Nations without families have no future
Interview with Marek Jurek, former Speaker of the Polish Parliament and the President of the Right of the Republic.
‘Niedziela’: – According to the present prognosis on 7 June 2009 there will be not many people willing to vote – stable voters for the Citizen’s Platform, Law and Justice, Polish Peasants’ Party, perhaps some other party. Whose voters can you win?
Marek Jurek: – In this election we want to encourage Poles to vote and not to take votes from some party. We want to give a representation to these Poles for whom the matters of civilisation of life and family rights are most important. This is the only way to guarantee the realisation of these principles. And the matter is in what kind of society our children and their children will live, and whether Poland has future since nations without families have no future. And the contemporary crisis of family means a demographic collapse caused by a smaller number of contracted marriages and consequently, a decrease in the number of births of infants.
– In the European Parliament one acts within political fractions. What fraction is the closest one for the Right of the Republic?
– As Vice-President of Law and Justice for Christian-social issues I prepared the participation of the Polish MPs in the Union for Europe of the Nations. The right wing parties, which were represented there, i.e. the Irish and the Portuguese ones, are certainly especially close to us. But we will decide about that on the spot through political arrangements, following the principles of Christian civilisation and Polish raison d’etat.
– What kind of result of the elections in June would you consider successful?
– When our group of candidates get enough votes to enter the European Parliament. I think that it will require ca. 250,000 votes and that was the number of people who voted for the Right of the Republic in the elections to the Senate two years ago. Now the thing is to convince voters to support our candidates and of course, to win new voters.
– Who are the ‘engines’ of the Right of the Republic?
– We have excellent candidates: Marian Pilka, former vice-president of the Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs, Lucyna Wisniewska, leader of the Republic Right in southern Mazowsze and the deputy director of the Provincial Hospital in Radom, Dariusz Kleczek, spokesman of the proposers of the constitutional right to life, Wojciech Walczak, chairman of the Commission for Family Protection in the congress of the authority of Lodz (and 25 years ago he was the legendary leader of the national students’ strike), Marek Ciuraszkiewicz, businessman and leader of the Right in the region of Kielce, in Malopolska Krystyna Zajac, leader of the movement of families with many children, Witold Tomczak, MEP from Wielkopolska, Senator Mieczyslaw Maziarz in Podkarpacie and many others. I lead the list in Warsaw and at the same time I am conducting the campaign in Poland.
– One of the closest collaborators Artur Zawisza, who left Law and Justice with you protesting against the unclear attitude towards the defence of the unborn life, has joined the campaign of ‘Libertas’. Did you consider such a step, too? Did you receive such a proposal?
– When I talked to Declan Ganley last autumn I told him that an international party was some misunderstanding. And the Polish organisation ‘Libertas’ was additionally a very strange formation. This group includes Senator Zaremba who supported the Treaty of Lisbon and Mr Borysiuk, who belonged to the Polish United Workers’ Party, and Marshal Dobrosz who voted for the government of Miller. The binder is the media attractiveness of the foreign rich leader and this undefined ideological character, which the liberal media like. Why was Artur led astray there? I do not understand him at all. I think that he hoped to collaborate with the Institute and it turned out that he became an activist of an international party.
– It seems that ‘Libertas’ will make attempts to win voters who want to support the Right of the Republic. What is the difference between these two groups?
– Libertas rather resembles the Citizen’s Platform and Law and Justice. It wants to be a party for all people. It is hard for us to compare ourselves to such an artificial formation. But one should consider Declan Ganley’s views seriously. Ganley proposes to create a democratic pan-European society, which will accept a new, brief and simple, European Constitution; will choose Europe’s President in common European elections and political life should be conducted in European parties the pioneer of which is Libertas. Ganley is also for currency union and the euro. Briefly speaking, he wants to create a democratic European state. This is something completely different from real requirements of European solidarity, which does not need ‘democratisation’ meaning ‘majorisation’ of smaller nations by bigger ones, but simply collaboration of states showing respect for national interests and restoring respect for Christian life of Europe’s nations.
– Please give three reasons that the proposals of your party are unique and cannot be found in the proposals made by other parties…
– First of all, we are the only party that is consequently involved for the cause of Christian civilisation; many parties show sympathy for this cause but few parties conduct consistent politics in this respect. We want to build a strong Christian opinion in Europe, promoting natural moral order. Our politicians are not people who seek to be involved in attractive parties but people who have rejected power to defend more effectively the principles we believe in. And we can defend them effectively, which we have showed struggling for a decrease in PIT tax for families or exerting influence on withholding the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon.
"Niedziela" 21/2009