We’re having a political moment in Poland right now because Paweł Adamowicz, the President (mayor) of Gdańsk, was murdered at a charity fundraiser last weekend - on camera.
All the students have been talking about it.
I’ll try to explain it as best as I can understand it, though this is limited by my students’ level of English. It is also slanted by the politically tinged perspective of my educated, well-traveled, and intellectually curious students and my own liberal worldview.
Some background about the players:
The ruling political party in Poland is called the Law and Justice party or PiS, which they pronounce as “peace” - ironic, as you’ll see. PiS is incredibly conservative and their platform is pro-nationalistic, Poland-for-Poles, let’s govern our country while adhering to old school Catholic values. They hate immigrants, gay rights, anything that stinks of the 21st century and progress beyond Pope_Pius_XII (who you may recall, treatied with Nazi Germany).
Like most of Europe, Poland has nationalized health, and the system has never been well funded by the government, so in 1993 Polish renaissance man and journalist Jerzy Owsiak founded the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity (WOŚP) to provide expensive modern equipment for hospitals throughout Poland. Children take to the streets collecting money, people who donate wear red hearts, and the equipment donated by the charity is marked with a red heart to show everyone where their effort and donations went. Visible on equipment in every hospital throughout the land. WOŚP is now the country’s largest non-government charity.
But not everyone loves WOŚP. The church's rival fundraising drive has proven less successful than the grassroots efforts of WOŚP. And founder Jerzy Owsiak's outspoken liberal politics has made him (and WOŚP) a target for right-wingers, government backers, PiS members of parliament and some Catholic clergy, who make "the ridiculous claim that it promotes low or decadent morality."
For 27 years WOŚP has held a nationwide celebration on a Sunday in January to cap off the fundraising and announce the total collected. It used to be carried on TVP (TV Poland, the government directed channel) like a Jerry Lewiski telethon, but the combination of the PiS government believing that Sunday is better spent attending church and having a Norman Rockwellski mama-made dinner than raising funds to provide modern hospital equipment for the future of the country, and the church being pissy that their charity is being overshadowed, caused TVP to stop carrying the fund raiser.
That has not stopped the local parties, held in larger cities to announce the take.
Paweł Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdańsk for over 20 years was a very popular liberal politician, supporting issues including gay rights and welcoming immigrants, and as such he was unpopular with PiS and nationalistic groups. He was one of 11 mayors in Poland who were issued of fake death certificates by a far-right group called All-Polish Youth after these mayors signed a declaration to welcome refugees, against the PiS government's anti-migration policies.
The murderer (or "assassin" as I've read some places, which really puts a political spin on this) Stefan W. is a 27-year-old schizophrenic who went off his meds (only need to watch 3 episodes of Law and Order to know what havoc this causes -- "but the meds don't allow me to feel anything," said every whiny murderer ever), got into trouble while chemical-free, and was sent to prison. Liberals speculate that, in order to survive in prison, he associated with a nationalistic group which indoctrinated him while protecting him. Further speculation is that his schizophrenia led him to believe that the mayor was actually responsible for his being in prison. He was released December 8, 2018.
Jump to last Sunday January 13, 2019, the day of the fundraiser, where in Gdańsk, as in dozens of cities throughout Poland, the mayor was in attendance at the party where charity results would be announced. Security must have been lax, because Stefan W was able to jump on the stage, stab Mayor Adamowicz, and then turn and address the crowd declaring his original innocence, before being taken into custody. There are many videos of the incident, but Stefan W maintains "it wasn't me".
Mayor Adamowicz was rushed to a hospital where he underwent surgery, and it was reported that the animosity towards WOŚP, and Jerzy Owsiak and Adamowicz's politics was so rabid "that one priest even announced that he would not pray for Adamowicz after he was attacked."
Mayor Adamowicz succumbed to his injuries on Monday. Gdańsk was thrown into a depression for their longtime mayor, with people asking "how could this happen here?". A liberal backlash ensued, blaming nationalist organizations in specific and PiS in general for this murder/assassination.
This was answered by the nationalist groups. "Polish media has reported incidents of threats against some liberal mayors", and the safety and even the lives of Jerzy Owsiak and his family. These threats were so credible that Owsiak publicly stepped down from his role as the leader of WOŚP "placing the blame on people who have threatened his foundation for years — with little reaction from the police. The criticism 'approaches the language of Nazism, of fascism, of threats,' Owsiak said."
At which point PiS (or should I say PeeWee Herman) weighed in, basically saying "I know you are, but what am I?" Their contention is that Owsiak, Adamowicz and other liberals foment hate (that is the word used) by their abominable left-leaning, fag-loving, immigrant-welcoming, shopping-on-Sunday politics.
And so that is where we are today in Poland. "Urban liberals and right-wing backers of the government get their news from different sources, socialize increasingly rarely, and have deeply divergent views of their country's place in Europe and the world. Social media has become a war zone — with anyone straying from the party line subjected to attack."
Sound like anyplace you know?
I tried really hard to capture all the links (below) to the articles I’ve shown in quotes -- this is NOT my intellectual property.