Kaczyński' casus
Part III
Christian Knights
Fuss around Palikot’s party and the first “piping hot” public opinion polls have indicated 2-3 percents of public support for the rowdy politician right on the day of constituent convention. He became personal enemy of Kaczyński (mind that he seized these modest percents from PiS electorate, gradually depriving Catholic fundamentalists of the moderate voters’ support) and made PiS chairman to strike back. Yet another “special squad” — “Movement for enthronization of Jesus Christ” — emerged at the political scene. Wave of these self-declared Christian knights’ marches rolled across the country. Main direction of the counter-strike was Lublin — head-quarters of Janusz Palikot. Nearly three thousand people (which is quite a lot for Poland) went to the streets after the mass at military garrison kościół. Most of them wore red cloaks with crosses, which looked like the musketeer ones. Banners they were holding declared the following mottos: “Liberal catholic is worse than a Commie”, “Putin + government=fraud”, “Jesus for King of Poland”, “March for enthronization of Jesus Christ”, “Bishops, open yer gates for Jesus, King of Poland”, “After the 10th of April we’ve understood what kind of danger we were in[1]”. Everyone who joined the crowd, got the songbooks with the lyrics of old patriotic songs, dated the 18th-20th centuries. “Knights” came to Lublin from all over the country — from Warsaw, Opole, Krakow. There were also demands to make the Polish justice divine-grounded, i.e. based on the Scripture, rather than people-written legislation.
March of the Christian knights across Lublin
Scripture on the icon say: «Christ for King of Poland»
History of this movement roots in the middle of the 20th century. Rosalie Celakowna, resident of some Polish province, who died in 1944, was telling each and everyone that Jesus Christ appeared in her dream and asked her to tell all the Poles that he’d be able to salvage the country only if he’d be enthroned. After prophetess’ death, her followers attempted to canonize her but the local bishop found no grounds for that. Attitude of the modern kościół to the “Christian Knights” movement and their idea of Jesus enthronization is strictly negative. Lublin arch-bishop Życiński even stated that this contradicts the Catholic canons and called for the adherents of this weird initiative to quit it. But Kaczyński’ “special squad” is not a religious movement, but rather a political move — and not just an anti-governmental, but an anti-Russian one as well. For these fanatics Russia is an enemy #1 — it threatens not just the Polish statehood, but every single Pole in particular. Media, close to these Catholic fundamental circles constantly publishes fantastic stories about Smolensk catastrophe, including eerie stories about Russian soldiers who were finishing off the survivors of the plane crush. These hysterical protesters have put the idea that Lech Kaczyński is alive and imprisoned by Russians into the masses. This entire idiotic background of pseudo-patriotic movement serves a single goal according to Jarosław Kaczyński — victory at the next-year parliamentary elections and getting back to power as a Prime Minister, i.e. as the top state official, according to the Polish constitution. Throwing more and more powers into the fight for this exalted aim, PiS chairman is thus trying to get back the voters’ trust, having distinguished himself with an extraordinary love for his Motherhood, which a common “dull” Kowalski is incapable of. Samuel Johnson, great English poet of the Renaissance epoch, has given a precise definition for such policy: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. Kaczyński tries to extract political profits out of his “love for the Motherhood”, simultaneously making 38 million Poles hostages of his unrestrained vanity and his peculiar understanding of the means of political struggle.
«Allies and values»
Jarosław Kaczyński in a straitjacket
(Photomontage, posted by one of the popular Polish bloggers)
Having understood, that — despite all of his efforts — civil war he unleashed would likely be lost, Kaczyński (following the example of Ostap Bender) decided that the “foreign countries would give us aid”. On the 29th of September, text entitled “Allies and Values” (signed by Kaczyński) appeared at the PiS web-site. Main theses of this — without any exaggeration unprecedented — address of opposition party leader to the international community can be summarized to the following talking points:
1. Poland is the sixth largest country in the European Union, which — along with Great Britain — is the most steadfast and devoted U.S. ally in Europe. My brother, President Lech Kaczyński (of his blessed memory) along with my government was successively creating the alliance of Central and Eastern European countries. Baltic States along with states of the Visegrád Group[2] made up its axis. Via realization of our national and regional interests, we were striking the blows against Russian foreign policy. Recently Russia has been systematically reviving its sphere of influence — fact that is often hushed up by American and European politicians today.
2. Our policy is rooted in the traditions of Polish “Solidarność[3]”. As far back as in 1981 we’ve called for the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, which quite angered Kremlin and the Warsaw Treaty members. We stand for the national traditions like “For yours and ours freedom[4]” because we believe that freedom of our country is tied to the guarantees of freedom and democracy in other European regions.
3. Along with the other nations we fight for bringing back the truthful history of Europe, which has been falsified by the Soviet propaganda for decades. Today we witness the efforts to belittle the achievements of our region in Europe. This is a present for those countries that do not recognize democratic values and human rights. They may seem to be attractive business-partners but they ignore the values and standards, adopted in the Euro-Atlantic political space. Countries that broke their ties with Moscow hope to establish profound partnership with Washington. Our region should gain the guarantied security. I’m writing about this because recently joint Russo-Byelorussian military exercises “The West[5]” have took place, where our country was the “supposed enemy”
4. We steadily take part in the international structures like NATO and European Union but in order to protect our national interests, we should have the veto right to ban the decisions of these organizations, which contradict to our priorities. Deployment of American AMD systems in Poland and Czech Republic has failed; we’re receiving more and more signals of decreasing American role in Europe. This is bad for both sides. Unfortunately, all of the above-mentioned events take place at the background of strengthening neo-imperial foreign policy of Russia, which meets no counter-reaction of key American and European political players. Consolidation of bilateral partnership between the major European countries and Russia — dictated by the economic reasoning — is to lead us to serious political consequences and the decrease of Euro-Union role. Lisbon Treaty failed to bring the increasing European role in the international politics to life and it also failed to ease the effect of world financial crisis.
5. Life needs friendship while policy demands alliances. Friendship cannot ground on egoism; alliances are not created by consigning your former allies into oblivion. In that context, Georgian example is quite indicative: policy of concessions to Russia doesn’t exactly prompt other countries to be loyal to the Euro-Atlantic union. We should not only take the interests of the largest states into consideration, but the interests of middle-sized and small countries as well; we should get back to the standards that used to be grounds for the faith in better world for many people; we should shake the dust off the road signs, showing the way to the international political values.
While he was alive, my brother — Polish President Lech Kaczyński — followed these principles, and he died for them in a terrible Smolensk catastrophe.
English copies of this text were sent to all the leading politicians and opinion-makers[6] of the world.
Reaction of Polish politicians and common public in general to this impressive opus of PiS chairman was very abrupt. Radosław Sikorski — Polish Minister of Foreign Policy, known for his uncommon behavior and burdened by the history of his relationship with the ruling twin-brothers — even stated that Kaczyński had seemingly took some powders again and was writing the article, being under their effect[7]. In general, sharp criticism of the Polish elite was caused not by the content of the text, but by the way Kaczyński had chosen to make his statement. In a democratic state (and Poland is obviously the one) leader of the opposition party cannot make the statement as the Head of State. Thanks to his behavior, Kaczyński has driven himself into the dissident position — where he is deprived of the right to participate in the actual political life of the country and has to apply for the help from outside in order to exert pressure upon the government and public opinion of his own country.
Regarding the essential part of his announcement, it’s quite obvious that Russia became the bur in Kaczyński’s throat. It is also absolutely clear that his hatred towards our country has not just blinded the not-so-farsighted Polish politician. Kaczyński is not just dangerous — he’s mortally dangerous for Poland, Euro-Union and the USA. His attempts to destroy the carefully built bridges between Russia and the West (in a wider sense of that word) may have some serious long-term consequences. Even having stayed in opposition he still possesses the means to exert real influence on the ruling coalition, whoever being a part of it.
[1] The day when the Polish Air Force One crashed near Smolensk
[2] Visegrád Group, also called the Visegrád Four or V4, is an informal discussion group of four Central European states – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – created for the purposes of cooperation and furthering their European integration.
[3] Solidarity (Pol.)
[4] “For yours and ours freedom” — for the first time this slogan appeared in 1795 when Polish gentry was attempting to instigate Ukrainian and Byelorussian peasants for the rebellion against tsar
[5] Joint Russo-Byelorussian operative-strategic exercises “West-2009” have been completed exactly a year ago
[6] People, creating the public opinion
[7] Having lost the Presidential elections, Kaczyński said that he didn’t remember his pre-election speeches, due to the fact that he took the pills to cope with his stressed state after death of his brother and he was under their effect.
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