be done with Poland's economy, not least making doing business easier for the entrepreneur. - I encourage everyone literate in Polish to read a book which is home truth of what the current prime minister is like. A big relief to Bank Zachodni WBK at the expense of a big harm to Poland
One only needs to look at the statistics to realize why the unemployment figures in Poland are that low.
Quote: "Over Poland's 15 years in the EU, it has used – from EU structural funds and Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – more than PLN 1 trillion (EUR 232 bln), along with a domestic contribution of PLN 375 bln (EUR 87 bln) said Finance Minister Teresa Czerwińska."
This excludes aid by other EU countries on different levels. Those sums created enormous investment in all sectors of Polish society, from education facilities to infrastructure. I shudder to think what the unemployment figures would have been without the financial aid and foreign investment figures. I find many Poles still critical of "too many foreign companies" but totally unaware of the vast amounts of money received.
I was in TVN studios today, about to talk about Brexit. In the green room was a TV set showing what was going on in Fakty; it was Olejniczak having a go at some PiS politician with exactly the same venom as what one would expect from TVP Info grilling a PO politician.
I watch no TV at all, and shun overtly partisan newspapers, including Gazeta Wyborcza
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