ADDICTED TO A LIE
MICHAŁ KARNOWSKI
You remember the so-called Madryt skandal? Undoubtedly. It was the most important, main and shocking issue form the time of the recent electoral campaign. Three MPs from the Law and Justice party were to extort money from the Seym Chancellery. The scam was to be based on falsifying documents: copies of a card of a journey by car, whereas in fact a travel was by plane. It was given to public information on the biggest TV and radio stations, on Internet and in newspapers. The opposition party, being under the pressure of mass media, expelled delinquents and everyone forgot the issue. And they will as the information from the procurators in this issue was not commented on by media. And that is a pity. Procurators decided that: ‘the actions of MPs did not lead the Seym Chancellery to unbeneficial managing property; moreover, they did not confirm the lie in the documentation’. What is more, the same Seym Chancellery suggested MPs this way of settling things! And what? Has anybody apologized to Hofman, Kamiński or Rogacki? Has anybody got ashamed? Not at all! Nothing.
I have George Orwell in my mind who is often recalled today in the context of a warning against invigilation but we unwillingly perceive a more important thread of the story ‘Year 1984’: indications, how easily media can manipulate people, how the society of free people can become an unthinking crowd. Is it really so impossible for us? How many completely false descriptions there are around us! When Poles chose a different president after eight years of total dominance of one option, as well as a different political party than so far, so when there appeared actions according to the basic democratic mechanism, in response to it there was an aggressive attack under the motto….breach of democracy. We should understand this message precisely: democracy is when they are reigning. When others are reigning, we are having a couo…. Indeed ‘liberal democracy’ in the Brussels style has as much in common with real democracy, as that communist one had with this one.
It is the same with mass media. Since the last week it has finally been possible to watch information broadcast by the public television. There disappeared insulting and spiteful information directed against the rightist party and the conservatists, each party has a right to speak, the palette of invited guests and discussed issues has been widened, the editorial office is trying to separate comments from information.
But instead of praises we have moans that freedom of speech has ended. So, how is it? Is freedom of speech when nobody disturbs in having media control on Poles? When a lie is total and cannot be even called a lie? This is how they probably perceive it.
A very important leftist journalist said openly that there is some information which should not be revealed, as it can be used by polemists. The fact that she said it during a discussion about reasons for concealing information by German media about rapes and robberies done on defenceless German women by Islamist newcomers, shows how deep addiction of some participants of public life to a lie is. If they were to face the truth – they would have to go away, as it would quickly turn out that they were bringing moral collapse to nations, loss of willingness to live and finally captivity. For those groups the very existence of the Church, independent media centres and associations is a threat.
We should remember about it, when we hear aggressive condemnation of Poland. There is only one reason for that: we are stand out in subjectivity, we are regaining our sovereignty. It is not so easy to manipulate free and organized people or earn money on them. And this whole fight is about it.
AA
„Niedziela” 4/2016