By Dominik Marciniak
Translation by Adrian Kołodziński
This week I'll be a little news ignorant, paying attention only to political matters. Here we've got the issue regarding mr. president's art taste, there we've got a lot of matters related to foreign policy, somewhere between a comment about the IPN's (The Institute of National Remembrance - Translator's note) reform.
Translation by Adrian Kołodziński
This week I'll be a little news ignorant, paying attention only to political matters. Here we've got the issue regarding mr. president's art taste, there we've got a lot of matters related to foreign policy, somewhere between a comment about the IPN's (The Institute of National Remembrance - Translator's note) reform.
Worry not, though, as this will be a blast! As we've got lots of explosive materials in Poland recently, bringing lots of fun everywhere. So many years of peace and suddenly, when an antiterrorism bill shows up on the horizon it turns out that we've got extremists of our own - not islamic (regrettably, many would probably say that they were, but not me).
The thing that was completely obvious with the change of the ruling party happened. Work is underway to reform The Institute of National Remembrance and they don't bode well, however much the historians might be pleased. First of all the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites will be incorporated into it, and the Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression is also planned to be. In effect a bureaucratic giant will emerge, which will require even more employees. And who to employ but historians? The most worrying plan, however, is to disallow the academic communities to choose the executives of this institution. The candidates for the Collegium, which is a form of government on its own, will be chosen by politicians and not universities. The competition to become the chair of IPN will also be removed - here the Council will be replaced, huge surprise, by politicians. Going further the prosecution's rights of IPN shall be extended, it will be possible to persecute somebody due to historical lies and infamy. Sadly this may be the end of different views on history, resulting in the end of this science. It will be stripping it of its most important advantage, that is of teaching to think critically, because there is no one absolute truth. Often we can only speculate, assume and discuss. And where does the line of this widely-understood infamy lie? Making this institution political can't bring anything good. All there's left to do is hope, that those are just terrible rumours.
Professor Łukasz Święcicki, the hero of the last news summary accused of general judgment of the opposition, responded to the published interview. He claims that some of the things written there were never said, and the sub-titles and inter-titles were added so as to manipulate his statements. "The only goal of my statement was to draw attention to the fact, that some irresponsible political statements may have bad influence on people with weak psyche" - Święcicki wrote in his dementi. The whole case is very specific and it's hard to comment on it - if I were him I'd go as far as to sue those, who defamed him and psychiatry in Poland.
A god-tier bomb
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| Source: PAP |
You see, my dear readers, we have a wave of terror overtaking Poland. Starting with Wrocław, where a bus driver obediently took out the explosive cooking pot onto a bus stop, through Warsaw, where police caught some anarchists red-handed as they were planting explosives under police cars, and finally finishing on the countless amounts of bomb threats reported yesterday. But what bombs these were and what terrorists! White catholics, who hit a wall trying to turn right even more! Let's add, that they are masters of engineering. Allegedly their constructs possessed incredibly sophisticated timing mechanisms - judging by the photographs shared by the police it turned out to be a candle on a small thread. Next to it one can admire one of the supposedly planted charges underneath one of the police vehicles. I bet that we'll find pure spirits in those bottles, to match the seriousness of that candle. And that coincidence with the antiterrorism bill! Definitely nobody prepared "strong" arguments for the upcoming parliamentary discussion, right? Farce after farce, and a bomb is proof of that, so as not to say januszexbomb.
Poltical-historical police
The thing that was completely obvious with the change of the ruling party happened. Work is underway to reform The Institute of National Remembrance and they don't bode well, however much the historians might be pleased. First of all the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites will be incorporated into it, and the Office for War Veterans and Victims of Oppression is also planned to be. In effect a bureaucratic giant will emerge, which will require even more employees. And who to employ but historians? The most worrying plan, however, is to disallow the academic communities to choose the executives of this institution. The candidates for the Collegium, which is a form of government on its own, will be chosen by politicians and not universities. The competition to become the chair of IPN will also be removed - here the Council will be replaced, huge surprise, by politicians. Going further the prosecution's rights of IPN shall be extended, it will be possible to persecute somebody due to historical lies and infamy. Sadly this may be the end of different views on history, resulting in the end of this science. It will be stripping it of its most important advantage, that is of teaching to think critically, because there is no one absolute truth. Often we can only speculate, assume and discuss. And where does the line of this widely-understood infamy lie? Making this institution political can't bring anything good. All there's left to do is hope, that those are just terrible rumours.Burning ambers, Baltic's urgent problem
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| Source: bi.gazeta.pl |
After second world war barrels with chemicals weapons were tossed to the bottom of the (relatively shallow) Baltic sea, except we're talking about the whole Russian arsenal and not just a few barrels. Years have passed, corrosion did its work and according to research our beloved sea is becoming more and more contaminated. What's worse the Polish beaches are now littered with lumps of phosphor, which are deceptively similar to ambers. As much as taking such a lump in your hand is enough to suffer wicked burns. Even cases of whole barrels emerging on a beach happened - in 1955 it resulted in burns for 102 kids, 4 of which were blinded forever. What's the statement of the governors of nearby communities? They swallowed their tongues and theoritically see the problem, but would rather pray that the tragedy doesn't happen in their commune. As of now it's simply better to avoid Polish beaches at the sea, just in case. Thankfully I prefer mountains myself.
Finders, prisoners
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| Źródło. bi.gazeta.pl |
According to Polish law finding something, which might be an antique object, obliges us to immediately contact our local preservationist or governor. Under no circumstances are we to take the item away from the site in which it was found, so as not to deprive it of historical context. If we don't act in this manner we can expect a 3 year prison sentence, instead of a reward as it is predicted for those who abide by the laws. A citizen of Gorzów Wielkopolski learned about all this after he postponed notifying about what he found for a whole month. After contacting the local preservationist he didn't have to wait long for police's visit. In my opinion it's a legal absurd, because there is a difference between returning something after learning about the law nuances, and hiding and keeping away for years.
A media fraud?
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| Źródło: static.prsa.pl/ |
Summary!
A persecutor of IPN sued an inhabitant of Gorzów found on a beach for illegal takeover of a lump of phosphor and not informing proper agencies about that finding, and the swallowing of said lump he added in the indictment as an infamy to national possessions. The poor bloke, however, couldn't say anything as his throat was completely burned, thankfully the right-wing newspaper "Do Rzeczy" came to his rescue and with its inter-titles blamed everything on the dying guy. As reported by our journalists however the court session didn't come to be - when a candle on the witness bench went out the whole building exploded, the smoke bringing about the wonderful scent of distilled spirits. The government has already announced an amendment to the antiterrorism bill - for our better future candles cannot be bought or sold due to being potential bomb timers. For the better future of us all!
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