THE LAST WARNING
MICHAŁ KARNOWSKI
The march in the defence of Media Democracy and Freedom which took place in Warsaw on 13 December 2014, showed how many Poles consider the result of local elections as distorted. A few dozen thousand people, according to various estimations: from 50 to 100 thousand, marched through Warsaw peacefully. Big mass media showed a few manipulated pictures, cut out all young people from their recorded materials (that is, most participants), and, first of all, made malicious comments. It has been known for a long time – that in the current system only marches according to the authority intentions deserve popularity and applause. Those with pink balloons and under a chocolate eagle are seen in the most positive way. Others, unplanned, are truly condemned and their participants are mocked at.
So, can we consider the issue of the local elections as a closed one? Or did the authority do what it had planned and citizens can just murmur to themselves? No. The situation is very serious, the social tension is approaching a dangerous point. How easy it is to have one’s emotions explode, which we experienced after the elections: spontaneous, angry way of entering into the headquarter of the National Electoral Commission, organized without any consultation with the opposition party, quickly gathered a few thousand determined people. Only the definite reaction of Jarosław Kaczyński, stating that not in this way and not now, inhibited that protest. It was still possible then.
For, the belief among Poles interested in public issues, that democratic methods in Poland can change a lot, is getting weaker. In the recent weeks we have become less certain that our electoral card has got any power. We saw that it changed into a rubbish after it has been thrown into a voting box and is checked superficially, by wrongly-functioning computer programmes, which show something completely different. And nobody is shocked. Over 2 million invalid votes, an incredibly high result of one of governing parties, hundreds of scandals in commissions did not bring a suitable reaction. Even if one assumes that this is only a chaos, rejection of any suggestions of amendments in polling acts shows that it is a convenience for somebody.
And we were deprived of a lot of things before the certainty of honest way of calculating votes. We do not have any influence on financing theatrical performances, films and TV programmes, which are insulting for Poles and the Catholics and are from our taxes. We do not have an elementary balance in mass media, both the public and private ones. Our children are forced, without our consent, to attend schools a year earlier, and demoralizing people with bananas and contraceptives are pushed into schools.
Poles are forced to believe that the opposition will never take over the authority. And among authorities guarding it, there is Jerzy Urban. Polish Republic, governed for 8 years, is a common country, there are rare attempts of pretending that a compromise is being looked for, all opinions are considered. Instead bare violence is used – the media, police and clerks’ violence.
Distortion of election results closes this process. The authority deprives itself of democratic legitimacy. I am very worried about it, because the scenario of street solstice is a scenario which is very painful for Poland. Are people demolishing Polish democracy, destroying the power of the electoral card, aware of it? Will they hear the warning which participants of the march sent to them?
AA
„Niedziela” 1/2015