I swear, I swear

As pointed up recently in the local media, common usage of foul language has become a plague in Poland. Presence of swear words used in abundance in workplaces, in public areas takes nobody aback. It is no longer a domain of blue-collar-worker males. These days people from all walks of life swear and this no longer is a reason to be ashamed. I cannot deny I am an exception, I do use foul language, at times a lot or even too much, yet I my (lame) excuse is that I have rules.

Much depends on circumstances in which one curses. In a casual conversation, unless in a specific circle of males and the talk is not heard by no one else I see no reason to use foul language. I also detest using it too frequently instead of a comma. When women (with some exceptions of those which also swear and I have palled up with) are around or when I talk to people I am not familiar with I also hold back from swearing. My major principle is to throw curses at a specific situations or behaviours, not against a person, therefore I refrain from insulting people personally.

In which situation do I find swearing acceptable? In anger or impatience to let off steam. For me, in terms of getting irritation off my chest it works perfectly and immediately. To a moderate extent, foul language is tolerable to emphasise some phenomena or describe some events. Funnily enough, I seldom swear behind the wheel (which does not mean I do not get infuriating by other traffic participants), although Poles excel at aggression in their cars which could be a topic for a different post.

In practice 90% of foul language flows from my mouth in the office… This prompts me to smoothly move on to another topic, namely #metoo, but let me leave it off for a separate posting. Not having a good weekend for work-related reasons (fretting rather than toiling away and to avoid confusion, nothing to do with #metoo), I will catch up some time later. Keep on hoping karma always returns.

Humility is a virtue

Mayday’s episode on Smolensk Air Crash is due to have its world premiere today at 9 p.m. in National Geographic Channel’s Polish channel. Poles will be the first audience to see the purportedly unbiased coverage of the tragic flight and reasons behind the disaster.

The film has been hailed as prejudiced many months ago by PiS-backing Polish media, as its script is based solely on findings of two official reports on the crash, one drawn up by Russian MAK, the other prepared by the Polish parliamentary commission, run by Jerzy Miller (the series’ makers as a matter of principle rely on official reports rather than on conspiracy theories). Producers of the ‘one-sided’ film, who refused to incorporate possible causes such as blast, terrorist attack, were accused of being paid by the Russians to distort the real course of events to the audience in the world. The broader discussion on the controversial documentary is going to spark off after the broadcast (although many journalists have already seen the document during a dedicated show) and I will post my review of it next weekend (today I will not make it, over the busy week it will be impossible as well).

In the meantime I am taking the opportunity to invoke another report, authored by Japanese parliamentary panel investigating causes and aftermaths of Fukushima power plant disaster. If you recall the tragic events from March 2011, you bring to your mind pictures of cruel powers of nature which destroyed the plant. You blame the earthquake and the tsunami, while authors of the report claim this was a “man-made disaster”. If the read the BBC’s summary of the report’s findings, the picture which emerges is a sharp condemnation of Japanese culture, the nation’s shortcomings and stance of people responsible of overseeing maintenance of the plant and handling mitigating effect of the disaster. Actually the nation is pulled into pieces for its “culture of deference and reluctance to question authority”. Once negligence was covered up at the top, nobody at the bottom felt entitled to bring it to the light. The report was a bitter pill to swallow for the Japanese. They had the courage to eat the humble pie…

Same could be said about the Smolensk crash, this also was a typical man-made disaster. Responsibility for it is collective and many Polish national shortcomings, brought together, contributed to the fatal accident. The list can be long: overwhelming disorganisation in prime minister’s and late president’s offices, commonly tolerated laxity in following procedures, acting on reprehensible faith that “we’ll somehow make it” (jakoś to będzie, uda się), determination to carry on, despite dangerous conditions, cutting corners (bylejakość), bravura, focus on end heedless of safety procedures. Several irregularities were found in the disbanded 36th regiment of Polish military aviation (inadequate training resulting e.g. in reading the wrong altitude meter), in prime minister’s office (responsibility for organising such visits rests with them). Media, for sake of customary refraining from speaking badly about the departed, seldom mention total chaos in the president Kaczyński’s office, but this was also the case. Same can be said about Russian airport in Smolensk, run-down, lacking fixed equipment necessary to service takeoffs and touchdowns (such was moved there for prime minister’s Tusk visit 3 days earlier and taken away immediately), but I ultimately would blame the Polish organisers who did not bother to choose a safer, properly equipped airport.

I am looking forward to seeing the film. Little in its content is likely to surprise me – newspapers in Poland have written long reviews and summaries of it. I am more curious of social potential outcry regarding the account of events depicted in the film. The documentary is not going to change anything. Those who believe this was an assassination contrived by enemies of the most outstanding statesman in the history of Poland will not be convinced this was a tragic aftermath of multitude of human errors, those who put credence into official parliamentary report, will find in it nothing new; nevertheless it is worth spending two hours in front of the TV screen.

A secular funeral

Attended such ceremony for the first time on Wednesday. In Poland it is customary to stage traditional church funerals even if the deceased were not deeply religious and ceremonies held not in a church and not administered by a priest are still a rarity. This time the deceased, my friend’s father, was a type of a hard-line atheist and had expressed a wish to have a secular funeral.

While a typical Polish funeral consists of a mass in a church and a burial ritual, a secular funeral has a sort of “last farewell” instead of a mass. On Wednesday the farewell was divided into two parts. The first one was a commemorative speech, being a brief biography and characteristics of the deceased, the second was a classical music concert.

I liked the form of the ceremony and part of the content, in terms of concert (the deceased was an opera-goer), but was disgusted by the eulogy… Delivering eulogies during funerals has become a widespread tradition in Poland. I heard it in 2009, 2010and in 2011, so if 2012 is drawing to a close I couldn’t miss the doubtful pleasure of listening to another one.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against speaking highly about dead people, but every time I listened to such speeches, I felt these were description of people other than those being buried. In Poland there is a custom that you either speak highly about the dead, or don’t speak at all, everyone accepts it, the best example is how the picture of late president Lech Kaczyński was distorted afterhis tragic death. Few had guts to tell the truth… I generally detest hypocrisy and maybe wouldn’t be so distasted if such eulogies were only biased. Every man has a bright and a dark side, highlighting only the bright one is forgivable, while telling lies about a deceased is overstepping the boundary of decency. Last year my parents made a blunder at our neighbour’s funeral when they broke out laughing having heard the neighbour, who, truth be told, was a despicable layabout and drunkard, in the eulogy was characterised as ‘exceptionally responsible man and caring father and husband’.

Damn it, if there is little good to say about the dead, conform to the principle and don’t speak at all! I can’t stand it!

During a burial ceremony there was also a moment when I didn’t know how to behave. I stood surrounded probably by former colleagues of the deceased, sturdy men, tall as I, but unlike me, well-built, and while urn was being put into the grave, they all burst into tears and kept on weeping like small children. I felt unnaturally. I saw people crying during funerals many times, but these always were family members or close friends…

Secular funerals are said to grow in popularity in Poland, as Polish society is turning less and less religious. I wouldn’t dare to say the same is true about weddings. Virtually all weddings I attended during last two years were church ones, I’m attending a secular one next month and this will be the odd one. It has to be underlined, however, if someone gets married in a church, if doesn’t mean they are religious. It’s all about the setting. Wedding in a registry office lacks the memorable character the one, traditional, in a church, has. Wedding is in principle a one-in-a-lifetime event which deserves a unique setting, but whether it is justified to spend on it an equivalent of new compact car’s price (alternatively even 10 metres of a new flat might be purchased for that money) to put on a triumph of form over substance is a topic for a separate posting…

And my advice for anyone going to Cmentarz Północny on a business day – set off from home early or check the timetable carefully. I set off from home at 8:45 to turn up for a ceremony starting at 10:30 in time and ended up stuck in a traffic jam beginning at the border or Warsaw, which I detoured through Jeziorki and having covered 25% of the distance within 40% of allotted time on a rainy day (rain snarls up traffic) I decided to forsake my car near underground station and take the public transport. Finding a space to park a car around 9:30 was difficult, yet doable, then I somehow managed to get to my destination by underground (33 minutes ride to the northern end of the line is boring) and from the beautiful Metro Młociny terminus, by 701 bus. Returning home was a bigger nuisance. I had to wait for a bus in a rain for 25 minutes (they run once in half an hour), getting from the cemetery to Ursynów took me an hour and a quarter. Cemeteries, as places visited often by elderly people, should certainly have much better public transport links to city centres…

Manners, they matter

Last Monday I mentioned the wedding invitation I’d received out of the blue then. My first reaction was to attend the event, but on second thoughts… I turned down the invitation, just like three-fourth of the invited with the appalling five-day advance notice.

I don’t know whether anyone recalls the commemorations of 90th anniversary of regaining independence by Poland, held in Teatr Wielki in Warsaw in November 2008. The celebration was staged by late president’s office and heads of other states received invitations two or three weeks before the event, so most eminent politicians whose calendars are carefully filled in many months’ advance, failed to show up. The absence of many figures was the price paid for ignorance of diplomatic protocol. But at that time bad organisation resulted only in a diplomatic slip-up, but some seventeen months later, the Polish (and Russian as well) bylejakość (what’s the English for this???) led up to a huge tragedy…

On second thoughts it occurred to me this I would have to bring forward handling lots of things I’d had planned for the current weekend. If I was to attend the wedding, I’d have to think about a small gift (or chip in with someone), iron a better shirt kept in the chest of drawers for special occasions, vacuum-clean my car inside and wash its bodywork (after being washed in early November 2011, it’s surprisingly clean)… And given the scarcity of time in the evenings on weekdays, this would have to be completed by early afternoon on Sunday. The outing began to seem impractical.

Having in mind the form (creating the event of facebook and putting all friends on the list of invited guests) and the jaw-dropping advance notice, I decided to take advice of a few friends (all not knowing the host of the wedding and thus not invited). They all in unison advised me to decline the invitation. Firstly due to the form, secondly on account of when it had been sent.

One of my friends as a matter of principle doesn’t attend weddings for which she receives invitations on facebook. She argues she feels like wypełniacz kościoła, literally ‘church filler-in’, or more deftly, ‘crowd-maker’. Others told me by inviting so people so late, my high-school friend had showed little respect for other people’s time. And I have to say my time is precious enough not to waste it with someone who doesn’t respect it.

No wonder so many of the potential guests refused to show up. Actually most people usually plan something for the weekend and if at the beginning of the week such information comes up, some are likely to be reluctant to drop everything. Maybe many noticed the same what I did – it’s no effort to mark all names on friend list (for my friend 378; who said one’s tribe can’t count more than 150 people?) and invite them. I’m not talking about the costs now. In these times virtually everyone turns thrifty and saves on whatever they can, so I don’t hold it against them that they hadn’t printed invitations and hadn’t sent them out to everyone in beautiful envelopes. It’s always nice to be handed such invitation and I even keep the ones I received, but being notified in a more modern way is not the reason to take umbrage. But that very invitation wasn’t personal at all. I’m not sure my friend realised she had invited me at all. It’s always to have a crowd in the church, it’s always nice to deceive oneself that you have a lot of friends (half of them would be hanging around and backbiting you, but good impression for aunties remains), but Good Lord, etiquette matters.

When speaking about financial aspect of weddings, it has to be underlined lavish weddings for 200 guests, costing tens of zlotys, an equivalent of price of a brand-new compact car, are becoming the thing of the past. This trend proves positive impact of the crisis (it can be seen negative by wedding-organisers whose firms may drop like flies). I attended three such weddings in 2007 and 2008 and remember them as a huge waste of money. Squandering fifty thousand zlotys for a one-night event to have some nice photos, film or memories for the rest of life (an upbeat assumption, as one of those three marriages broke up, for the other couple life’s not a bed of roses and only the third bygone newlyweds are living a happy life) still seems to me at least silly. Young people and their parents have finally realised that it’s better to spend the same money on a few square metres of own flat or in another wise way, for something durable, rather to throw it about within one night.

And actually what has put me off attending the wedding yesterday was how it would be perceived among my ex-classmates. This would have been a great opportunity to show off. Good clothes, good jobs, money, cars – no one would fail to stress how prosperous they are, or if in fact they aren’t, they would lean over backwards to pretend they are.

Next week I’m attending the wedding and actually not to keep my head down I’ll fit in to this hideous custom. Or should I defy it, leave the car at home, go by bus in my oldest, worn-out suit and tell my ex-classmates I earn peanuts?

A longer follow-up in two weeks’ time, when I plan to impudently violate one policy…

A new Polish studniówka fad

Wikipedia takes me aback – it gives a quite comprehensive description of Polish customary ball called studniówka, I can only add it is held in January or early February, before high school leaving exams, which are equivalent to English A-level. Other nations usually celebrate the good results of passed exams, in Poland we throw a party on a sinking boat, the last before future high school leavers knuckle down and begin their cramming spree.

For some this reversed order of taking exams and celebrating might seem weird, nevertheless this tradition has put down roots and nobody will dare to overthrow it. Studniówka, as many other youngsters’ stuff, moves with the times. Back in PRL, balls were thrown in school gyms, in independent Poland, as people have grown richer, clubs and restaurants play host to this party.

Four years ago, when had my own one, it looked quite normal. Parents from my high school decided on hall in Banking and Finance Centre in Warsaw (the former PZPR edifice), where it had been held in the previous years. The setting was a reasonable compromise between austerity and luxury, the most important thing for everyone was to have fun and we achieved it.

But when I look at (maybe exaggerated) the news depicting how it’s organised now I’m struck by how much it has changed, provided it’s true.

Venue – school corridors and gyms are passé, so how about the most expensive in luxurious hotels in Warsaw? Parents from my high school actually kept a cool head!

Budget – I read an average one this year per person is 2000 zł, some six or seven times more than mine. The price of the ball itself might not be much higher than mine (200 zł), but all additional costs inflate the total. I didn’t have to purchase a new suit or shoes, those bought three years earlier for middle school leaving exam weren’t worn out (used a few times), I had tie which suited my polonaise partner’s dress, the only new part of my outfit was a shirt. I heard now a suit but be put on for the first time, dresses for girls are generally disposable…

Hairstyle – my hair were too short to be combed, but what some girls do with their hair and makeup they wear is horrible. A session at hairdresser’s and then in beauty parlance may turn a really good-looking girl into a monster. An average boy who could take this opportunity to pick up such a girl would probably give up his plan and scurry off.

Ball – with all its consequences, it’s not enough to just fork out for it attend it, but you have to know how to behave, how to eat those exquisite meals from menu and act up to the standard.

Transport – we had a choice of three ones – some of us were given a lift and picked up by parents, some used public transport, some took a taxi. But now in some school hiring a limousine is all the rage.

How far will the world go? Does everything have to boil down to showing off? It the nineties it afflicted First Communion. I don’t consider myself religious, but it seems to me that for a child it should be a spiritual experience, but in the contemporary skewed world the climax of the day is getting the new computer, mp4 player, or, Heaven forbid, quad. The same happened to studniówka. Do we have to swank about, try to outbid one another who can afford more? Isn’t good fun more important? Isn’t, after all well-passed matura more important than lavish studniówka?

I voted in a survey:
Studniówka in a luxurious hotel:
1) sure, why not?
2) tough luck, times are changing,
3) stupidity and snobbery,
and chose the third option. The results were respectively: 28%, 9%, 63% and lifted my spirits up. Most people still keep a cool head, but if you want to ask who’s to blame for those extravaganzas, my answers will be the parents, because they agree to pay for the ball. After all, if my child was to have its studniówka and fellow parents outvoted me and pushed ahead some ridiculous ideas, I wouldn’t hesitate to shell out the money for the ball. It happens only once in a lifetime…

Welcome to the new decade

From the mathematical point of view, the current decade will end on 31 December 2010, but my children or grandchildren will speak about the ten-year-long period that has just begun as of “the 2010’s”.

The new year has traditionally began with a “National Hangover Day”. It’s because each year on New Year’s Day media (mostly the radio stations) are trying to convince me that every decent Pole should suffer a severe headache, feel sick and have other symptoms of excessive drinking the night before and offer various folk methods of easing the pain resulting from a good party the day before. I’m becoming fed up with those rotten consensuses over what a decent Pole should do. You should get tanked up on New Year’s Eve, buy on New Year’s Sale, spend Christmas behind the table with your family, devouring kilograms of meat and singing carols, think president and his brother’s party are bad (I also think so, but it’s also a consensus of media with “Polityka”, “Gazeta Wyborcza” and TVN on the lead, the alternative version is that the leftist parties are commies in disguise and thus are the biggest evil), be a catholic to be a decent man, think the Martial Law was an absolute evil and cannot be justified, but the Warsaw Uprising was the most noble event in the 20th century, file a tax statement on the last day of April, etc.

The last dogmatic debate that wound me up was the one between advocates and opponents of Balcerowicz’s plan. Both groups (critics from Krytyka Polityczna, supported by Jacek Żakowski – journalist of “Polityka”, and defenders mostly from “Wyborcza”) appeared full of themselves and blind and deaf to any arguments of the opposite party. This has been a hollow discussion. Economics is a social science, what means no experiment can be repeated. We cannot say that any other strategy would do our economy better. We are unable to turn back time and turn Polish economy around once again. The critics can say it should not have been a shock therapy. I refute it with an argument that if the reforms had been implemented before 1978, the transition from the central-planned to free-market economy could have run smoothly. Later, as it was plunged onto a slippery slope and slid down, there was no easy fix.

If you think the radio hangover propaganda has thrown me off the balance, then you’re dead wrong! I felt like laughing and found the whole absurd situation very amusing. Last year for the first time since many years I didn’t feel low in the “slack period” (that’s how I dubbed the period between Christmas and New Year’s Day when everything seems to run into a standstill) and at the beginning of the new year I have an inkling of a breakthrough laying ahead, a big change about to happen this year. Even the weather can’t take away my optimism, though the long-term forecasts say the winter will be long, frosty, snowy and will give way to spring not earlier than in April. If the forecasts say so, it’s quite probable that we’ll have an early spring and a warm and sunny March, like in 2007.

A propos predicting. Last year most of my dreams were nightmares. Moreover, I dreamt my own death seven times and all those visions were puzzlingly realistic, accurate and coherent (they all had in common a feeling of acute pain in the chest which I felt also after waking up). Last year my dreams were so ridiculous that I could tell they weren’t true. In the first days of the new year I had only pleasant, even very pleasant ones ;) For some apparent reasons I felt I wasn’t awake and I asked myself if I was dreaming, but the answer was always negative, so my dreaming intuition failed my a few times in a row. Then I woke up, disillusioned. If the dreams have anything in common with the future, or anticipate it anyhow, I think I have a spot of a bother… ;)

PS. On New Year’s Day in the morning, my blood pressure was 91/53, pulse 98. Two coffees and snow clearing brought me back to life.

Do men need to be praised?

One of those questions smacking on the stereotype we are from Mars, they are form Venus… Males and females are said to perceive everything in a different way, from hues and saturations of colours to remarks aimed at them. It might be a matter of cultural background, upbringing, self-esteem, ego, complexes, or just going over the top with praising…

Today, while having a rest after an arduous week and lying on my terrace with the headphones on my ears I listened to the notorious broadcast in Radio Pogoda. This time it wasn’t as stupid and intolerable as usually, today’s discussion was really up to the point, but the man portrayed by the journalists turned out to be a clumsy midget who wants the others, mostly his partner to boost his ego. How can you explain away the fact one of the journalists pays compliments to her husband for hammering one nail or driving a screw. Those simple activities take sometimes less than a minute and are one of those typical mundane household chores, so where’s the point in praising? Once I’ve read modern young women are angry with their husbands / partners who can mend the leaking tap and have to call a professional – is it an incentive – you’ll change that seal, what requires a lot of knowledge and dexterity and consumes your precious time and I’ll be grateful until the end of my days, I’ll tell all of my friends how wonderful my husband is – he fixed the tap, it doesn’t leak, can your old man do that?

For a past few months I’ve been pondering on the roles of people in the marriage, it finally sank in me that I should look at it not like on the bed of roses, still not like on an obligation (I’m still far away from tying the knot) but like on a situation in which two people have to depend on each other, put up with each other and divide or share some roles. And what comes up? One of my female friends admits she can’t cook at all and has problems even with boiling water in a kettle, another one says she throw dirty clothes on the floor and one day she gets herself together to switch on the washing machine. The third says she doesn’t wash up until the dishes can’t fit into the sink – so the big washing-up comes in regular intervals once in three days. I don’t opt for the obsolete family model where woman has to iron his husband’s shirts, wash his socks and cook and serve the dinner when the tired breadwinner comes home. But here we fall into another extreme – there was said to be a huge generation gap between the generations of my parents and my grandparents – they contested their way of life, defied their hierarchy of values, in many cases, it moved the society forward, but we seem to start paying the price – the new generation brought up already in independent Poland shapes into X-generation, the youngsters who aren’t taught they have any duties, they get everything for free, the get used to it (that’s the most appalling) and have still higher demands, but parents still indulge their whims. Yes, it gets my goat when my peer who stands for much lower personal quality than me drives to Warsaw with a better than my father’s car, when I still commute by bus, cause I was taught at home I shouldn’t use something I cannot afford to – in my view there are lots of errors parents make these days… Who’ll carry the can?

But as I can observe, men as a rule hold out for praising! I try to eschew it, but it’s the order of the day that we ask if the meal we’ve prepared is delicious. “Have I spiced it up correctly?”, “Doesn’t the wall look beautifully after painting?”, “It was my wonderful idea, wasn’t it?”, “Could anyone do it better than me?”.

As a teenager I couldn’t stand being praised, I felt uneasy, blushed, then I learned to cope with it. But maybe everyone needs appreciation, commendation, gratitude? But for what? For doing one’s duty? “So you returned home from hospital and the house was clean, fridge was stocked up and the clothes were washed and ironed?” – such question was asked yesterday by my mother’s friend, claiming her children and husband would neglect the house beyond recognition. Hey, praise not on me, I did my duty, shame on them!

BTW, yesterday I indulged in the national sport of Poles, practised on balconies, działki or in the gardens – making a barbecue. I can’t say I have a heart for cookery but grilling is what I adore. Unfortunately my photo-taking savvy is not already well developed so no one took up operating the camera and capturing me dealing with the sausages and turkey cutlets…

New satellite photos of the neighbourhood

Several weeks ago I grumbled about outdated maps of my locality which are displayed in Google, contrasting them with rather new ones provided by Polish Internet Locator – zumi.pl.
Yesterday while looking for a florist’s to order the bouquets for my bachelor’s exam I stumbled upon new satellite pictures of the surrounding area. According to some premises, the new ones were taken in May 2009 (deduced by shadows of the buildings), on Saturday or Sunday (few cars on the streets, vehicles usually parked in front of houses and shops, not next to offices) around eleven a.m.
New snaps are much sharper than the previous, the colours are more natural and saturated. When it comes to up-to-date aspect, they outrun Google maps by light years. The biggest services still contains the maps of Warsaw from 2005 and its suburbs from 2002. That’s a shame…


My house can be easily recognised by a distinguishing detail – unlike the houses of my neighbours there’s no car parked in front of it. It must have either sit in a garage or was away at the time. We’re the only household in our czworak (Polish scornful term for the row of four terraced houses) which has only one car, our vehicle is also the oldest (bought brand new in July 2003) among the ones used by the czworak’s dwellers. One can clearly see both cars of my neighbour from behind the fence (Ford Mondeo, neighbour’s company car, bought brand new in 2007 and Suzuki Vitara from 2006, bought last year after his wife gave birth to their son – she never drives and says it’s just too big for her, so my moron-neighbour uses one car on weekdays and another during weekends), further neighbour’s Opel Corsa from 2004, bought last year (they also have VW Passat, 2005, bought in 2007) and the Ford Focus C-Max (bought brand new in 2008) of the neighbour from the other end of the row (they also have Mitsubishi Coupe, also bought last year, but produced in 2006). Maybe it shouldn’t meet my astonishment that my father feels like changing a car (even though it’s still in excellent technical condition!) if everybody around did it within last two year and everybody has newer cars. I still remain totally insensitive to it, like to all crazes, fads, whimsies, gadgets, etc. Somebody once told me one day I’d give in under the group pressure (colleagues from work buying still new cars, mobiles, etc.), but before I graduate I surmise it’s unlikely to happen. Every time I see a young businesswoman trying to park her SUV into a small parking space that sight makes me laugh. Why didn’t she buy a small, stylish car which would fit into the gaps of Warsaw cramped car parks easily?

MOTORING ABSURDITY OF THE DAY
Today my father called on his insurance agent (the motor insurance is due to renewal in two weeks’ time) to calculate the premium and found out… That according to statistics, drivers of Renault Megane cause accidents 3 per cent more often than an average driver so the insurance premiums (both third party liability and car insurance) for the owner of Renault Megane will be 3 per cent higher!!! And doesn’t even matter that my father hasn’t had any accident since December 1981 (dubious date, just a few days before martial law was declared), he’s in a group of increased risk. If anybody sees any link, any explanation to it, please let me know…

Breaking the silence...

Following the anecdote posted as a comment to my previous post about Polish mentality I think I can dissociate myself from the fellow blogger’s journey companions and put forward some solutions. Having read the story of discussion in the train I devised some concepts on what should be changed in Poland, slept on them, let them run through my head, now it’s time to tap them into my keyboard and later on spread into the outer world…

I classified my suggestions into three categories, according to the blog’s title. I doubt whether I did it correctly, but I hope it’s a minor glitch and the overall view is what matters here. It will be long, turns out to be the longest post ever, but I believe it’s worth spending half an hour reading it.

POLITICS

To start with, our perception of that realm critically needs to be modified. Today people come to politics driven by their lust for power, money, privileges, etc. and all of those factors which attract them to our sweet mire in fact corrupt them. The ideal model I would opt for is in a way close to the one which functions in the United States. The ones who decide to become politicians should be mature, experienced, reputable citizens, who had already achieved a lot in their lives but still strive for more. Position in politics should crown somebody’s career and should be therefore treated as distinction and public service to the compatriots. Money should not be a reason why people engage in political activity – politicians should be already well-off people who’d like to do something to the others and the financial aspect of their offices shouldn’t play a significant role.

I thought about some standards which could be set to be me met by politicians, for instance a precondition of graduation of university to be allowed to run for seat in parliament, to be a minister or president. The education should moreover be relevant to the post held by a certain official. At second thought I gave it up – firstly cause it’s in contradiction with the principles of democracy and equality of all citizens, secondly I took a quick at our two former and our current presidents. The first completed vocational school, the second lied about his full university education, the third is a professor and is he any wiser by that virtue?

Let’s touch upon a gist of democracy and misunderstanding it. Some of us, Poles, think it’s still not the best system, some discern its weaknesses but can’t find any alternative, some as allegedly the milieu of Gazeta Wyborcza sometimes give the skewed picture of democracy. In democracy everybody should have equal right to give voice to their opinions and nobody is entitled to claim that Kaczyński twins ought to be sent back to the moon. The beauty of democracy consists in the diversity of the political scene, big and wide enough to find room for moderate centre parties, left and right wing, populists and lunatic fringes. Everyone is granted a right to set up a party and register it, unless it refers to the ideas of communism or nazism. What I’m getting at is that nobody can say that “the Law and Justice party should disappear from our political arena”, no matter how many conceited journalists or pundits would utter such words, it mustn’t happen. Law and Justice will exist as long as there will be the political demand for them. Those are the citizens who decide about political future of politicians and it’s their role to deprive them of power, like they did with AWS in 2001 or Samoobrona and LPR in 2007. We have the power to send the ones who screwed it up to the political nonentity. And we can draw them out of there, dust them off, whenever it occurs to us our country is in need of them.

The next part is on the sidelines of politics – it connects law and bureaucracy. The first should be for sure devoid of loopholes, lame legislations but most of all clear. All the legal acts, deeds, decrees, bills should be rewritten into plain Polish (without bombastic, long, confound phrases), intelligible for an ordinary citizen. The formulation of many provisions leaves a lot to be desired – in a correct version legal regulations ought to be concise and meticulously stipulate everything, step by step, leaving no doubt what is required in a certain situation, how should the proceedings run, how is the particular case handled. And ubiquitous red tape which express lack of trust and need to control everything, keep an account, have stats about everything. Piles of papers, ladies with their omnipotent stamps behind the counters – that should be replaced with mechanism friendly for citizen but allowing the administrative system to function effectively. The approach of both state and people has to change here – state offices should provide the information for their applicants and the applicants should come to the offices fitted out in knowledge on what they want to handle – efficient mutual aid would make lives of both parties involved easier but the willingness is here essential.

ECONOMY

The thing I’ve condemned most often on this blog is the current pension system in Poland, chiefly its second pillar, so called open pension funds. The biggest evil here is the compulsory participation combined with extortionate charges. My counter-proposal is that:
1) the participation in first pillar (ZUS) should be obligatory, it should guarantee every working citizen a diminutive pension benefit, sufficient enough to eke out a living – thus the premium would be quite low. Everybody should pay the same per cent of their salary, in my view less than five per cent, and everybody should be granted benefit in the same amount after pensioning off – that would be the element of social solidarity.
2) I don’t want the pension funds to be wound down – participation in that part of the system shouldn’t be, however obligatory. The newly employed ones shouldn’t be forced to choose a pension fund, the ones who already save there for their pension should be permitted to withdraw all their money amassed there, no matter how big fluctuations on financial markets it would cause. Government should clearly state it gives the citizens free rein and let them save for their pension on their own. If they wish, they can join OFE if they think their money would be managed properly there, if not, set it aside to a bank, buy pension insurance, invest in stocks, bonds or simply go on binge and throw it around within one night if it’s their wish. Scholar like professor Marek Góra have repeatedly asserted that people are too stupid to save for their retirement on their own. Maybe indeed they are, but humans are free and no one, virtually no one can make them pay private companies for managing their money, regardless of the investment results. If you wish, do whatever you want with your money, but don’t expect the state to help you if you spend your money foolishly. Maybe it’s inhuman, but that’s probably the only way we can take matters into our own hands. Besides, government should encourage people to save, through tax relieves and promotion drives, so give incentive not coerce! More about my views on pension system – click tag “OFE”.

Almost everyone in this country grumbles about their tiredness after twenty five years of working, average age of retirement is the lowest in Europe – a shameful figure. Let’s do away with the pathology and put the system of undeserved privileges to an end – people in Poland pension off cause they’re too lazy, sick of their jobs, but nobody realises their pension benefits are financed from other taxpayers’ premiums and taxes (every years ZUS receives a subsidy from state budget), or maybe to be closer to the actual truth – they push it away from their minds. Changing the ratio of employed to unemployed would surely cure our public finance sector. Early retirement is considered a privilege, whereas I think it should signify someone’s weakness – if you’re unable to work you must be ailing, something wrong must be wrong with you if you don’t want to contribute to the creation of national income.
When we’re at social welfare field – it’s time to crack down on fictitious certificates of inability to work excessively made out by doctors. Guy comes to the doctor and asks: “Sir, I’m forty-five, I don’t feel like working any more, I want to get the benefit”. Who pays for such lies and laziness? We!

Claimant’s stance – it’s about time we realised that the state which collects taxes is not an institutions which rips us off. For the taxes we pay we get the infrastructure, schools, partly health service, officials working for us. Let’s switch into another stance – not what I deserve but what I can give. We don’t want to pay taxes but we want to get the benefits from state – for free?

In a few years time I’d propose reaching the balanced budget. Expenditure will not exceed revenue – simple, although never applied. Less money would be needed to finance the debt, investors will lose safe, risk-free securities, gilt-edged securities would not have to be obligatorily bought by pension funds. Markets would sooner or later cope with it somehow – the topic is elaborated on in one of the early posts.

Taxation – the everlasting dilemma of combining justice and effectiveness. Solution? – make it simple, as simple as possible. Reduce tax relieves to minimum, they give a lot of room for abuses, reducing them will also bring down the amount of paperwork to be done to serve it. My suggestion is a flat tax with annual deductions of around ten to fifteen thousand zlotys – the effective taxation rate will be progressive – thus the poorest would pay very little or no tax and as the income would grow, the effective rate of taxation would also rise, but not as drastically as it does now.

The labour relations are where the two conflicting interests coincide. The employers want to pay as little as possible and exploit the workforce as much as possible, the employees would like to work as little as possible and get as much as possible. In the face of this, employers represent the wild capitalism and trade unions represent “who cares” approach. The former don’t take into account some factors (they’re humans, not machines, they have to provide for their families) as they’re chasing profits, the latter selfishly require pay rises and prevent lay-offs no matter how bad the situation of the company is. The trade unions should intervene only when the employer treats his staff really unfairly, in other cases their strikes are to be regarded as disrupting enterprise’s functioning. The “give and take” deal would be helpful here – both parties should make concessions and act in unison bearing in mind the consequences for the another party.

Monetary policy – I can’t say I disapprove of the way it is led currently, nevertheless I would opt for a bit tighter one. Price stability is the overriding goal in my opinion, our country can’t pay the price of high inflation just to retain the high pace of economic growth. There’s also another dimension of keeping interest rates high – market participants are encouraged to save and dissuaded from taking out loans. The economy, to a large degree propelled by credit would be cooled down, but just look at the change of behavioural patterns – it appears to be beneficial. Fancy picking on it – go ahead!

Role of state in the economy – first not to harm. But bother to act, where it’s essential. State should counteract monopolies which are indispensable part of free market economy, it should take over some industries where natural monopolies exist – such as utilities. The state firm wouldn’t be geared at profits, instead they’d focus on providing services to people and expected only to break even. Government should be also accountable for maintenance of infrastructure, construction of new roads, etc. All the parts of infrastructure are public goods so I oppose against toll motorways. Of course state projects should be carried out by private companies but roads are to be owned by state and be free for everyone! Another state’s duty which I postulate that it must be fulfilled is the protection of the weakest. The weakest – you mean who? – You’d ask. The poorest? Not this time? According to the popular belief it’s workforce – poor people exploited by the capitalists. The ones who claim it to my eye depart from the truth. Workers might take industrial actions or resort to another way of blackmailing their company to attain what they hold out for. The weakest link in the economic chain are the customers. Their rights are violated the most often, it’s harder for them to gather together and protest, although there have been such actions like the one staged by irate mBank clients. The government should provide for the legal regulations aimed at consumer protection, protection from big chain stores, monopolist service providers, etc. Consumers are almost always doomed to lose a battle with the stronger company or have to wait for another company to bring back competition on the market and liberate them from clutches of colluded companies, like Play did on mobile telephony market, causing call charges to drop. The step in a good direction is the activity of UKE, with Anna Streżyńska in charge of the office.

Is anything more to be done? Certainly yes, state should actively participate and support all programmes of financial education. The society which understands the mechanisms of economy is less susceptible to yield to populists, can manage their finances better. Better education and raised awareness could also prevent such situations as run on investment funds at the peak of bull market in 2007. Well-educated citizens are then more likely to be treated as wise and responsible and assumed to be able to do without guides.

SOCIETY

The phenomenon which looms as the most disturbing these days is imperviousness (PL: znieczulica), the disease, which afflicted our society. An old woman suddenly passes out in the street – what’s your reaction – it doesn’t concern you, it’s not your business, you’re in hurry. That the classic example – pedestrians pass by, cars drive by, fortunately there’s almost always somebody to stop, call help, bring round. Why are we so insensitive, has anybody wondered what how would the other people behave if it happened to us? Some time ago I started donating small sums of money to charity or making transfers into the accounts of my fellows in need. My contribution is always small – I’ve never given more than twenty zlotys to one person, however I deeply believe if many people give a few zlotys the sum required for treatment or for other purpose will be raised. It also involves trust, cause I have to believe I’m not endorsing someone who tries to cadge off money.

Mistrust – the next disease which slowly devours our society, undermining its foundations, loosening bonds between its members. It goes down from the highest strata of our society – from elites, bringing us down to uncivilised standards of behaviour. Former minister of justice recorded his talks cause he had been driven by mistrust. People lie to one another, cause they’re driven by mistrust, it’s way of playing safe. “If I tell the truth, I’ll be worse off” – that’s our philosophy. Every time someone wants to gives us a hand we’re scratching beneath the surface and try to discover real ignoble intentions. Let’s change it – let’s trust one another, world is full of bastards but good men still prevail, let’s believe in sincerity, compassion, don’t be driven by egoism, mind the others, their needs. The rule of synergy usually applies, so two plus two might give five, but two lies never give one truth. You may benefit from help you give to your fellows, maybe immediately, maybe in the future, maybe not materially but through spiritual satisfaction or through the priceless feeling of well-fulfilled duty.

Money. During the lecture in diplomatic protocol I found out the topic of money is not brought up between well-mannered people. Poland is a shameful example, we quite often boast about our money, that is a bit silly but not harmful, there’s a much worse trend. We simply detest when other people have more money than we, but the worst is that we suppose they come into that money in a criminal way. How does it work? Your neighbour buys a brand new cars. First impression – you’re green with envy, second thought – where did he take the money from? Everyone who owns a mansion, top-of-the-range car, still gets about, wears brand clothes must be a criminal, thief, must conduct a shady business. To big money one can come into by sheer hard work, often making huge sacrifices. My parents have been scrimping and saving for years to buy a terraced house, they have never earned very well but they lied to their family, friends about our financial situation. The same was done by our family and friends, everyone lies they have very little money and barely make ends meet, it’s a pathology, it’s cult of losers, disseminated also by Kaczyński twins – they’re proud they haven’t amassed any property, except for the house of their parents. In America, they’d be ridiculed for it! If you see your neighbour buys a new car, try to match up to him – pull up your socks, work harder, be high-flyer. In Poland it’s easier to bring somebody down than to pull yourself up. That’s why we’re not likely to be as rich as the other nations. The best illustration of our mentality is the scene from “Dzień Świra” – Pole’s prayer, approach entrenched in our mentality – gloomy picture…

Gdy wieczorne zgasną zorze,
zanim głowę do snu złożę,
modlitwę moją zanoszę,
Bogu Ojcu i Synowi.
Dopierdolcie sąsiadowi!
Dla siebie o nic nie wnoszę,
tylko mu dosrajcie, proszę!
Kto ja jestem?
Polak mały! Mały, zawistny i podły!
Jaki znak mój? Krwawe gały!
Oto wznoszę swoje modły do Boga, Maryi i Syna!
Zniszczcie tego skurwysyna!
Mojego rodaka, sąsiada, tego wroga, tego gada!
Żeby mu okradli garaż,
żeby go zdradzała stara,
żeby mu spalili sklep,
żeby dostał cegłą w łeb,
żeby mu się córka z czarnym
i w ogóle, żeby miał marnie!
Żeby miał AIDS-a i raka,
oto modlitwa Polaka!

Sorry for expletives, sorry for the blasphemy and sorry for the lack of translation.

Initially I planned to refrain from referring to Polish Catholicism. It might be offensive, it might be distressing, I’ll hold back and only share one observation – it’s unreflective. Poles go to church cause they were taught to do so, their faith isn’t really strong, doesn’t rest on foundations, Poles treat catholic teachings selectively, the best example is the attitude to pre-marital sex or contraception. What should the church be? Not the buildings, not the clergy but the community of believers – that’s in my, atheist’s opinion the definition of church. I deeply respect and admire true believers who follow Ten Commandments and mostly obey the ultimate Great Commandment, those who are always ready to lend a helping hand, show compassion, never hate, never condemn, are far cry from Polish Catholicism after Radio Maryja’s fashion. Ten Commandments contain some universal rules every decent and moral man should obey and faith in God or belonging to the church should not be a benchmark of being a good man. Church’s attempts to interfere into public life by opposing against in vitro fertilisation or abortion are groundless for me. The true Catholic would never have an abortion, so trying to make everybody comply with the ethics of Catholic church bears witness or church’s weakness. I know it’s a controversial topic, however, we deal here with the matters of human conscience.

It was meant to be shorter, I swear. It was meant to be a collection of my proposals, which put together would outline the shape of Poland I’d dream up. It turned out to be rather a downbeat diagnosis of our national bad traits, analysis of the stereotypes. If in spite of this you deem this post valuable, spread it, give links to, paste some excerpts, I sign away any rights to it. There are the moments when I believe that my country can be changed, there are also the moments when I doubt whether it will ever happen, but without concerted effort it's unattainable...