"But if Poles were victims, they were also at times accomplices and perpetrators in the slaughter of Polish Jews, as has been well documented in Jan Gross’s study of the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941...." But the forensic investigation at Jedwabne was abruptly terminated when German bullets were found in the graves. In 2003, at his Colin Miller Memorial Lecture at UC Berkeley, chaired by historian John Connelly, Mr. Gross conceded, "The forensic investigation was prematurely terminated, and had it not been prematurely terminated, then we would really know." Hence we do not really know, and that includes Roger Cohen.
14
One must not forget that post-1989 Poland was built on formerly Soviet foundations with insufficient thought given to formulating founding principles and establishing strong political institutions. The moral weight of Solidarity's successful struggle against communism seem to suffice at the time. After 50 years of Nazi and Communist rule and nearly 30 years of remarkable economic development, Poland is now clearly struggling to define her identity as a nation and her place in Europe. It will be up to the new generation of Poles born in the 1980s and later to rediscover Poland's rich political heritage and fill this void. The question remains whether they will have the will and wisdom required for such a task. Let's hope they will!
4
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Western Europe allowed itself to wallow in the delusion that Eastern Europe, which had little such tradition, would suddenly be amenable to liberal values and democratic processes, values slowly built up over centuries in the West.
Thus, many of these countries were embraced as part of N.A.T.O. and the European Union. This not only proved to be self-delusion but, more significantly, has threatened those collective institutions which the West slowly and painstakingly created after WW II.
Over time Eurocrats became isolated from the national aspirations of their own peoples. They had a chance to reframe and reassert the collective post-World War II narrative that strongly argued for the creation of transnational institutions. The Balkan Wars should have been the wake-up call that all was not well, as Europe needed the U.S. to halt the carnage. Those failures are what we are facing now.
Poland, in true Orwellian fashion, has outlawed any mention of complicity by Poles in the Holocaust. How can such occur? Consider this tweet from Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawieck: "..Jews, Poles, and all victims [of the Holocaust] should be guardians of the memory...." That in itself indicates a broad Polish attitude toward Jews. Most of the Jews killed in Poland were Poles. It is not 'Jews and Poles' but Jewish Poles and non-Jewish Poles who were systematically slaughtered. Even now much of the Polish population can't seem to accept that Poles can be Jewish.
8
So the Republicans, addicted as they are to Fox News, Trumpism and powered by a deep racial animus, are enabling Hungary and Poland to become fascist, with their undying support of Trump. In the future, when they insist on ever-larger military budgets and forays, (always to be fought with volunteers, not draftees), to once again free Eastern Europe, they will be faced with a pretty simple question; Were party loyalty and a tax cut worth it?
Poland matters to the world. Syria, Yemen, et al do not.
1
Cohen: You criticize the Kaczynski’s opinion of our justice system. This means that you like ruling of our Supreme Court – placing money in politics - which destroyed our democracy. It clearly shows where you stand on this issue.
6
Trump is but a symptom of the virus sweeping western democratic societies. I remember the glory of the Solidarity days, of the Polish hero Lech Walesa. Alas that was then, this is now.
25
February 17, 2018
This reporting is significant and worthy for its depth and breath of thought for the great nation of the Polish people and its rightful place in history and on the world stage. Surely, struggle will ebb and flow but the destiny for the :Polish people is a manifest destiny for its beacon of light for the humanism of and for diversity in an apostolic grandeur to claim the might and power for its voice is a great as the Copernican marker to the heart and soul that lives properly in its place to never be taken for granted but a claim to European truths to share space and time universal democratically in its own style and truths.
jja Manhattan, N.Y.
5
This all could have been avoided, not just in Poland, but Hungary, France, Italy, Germany, etc., if the powers to be did not let millions of "refugees" over run their countries...they brought this on themselves, and now they will suffer. America could head this way too....and not just under Trump, but any president, of either party.
20
Each week that goes by I'm more and more dumb-founded and mystified by Merkel's decision to throw open the gates of Europe to millions of immigrants and refugees.
It's perfectly reasonable that the citizens of various nations have reacted very negatively to the prospect of seeing their homelands fundamentally changed by the influx of large numbers of strangers, with strange cultures and languages and strange faiths. In fact, it's the most human reaction.
The Chancellor and all of the leadership made a very serious mis-calculation; now we're all stuck with the results.
33
The turn to a more conservative government with traditional cultural values was brought on by the EU. Brussels, and Merkel.
It was the mass influx of middle east refugees that causes so many of the Eastern Europeans to turn their back on Brussels. Remember Merkel, have overloaded her own country with refugees, turned to other EU countries and tried to force them to accept refugees, the number would be set by Brussels.
The backlash was not long in coming. These countries saw that their cultures would be destroyed and their traditional customs sacrificed on the altar of the EU liberalism and Globalism. They did not want that and turned against the EU and all it stood for.
The rise of Orban and his like in other countries is the revolution against the EU and America too. They do not wish to be a liberal country - they want to continue with their traditional way of life , no matter what they cost.
Until governments like the EU and US realize that the issue if cultural and that these countries want to preserve their cultures we will get nowhere in dealing with them.
19
Re. the "phantasms of migrant waves," Mr. Cohen simply can't stop sticking his head in the the sand about the migrant crisis of 2015. Since when is a column of 1 million people busting across multiple borders in the Balkans and Central Europe a "phantasm"? A similar unwillingness to confront factual reality has been the principal cause of the almost complete collapse of more than a few Social Democratic parties in Western Europe. Real events have real consequences, one of which has been the hardening of opinion in the countries of Eastern Europe toward the moralizing of so-called "liberal democrats." Whatever their faults, the parties of the right in Poland and elsewhere at least can see clearly what has happened and have decided what they want, and don't want, for their countries.
26
Americans, and many others, have come to think that this sort of history ended with WWII. The idea of totalitarianism in Europe, or the decline of democracy across the world, and even another world war seem impossible. A thing of history. Yet everywhere we look in America these days, mostly on the right but also in the new ill-liberalism prevalent on so many college campuses, democracy is in decline. China offers a viable alternative with their very successful free market totalitarian system. Dictators are replacing democracies around the world. Yet most Americans blithely watch as Trump tries to destroy American democracy. Will he succeed? Of course not. But there is little doubt that he will do serious damage to it that we will be feeling the effects of for decades to come; to our courts, our free press, on climate change, on and on. Yet Trump's polls are on the rise, Americans apparently bought off by the few dollars they received in tax breaks even though the vast majority of those breaks go to the rich, and even though their benefits will run out in 8 years, and even though working Americans will end up paying for more in healthcare and numerous other areas. Just like Americans are willing to watch their children be slaughtered so that they can own as many guns as they want without restrictions or regulations, they seem willing to watch our democracy decline with little more than a shrug. I fear history will not be kind to coming generations.
36
"It is also testimony to how illusory the triumph of liberalism... under the pressure of globalization". This is so important. In the 1930's, through the 1950's and into the 1960's, corporations and businesses were supportive of our democratic form of government that allowed workers to wield power through the democratic process... a government "of the people". But with the decline of the threat of communism they are now not supportive at best, and hostile to rule by the common people through the democratic process, preferring systems that allow those who hold commercial power to do what they want and subverting the very government that is supposed to be the servant of the people to one that instead aids them in the pursuit of ever greater profits. I believe Democracy faces the greatest struggle that it has faced in the last 100 years, and that struggle is whether "that government, or any government so conceived" can survive or whether all power shifts to non-democratic institutional control, including big businesses and corporations, but behind these are those that are able to exercise unfettered control over these institutions, including international oligarchs, authoritarian rulers and outright criminals. It is, in reality, nothing short of exercise of raw power, by any means possible, and the spoils go to those who are more ruthless or willing to bend or ignore the supposed "rules". Will Democracy survive or will we return to Feudalism?
16
Human beings crave freedom in order to have access to power. Once they gain power, however, their perspective changes; the freedom of others has become a threat. What is it about power that corrupts the soul? Clearly, once one achieves power, paranoia ensues and "threats" are seen everywhere. This is why term limits are essential in all nations and all positions. , They most definitely should be initiated in the US Senate, as well as the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court, where demented members helped to pass laws (such as Citizens United) that have weakened our Democracy.
16
"Awaken, Poland, before it is too late! Revolutions for a constitution are worth defending to the hilt," writes Roger Cohen.
We might also say, Awaken, European Union, before it's too late!" Though Turkey is not an EU member, there are many who feel that the dictatorial government there presents many more dangers and problems than Poland's essentially western democracy.
A revolution for a constitution in Turkey? Now THAT would be worth defending, but it would be countered with an iron fist.
Unlike in Poland.
11
The current governments of both Hungary and Poland were democratically elected. Seems to me that the liberal elites do not like it that conservatives are in power in these 2 sovereign countries and are therefore on the attack mode.
How can these 2 sovereign nations of Poland and Hungary 'now pose a direct challenge to the EU'? Is it because they dared to stand up to the EU when the EU, and Angela Merkel, tried to impose quotas of refugees on these and other eastern countries, which Angela Merkel alone chaotically invited into Europe without any controls and vetting? These countries successfully resisted this dictate from Brussels and Berlin, and this is what much of the criticism is about.
In 25 years from now, it will most probably be the Hungarians and Poles who will be truly grateful for their leadership and their conservative decisions, and not in comparison the Germans and Swedes, who will have to endure the tremendous change and challenges to their societies that Merkel wrought in 2015.
34
The German government of 1933 was also democratically elected.
We have to concede, even in the US, that constitutional government is not guaranteed to survive once those that would undermine it take power.
37
Ah yes, another typical conservative response to dealing with challenges, progress and innovation.
Hide your head in the sand in an effort to avoid change, and try to revert and find refuge in "the good old days". Unfortunately in Poland's case the ruling party is reverting back to the" good old days" of Poland's authoritarian police state. The current Law & Justice Party may have been democratically elected, but they are now doing their best to undermine those very same democratic values, procedures, freedoms and hopes. Likewise they would ignore and reject the benefits of a European Union by reverting back to apre-war scenario of battling European nation-states that led to unspeakable carnage. Ah yes dear conservatives, bring back the good old days...
14
As amply documented by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in "How Democracies Die", authoritarians use the instruments of democracy to undermine it using techniques which mirror those described in this column and which we can witness every day in the Trump administration. We have recently seen how easily democratic norms can be destroyed and the grotesquely abnormal accepted.
9
While Trump has demeaned his country and its Constitution by bashing the judiciary and the media, he and the GOP can't do what the chairman of Poland's ruling PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski and the "miserable bunch of small-minded nationalist upstarts" in the country have been doing.
Poland and other former Soviet satellite states that gained independence after the fall of the Berlin Wall, lack the tradition of checks and balances that has long safeguarded Western democracy. Their civil societies are much weaker and ordinary, elderly, uneducated people aren't critical of their leaders and listen to them. It will take a few decades for the post 1989 generation to completely free themselves from the communist era and take over the country.
20
Switzerland, the land of mixed messages. Wants American involvement in NATO, but refuses to join the European Union. Criticizes the government of other European countries, but is strongly neutral and non-involved on the European continent. Advocates refugee immigration, and a strong United Nations presence on those subjects in Geneva, but precludes relaxed refugee entry into its own country. (It is considering bringing back immigration quotas.) Continues to retain a highly secretive banking system, which is the harbor for questionable international financial transactions, but at the same time is an active critic of other nations. Truly a model of duplicity.
31
I hate to have to repeat this but the post-1989 lesson for countries like Poland and Hungary is: if your economy/market is large enough, you will be forgiven all kinds of illiberal behavior.
The biggest and most glaring example of this is China.
There is only one political party in China and it completely controls everything from commerce to the judiciary. Yet it is the EU's largest trading partner and by far the biggest recipient of Western investment dollars and euros since 1989.
Mr. Cohen was (is?) a stalwart supporter of "engagement" with China. What say you now, Sir?
22
Engaging to bring them forward to a place they've never been is not the same as objecting to serious backsliding.
24
A tragic account. To compound the tragedy, if a reader entered your column just a slip from its intro, like a spectator showing up late and missing the set up of a movie, you might think the listing of those actions underway to undermine democracy were a description of Trump’s America.
25
No you wouldn't, we have checks and balances, a tradition of it in fact.
1
just to give some perspective, Poland has been somewhat independent from Russia and Germany, and with long-lasting 'breaks' in between, for fewer years - 100 - than it had been part of those countries - 123 during the period since the USA were born and there is nothing more offensive than calling Poles Nazis or Putin's vassals.
15
Mr. Cohen, your criticism of Poland is equally applicable to Israel; yet, not a peep. The world has grown tired of such hypocritical lectures. Israelis don't want the world telling them how to treat Palestinians, and Poles don't want Jews telling them how to treat their history. You mention Yad Vashem; is that the same Yad Vashem where Trump plopped on a kippa and stood where he was told? Clearly, if Trump is welcome at Yad Vashem, it is not hallowed ground. The Holocaust is only enervated of its spiritual resonance by such gross political conduct. You say, "Donald Trump's United States . . . has gone AWOL." Is AWOL really the word to describe the template the United States has become for the "illiberalism" you rail against? No, Mr. Cohen, you're throwing stones in a glass house. If you want to point a finger, first point it at Israel and the United States; and don't forget to wag it like a madman. Do that, and perhaps Poles will begin to listen you; until then, they'll continue to act just like Israel and the United States: Without regard for the rest of the world.
26
Your "logic" escapes me sir.
Everyone else is doing "it "- so that's Poland's excuse for bad behavior? That sounds like a sure-fire recipe for descending to the lowest common denominator of moral, ethical and democratic standards.
No government is above criticism, and I do not equate a country's peoples with their government.
Poland's Law and Justice Party may try to disregard "the rest of the world", but the rest of the enlightened world is rightfully concerned about the people pf Poland and their welfare.
Hence Mr. Cohen's appeal to the people of Poland - to take back their fledgling democracy.
10
Mr Cohen is perfectly consistent regarding Trump. You make a specious argument; to whit, every time you criticize one country or party, you must criticize all deserving ones in the same column.
1
Maybe it's time for liberals to acknowledge that nationalism itself is a major part of the problem. In an age when every international institution is under attack from those demanding their country preserve its ethnic and cultural purity, we must face some ugly truths about nationalism. Too often it has devolved into a tribalism of blood and soil in which the humanity of the "other" is devalued to the point of expulsion and genocide. Patriotism---the strong allegiance to the mythologized values of one's own nation---means nothing if that nation's values do not include the view that all humans deserve rights and freedoms equal to those of the ethnic majority. All forms of nationalism are suspect, just as all forms of authoritarianism are. While the latter claims that only one-man or one-party rule can solve a society's direst problems, the former creates an artificial sense that one's homeland is sacrosanct and its traditions and culture must be preserved against the dilution or subversion of immigrant "others." As we observe the wreckage of the Post-World War II era, and the resurgence of illiberal tendencies that brought about that war, we may want to consider whether the concept of national self-determination which replaced yesterday's imperialism has now become an excuse for another form of tyranny.
16
Liberals have always said that about nationalism. It is conservatives who elevate nationalism to a great virtue.
19
Doesn't the tension between the benefits of a united European Union and the nationalistic tendancies of individual nation-states mirror our own long-term and ongoing American struggle between federalism and states rights? Perhaps it's a struggle that needs to always remain a struggle, so that neither "side" wins the game. Europe can surely learn from our mistakes, difficulties and successes in this area of governance, and vice-versa.
8
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Western Europe allowed itself to wallow in the delusion that Eastern Europe, which had little such tradition, would suddenly be amenable to liberal values and democratic processes, values slowly built up over centuries in the West.
Thus, many of these countries were embraced as part of N.A.T.O. and the European Union. This not only proved to be self-delusion but, more significantly, has threatened those collective institutions which the West slowly and painstakingly created after WW II.
Eurocrats became isolated from the national aspirations of their own peoples. They had a chance to reframe and reassert the collective post-World War II narrative that strongly argued for the creation of transnational institutions. The Balkan Wars should have been the wake-up call that all was not well, as Europe needed the U.S. to halt the carnage. Those failures are what we are facing now.
Poland, in true Orwellian fashion, has outlawed any mention of complicity by Poles in the Holocaust. How can such occur? Consider the tweet from Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawieck: "..Jews, Poles, and all victims [of the Holocaust] should be guardians of the memory...." That in itself indicates a broad Polish attitude toward Jews. Most of the Jews killed in Poland were Poles. It is not 'Jews and Poles' but 'Jewish Poles' who were systematically slaughtered. Even after the Holocaust, a substantial part of the Polish population can't seem to accept that Poles can be Jewish.
31
Who is Michnik? Michnik is a typical neocon. He took part in the Solidarity movement - but after the fall of communism in Poland, he quickly became a member of the elite detached from society.
11
My great grandparents left Poland in the late 19th century, although, since they were Jews, most Poles were glad to see them !eave. Later Polish generations suffered the tyranny of the Czars, the Fascists, the Nazis, and the Communists, only to, now, embrace-- to EMBRACE--yet another form of tyranny. As we Jews say, does it hurt when you hit yourself with a hammer? Then, stop hitting yourself with a hammer! You got to be part of a better European world and you choose to regress into a new darkness. For shame.
40
Brings to mind Gerald Ford's comment during his 1976 presidential debate with Jimmy Carter in which he asserted that Poland was independent and not dominated by the USSR. Got big laughs at the time (supposedly just another gaffe by the famously clumsy Mr. Ford). Mr. Cohen can join other Times conservative journalists who are now more than a little embarrassed by the re-emergent darker sides of former Warsaw pact countries now that they are "free" to fully express themselves.
5
Read 'Bloodlands' by Timothy Snyder. ( I'm in the last 2 chapters now).
14
Write your next column on exactly the same topic and call it Awaken, United States, Before It's Too Late!
34
Please stop calling reactionaries and fascists "illiberals." That's like calling Trump's white supremacist, alternative-fact Republicans "conservatives." The Poles have never had much luck as a country. This latest lurch into authoritarianism is the latest chapter of a long, sad history.
14
Boycott Poland and Hungary in support of human rights, democracy and the rule of law!
Boycott! Boycott! Boycott!
13
About 3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland prior to WW2; only about 10,000 currently reside there.
Many Poles were enthusiastic murderers and robbers of Jews during the Hitler-time and its aftermath, and many remain proud and active anti-Semites today. Hitler wanted a Europe that was entirely devoid of Jews and, with a great deal of assistance from his Polish helpers, he came very close to achieving this. (Yes, as Cohen notes, there were a considerable of brave and honorable exceptions, but they were vastly outnumbered by the gangsters and the criminals.)
Virtually alone among European nations, Poland has done virtually nothing to return private property stolen from Jews by Poles during and after the war.
Poland today remains a backward country when it comes to Jews, with large numbers of its people still blaming them for their troubles.
Were it up to me, every remaining Jew in Poland would leave tomorrow. Why be there when serious trouble breaks out again?
28
what serious trouble? and how can one be 'enthusiastic' when living in an occupied country whose government and their armies had been dispersed?
7
I made no mention of race. What I’m speaking about is culture, traditions, and the right for people to maintain their way of life. Your comment is disheartening... everyone seems to make everything about race.
6
It is tragic that Hungary and Poland, after having fought so bravely for freedom and lawful democratic rule, are succumbing to fascism, corruption, and suppression of liberty. The EU must make a stand here, even if that means denying these countries the economic and political benefits of EU membership.
However, we need to be wary of what is going on in the U.S. as well: Trump's disregard for the constitution and his lack of ethical standards -- and, worse, the complicity of Republicans are alarming. Their attempts of stacking the courts with loyalists, of discrediting the free press, and of reckless gerrymandering to suppress the people's will follow a similar script. So far, these attempts to undermine our democracy have been less successful because of our stronger democratic tradition. Americans have defended their democracy and freedom for over two centuries. Hopefully, the next election will prove that freedom and democracy in the U.S. remain as vigorous as ever..
88
As there are two Americas, there are two Polands and two Hungarys. Today the autocrats who sell tribal fear and hatred have the whip hand in these countries.
If one can say it shouldn't be this way, one must also ask why it happened; what are the weaknesses of liberal democracy; and what can be done to repair the state of affairs.
I envision a wave of dismayed progressive Europeans, young, educated people, for the most part, emigrating from their own countries. Where will they go? What kind of sad, backward countries will they leave behind?
21
The weakness in liberal democracies is they let the amoral corporate sector take over foreign policy. They don't see "countries" with "good" and "bad" governments. They only see "markets." They'll deal and trade with any regime, if allowed. They use to pretend is was all some sort of ill-defined "engagement" program designed to reform the country in question. They don't even pretend that any more!
NYT recently hosted an Opinion piece by a Jewish analyst that that offered this admonition to readers regarding the atrocities of the Shoah: "Never forget. Never forgive." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/opinion/israel-poland-holocaust-ausch...
Yes, Polish denial is real and appalling. Rosner's mindset, however, is also part of the problem. Joseph forgives his brothers for selling him into slavery and death. But this spiritual reader preaches "NEVER FORGIVE." I wonder if those who share this mindset ever consider the implications of that statement regarding the modern atrocities of the Jewish state and the ravaged hope for peace. But the reverse consequence also applies to the pushback on Shoah memory and the terrifying phenomenon of rising anti-Semitism. Never forgive also means that for repentance is worthless. There will be no reconciliation ever. I would suggest that anyone who is committed to the Never Forgive mindset remember the great law of Torah which Joseph modeled. Love your neighbor as yourself. Reconciliation and memory and peace work together. Anything else is just tribalism and violence and lies.
8
Can one forgive the Germans? Nevertheless, one can respect Germany for facing its past. The German one meets does not need forgiveness. What would it mean to tell a German I forgive you? He could answer: for what?
2
"Michnik’s cry was, “Liberty, Fraternity, Normality.” It was heady to listen to him"
Giving up "equality" from the classic cry of revolution was a serious loss. It probably was a useful difference from the false claims of communism to provide equality. However, what was lost still was a major loss.
Equality is the limit on abusive capitalism. That abusive neo-liberal capitalism of austerity for the poor and loot for the rich has swept across the whole of the West, led by the US.
Poland is showing that oligarchs empowered won't leave liberty or fraternity either.
Since our own fraternal organizations like unions have been near wiped out, we ourselves are half way down that road.
At least, since liberty is pretty shaky too these days, as we see from the very need for Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. Remember Occupy, and how that ended.
There was a reason for the triumvirate, of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Cohen celebrates the loss of that, without recognition of the damage done.
19
You would do better to have directed your warning to our own Congress and SCOTUS and maybe get your column carried in papers in the Midwest and south where the resentment of “others” is silent but deadly in electing Republicans to office who are struck dumb by money and bullying.
16
This is how democracies are prostituted and the die.
8
Just remember, it was Poland that was quite happy to get parts of Russia and Germany after WWI. This grab that separated Germany by the "Polish Corridor" certainly played a big part in Hitler's motivation to reunite German lands thus causing WWII. Certainly, Stalin was very happy to make a deal with Hitler on the partition of Poland to regain lost Russian soil also. We also know from history that Poland never has been what we would call a committed Democracy. There has always been a strong Right Wing tendency in the top echelon. It should be no surprise to see this tendency to rise again in Poland, unfortunately.
11
The Polish Corridor was Hitler's excuse of the moment, not his motivation. He'd had other excuses, and no doubt would have found more. His motives however were laid out clearly in his book many years before, and repeated constantly in his speeches. He was not shy about it.
13
WSF, you forget that before WWI there was no Poland. Poland had been divided by Prussian, Austria and Russia in the late 18th century. The Poland that emerged after WWI and a brief war with Russia took in Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, and pockets of German settlements that had existed for centuries. Other than those German settlements, no German land was taken for the new Polish state.
4
Hey, Roger, time to check in with Major Retired on recent developments: Poland, russian spies in America.
5
"The Law and Justice Party has turned the Polish lower house of Parliament, or Sejm, into a rubber stamp for its agenda. It has also waged a relentless campaign against an independent judiciary. This has involved increasing political control over the Constitutional Tribunal, Supreme Court and the ordinary courts through insistence on early retirement (and so replacement) of judges and refusal to comply with constitutional opinions. Judicial appointments have been politicized"
All of the above sounds exactly what has happened here. Rather than early retirement, all the US federal attorneys were fired.....and the 9th US Supreme Ct Justice's job was held open for more than a year rather than having hearings on Merrick Garland.
19
All US attorneys are always replaced by each new Administration.
The Supreme Court fiasco was another thing altogether. We mustn't mix real abuse with misunderstood normal actions, or we lose credibility and reduce the impact of the real offense.
8
"Awaken, Poland [America?], before it is too late! Revolutions for a constitution are worth defending to the hilt."
9
A wife "whose Polish Jewish mother was saved through the bravery of a Pole" and a Jewish grandmother who "was betrayed by a Pole and sent to the gas chamber."
Is that supposed to be some sort of equivalency: for every bad Polish gentile there is, or was, one good one? The Poles, like their neighbors in Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia - need I go on? - are, have always been and always will be infected with anti-Semitism.
Well, at least they don't deny that the Holocaust actually happened.
19
No, it's not a false equivalence. There are close to 7,000 Poles honored at Yad Vashem (the highest number among all nations).
7
Some penalties must be applied to Poland, and Hungary, by the European Union. Put the pressure on them, or force them to withdraw.
16
Bravo! This type of moral indictments are absolutely necessary to stop tyrants from trampling the freedom of expression, and destruction of the independence of the judiciary from the executive; this, to minimize oppression and abuse and corruption by any one individual or group. By chance, if the "Law and Justice Party" were in the opposition, would they have allowed the trampling of democratic values, the healthy separation of the various branches of government? The persecution of folks trying to enrich the nation's liberties by expressing constructive criticism? No way Jose', right? This current idiocy headed by Kacsynski, an abusive bully, is headed towards a soviet-style police state that Poland suffered so much until a not too distant past. Why trample on the beauty of true justice, and societal peace, only to regret it when no remedy is left? If Poland perseveres in detaching itself from the European Union, they'll have only themselves to blame from an irretrievable loss of the many benefits they do take for granted...for now. Even the English, in their bullyish disregard of what's good for them, via Brexit, do realize now the ditch they are driving into. And we haven't even mentioned Hungary, on it's way to oblivion, with Viktor Orban, another despot. Why is it that we, humans, are unwilling to appreciate what we have...until we lose it? As Einstein said, 'stupidity has no limits'.
11
Poland and Hungary are wise to reject edicts from Brussels. The time may well come when Europe looks to Poland for a General Sobieski for rescue as in 1689 when mid east army's along with a well entrenched 5th column threatened all of Europe.
12
Lane--I very much doubt this silly proposition. Let the Fox oversee the chicken coop.
9
Based on what I've read, the retailing of experiences such as those of Cohen's wife and her grandmother would not be affected in any way by the recent criminalization of branding the "Polish nation" for responsibility for the Holocaust. That there were atrocities perpetrated by individuals and groups of individuals is no more undeniable than the Holocaust as a whole. The linguistic laziness of "Polish death camps" and the unrelated association of the Polish "nation" - there was no Polish "government" - with the Nazi regime are plausible reasons for the popularity of this recent law. Much more alarming is what Cohen writes about the ruling party's descent into authoritarianism. Most alarming of all is the fact that this trend knows no international boundaries, and in this, as much as anything else, it bears a frightening similarity to the Europe of the 1930s.
15
If European “liberal” democracy means being forced to take in over a million Middle Eastern “refugees” invited by Angela Merkel then sign me up with the “illiberal” Poland and Hungary. At least they still have love and respect for their culture and traditions unlike Western Europe...
19
Jim B--Someday, in the not too distant future, there will be no more white people. If humans are still here, on this planet, it will be a bright day for humanity, when there is no such concept as race. Humans will have to manufacture some other reason to feel "superior."
12
At the end of World War II the Allies including Great Britain and France maintained a great military force comprised of heavy army divisions, air force wings, and naval presence in the Baltic, North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. NATO was formed as the bulwark against the Soviets who ruled Eastern Europe with an iron fist. The Soviets invaded Checkoslovakia in 1968. They suppressed the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. And the Soviets remained in place in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Eastern Europe literally remained in ruins for years as the Soviets invested little and polluted the lands they occupied.
In the West where freedom prevailed and at least 300,000 America troops provided guaranteed protection the economies flourished and Democracy took root. So what happened to Poland?
First the Poles had to rebel against the Soviets. But, once they did so there was no example of democratic institutions in place. And no American forces with their families as part of the cultural influence of Western and American cultural values. We can see the influence of American forces and families in what was formerly West Germany. East Germany still struggles.
When America withdraws from the scene democracy loses. Nationalism and racism are returning to Europe. Only America can turn it around. What country will Russia invade next? Poland should be scared to death.
6
"Poland’s lurch into illiberalism and rewritten history, following the well-trodden Hungarian path toward the curtailment of democracy, is the most alarming political development in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall almost three decades ago."
Mr. Cohen, how liberal is it to coerce elected officials to pass anti-boycott laws in cities and states that take away peoples freedom of thought and speech? People are sick of their freedoms being taken away to appease the wealthy and powerful.
11
What has led to the collapse of Democracy in the twenty-first century? Is it inequality, racism, the total failure of Governments to govern fairly for the people of their countries, religious hatred, tribalism, education, access to healthcare, climate change, hacking of elections by other nations, wars, or possibly all of the above. Add to this the elections or embracing of "strongmen" to rule, similar to a king.
Governments will be stacked with enablers, the Courts filled with loyalists, Legislatures gerrymandered and the Press will be silenced.
Indeed, maybe the term swamp is correct except in the end we will all sink into the muck and we along with Democracy will perish.
8
That might explain attacks on the existing governments, but not on "democracy." Those things were failures of democracy. More destruction of the very infrastructure for fixing things is not helping reform, it is helping the abusers.
3
I am saddened to see some of the vitriol expressed by people of both Polish Jewish and Polish Christian backgrounds. I am of course disappointed in the legislation. But I’m even more disappointed in the extreme reactions it has sparked in some circles in both communities. For almost 1000 years, one of the best places for Jews to live in a mostly hostile world was Poland. While there were ups and downs during this history (especially post WWI until the fall of Communism in 1989) let’s acknowledge the historical record, but focus our efforts around building on the positive aspects of our history, instead of this undignified series of accusations and blanket generalizations.
See my latest op-ed on the subject here:
http://www.cjnews.com/perspectives/opinions/understanding-polands-record...
12
"has turned the.. lower house of Parliament.. into a rubber stamp for its agenda. It has also waged a relentless campaign against an independent judiciary. This has involved increasing political control over the... Supreme Court and the ordinary courts... and refusal to comply with constitutional opinions. Judicial appointments have been politicized"
We're talking about Poland, right?
17
During the cold war, the west created this myth that all oppressed under the soviets were saints. Poland showed one more time that given power the oppressed are quite willing and happy to oppress others.
Also, let's not idealize American revolution too much. It was after all a transfer of power from one set of landholders to another. It drove about 100,000 people to Canada. And of course the slaves were not liberated. French revolution with its Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen had a much more noble ambition.
57
to Mukharjee of NJ: Yes, indeed: Such as the Terror of 1792 --- when thousands were butchered, for no reason.
6
I LIKE THE IDEA OF TERM LIMITS FOR JUDGES.
9
All or nearly all US states do have term limits and/or age limits on judges. Only the Feds do not, and that is often held to be a fault in our democracy, not a virtue.
Judicial appoints are always political, as anyone who's been inside the process knows very well it is the first and last consideration.
Prosecutors are also political, if not elected then appointed anew with each change of power. The US Attorney's office not only changes over the head, it changes over many under that and selects new appointments with careful political calculation. Again those of us who've been close to it happening never doubt that for a moment. Whose campaign one helped is part of job hunting for those positions.
2
What is grotesque is not the new Holocaust law, but the falsehoods about Poland and the Holocaust that went virulent long before Law and Justice came to power.
Two canards illustrate this: "The Poles were worse than the Nazis" and "The Germans put the death camps in Poland because the anti-Semitic Poles wanted them there." Both have been refuted by competent Holocaust historians: Deborah Lipstadt called the first "absurd" and the second "balderdash", The second has also been rejected by Yehuda Bauer, Yisrael Gutman and Lucy Dawidowicz.
But any attempt to set the record straight is denounced as a "whitewash" by those who are more interested in denigrating Poland than in historical accuracy.
Poland, other European countries, and Israel all have enacted laws that make Holocaust denial a crime, without being accused of suppressing intellectual freedom. If Israel can outlaw denial, why can't Poland outlaw what scholars concede are Holocaust falsehoods?
During the war, some Poles rescued Jews, others betrayed them, but the vast majority of Poles did neither, they simply tried to survive the German occupation as best they could. They were innocent bystanders who could not have stopped Nazi crimes, not guilty bystanders as some would have it.
Anti-Semitism has been a problem in Poland as in other countries, but prewar anti-Semitism does not make the Poles prospectively guilty of the Holocaust, nor does postwar anti-Semitism make them retrospectively guilty.
29
"It can't happen here." (F. Zappa)
3
'Yet now, a miserable bunch of small-minded nationalist upstarts' - finally, a precise description of Trump. the GOP and their supporters.
10
A very often repeated old adage says " Those who forgot the lessons of history r bound to repeat its mistakes" and an improved version has to say those who forgot the lessons of History r bound to repeat its mistakes multiple fold.Dictators never rule relying on the mandate of the majority of their subjects.So, they recruit collaborators who speak the language and share the culture of those they want to oppress.The Nazis, Fascists and their similar remakes enlist locals to whom they reward by leaving to them crumbs of material and power.I have lived under such dictatorship here during 10 of the 17 yrs of what we call Red Terror Era.The polish will hurt themselves by pretending that what took place during the Nazi's control of Poland didn't take place or distorting it or downplaying it.In any domain where brutal dictatorship once prevailed the perpetrators and their survivors always wish that the whole thing got forgotten because they feel insecurity.As a survivor of a Historical atrocity once the henchmen of the dictatorship got their due we r all about moving on and leaving a fulfilled life.However, making sure that what ever significant systematic cruelty that targets an entire Ethnic Gp or followers of a certain faith is not replayed again is part of what we live for.It is because past genocides r downplayed or deliberately covered that new ones r becoming a reality.Because of this lives of peoples of Nations r destroyed Rwanda 94,Syria,S.Sudan,Darfur, Sudan,etc..TMD.
1
Traveling throughout Poland, one is everywhere reminded of the horrors of totalitarian regimes; from the bland expanses of Soviet architecture to still there Nazi bullet holes in Warsaw buildings. How the Polish people are not hypersensitive to the threats of nationalism and strong armed politicians is disturbing, to say the least.
43
They are sensitive -- just as I'm sure you're sensitive and also frustrated, by the attacks on democracy in this country by its current government. Everyone I know in Poland, all my family and friends, oppose Law and Justice, go to protests, write op-eds etc. But just like here, a large segment of the population, usually under-educated and from the provinces, falls for easy populistic promises, which they don't realize are shortsighted and are leading to the damage of the democracy. It seems this is becoming a global problem and I agree with Mr. Cohen that America's leadership is a huge influence on the world. This is equally effective when it stands for spreading, or trampling on, democracy.
6
So much for the euphoria of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Capitalists thought they were freeing the world from "tyranny", when what was actually happening was the bare-faced rehabilitation of nazi-fascism.
5
"when what was actually happening was the bare-faced rehabilitation of nazi-fascism"
Where? Reagan and then triangulating with Reaganism became essentially that here at home, in the same long slide we fear in Poland and elsewhere.
4
I have visited Poland and Germany in the last year, worked with young Poles and young Germans and both are fantastic countries with absolutely great futures.
Amongst the older groups on all sides, there are still amongst some old entrenched hostilities.
Time will heal all.
6
Cohen needs to jump off this vicious downward cycle of hate. He recalls anecdotal stories about Polish people behaving badly and then he generalizes that to a prejudice of all Polish people and all of Poland. If he wants to go down that path then he should ask the Polish people who have similar prejudices of Jewish people for their stories.
16
He didn't do that. You need to read before you complain.
7
You should stop this simplistic, vitriolic and one-sided "defending" of Poles. We are not "chosen", we are not perfect or guilt-free. Discussion is needed about what's going on in Poland -- the threat is too big. Getting thin-skinned and easily offended is not helping.
5
This is about immigration. People are afraid, and are reacting in anger to the message that they must be stupid to not want millions of desperately poor people to drive labor costs into the dirt.
They aren’t stupid. Stop selling something that is an OBVIOUS lie. Immigration was good for the common person when economies depended on vast quantities of people to produce growth. Now moderrn economies depend on fossil fuels to produce growth—more people hurt, they do not help.
Immigration drives down local wages and makes people afraid. Stop blowing smoke at the working class. I am a liberal, and I am seeing us loose EVERYTHING we have gained because liberals have convinced themselves that they can “sell” immigration as a boon. You can’t. We will loose this argument. Stop trying.
28
And let me just be 100% clear: I am disgusted by the anti-immigration venom being spewed. It is immoral and inhuman to attack desperately poor people that simply want a chance to work hard and feed their families.
My point is that in a modern economy, the people that really benefit from allowing large numbers of very poor immigrants are: 1. the immigrants (obviously) and 2. EXTREMELY RICH corporate owners.
I feel great empathy to the immigrants. We should help them. By 1. not destroying their economies by subsidizing our food and fossil fuel corporations and 2. not waging wars that disrupt their governments.
But I have ZERO empathy for rich corporate owners complaining that "no one wants to do farming." NO. No citizen will do farming for the wages that non-citizens will. If non-citizens are no longer an option, wages will rise, and you'll find many many citizens willing to do the work.
Big agriculture and meat corporations are lying to us in order to get cheap labor. Immigration is NOT needed in the numbers they claim. Liberals feel bad for poor people. Great. Help them where they are, don't destroy our OWN poor and working class just because you feel bad for other poor people. Sheesh.
9
Is it all immigration or just immigration of people of the wrong color/religion that is a problem for the Polish?
If the the Polish are opposed to all immigration, they are being very hypocritical. Millions of Polish citizens have gone to work in western Europe and (often illegally) the United States. In the U.K. there are now more Poles than Indians now. If Poland insists on limiting immigration to their country, they should be expelled from the EU and all the Poles in western Europe should be sent home.
8
I'm sure you're aware that Poland is the prime beneficiary of liberal immigration policies within the EU.
2
The headline is a hoot!!! We are now telling others, in this case Poland, to resist Russian interference. Don't we have work to do here?
12
We are quite capable of opposing tyranny here and abroad. The odd thing would be if we didn't.
5
The first comment on this list (Not Drinking the Kool-Aid) accuses Roger Cohen, the author of the associated column, of continuing Israel's "long history of hatred towards Polish people". Yet, nowhere have I seen that Mr. Cohen would claim to speak for Israel, or to have that nationality.
The insinuation Kool-Aid makes is that if you are Jewish (or have a Jewish name, in this case, as Mr. Cohen does not refer to his religion or ethnicity in his argument) your nationality must be Israeli. You can't really be American, or French, or Polish, for that matter. You might be on paper, on a passport, but, in truth, you are Israeli, because you are Jewish.
And, by the way Kool-Aid, should you try to play the same game with me, my family settled in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Don't try to tell me who gets to be American.
Finally, as I believe Kool-Aid is aware, there is no place in Mr. Cohen's argument in which hatred towards the Polish people is expressed. To the contrary, his words brim with admiration for the idea of Poland that was expressed some thirty years ago, when the Polish people showed the world how to go about dismantling a totalitarian system, and replacing it with a democratic one, centered upon a constitution. The author's words suggest only the highest esteem for that idea of Poland and for the Polish people who gave it support. May they continue to do so.
40
Little surprise here. When I travelled through Europe in 2008 to study the Holocaust, Poland is the country where I felt least comfortable with in my non-white skin. Whereas I felt pretty comfortable in Germany, Poles would constantly stare, point, or sneer. Honestly, it made me wonder why I was spending my money in their land.
12
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Western Europe allowed itself to wallow in the delusion that Eastern Europe, which had little such tradition, would suddenly be amenable to liberal values and democratic processes, values slowly built up over centuries in the West.
Thus, many of these countries were embraced as part of N.A.T.O. and the European Union. This not only proved to be self-delusion but, more significantly, has threatened those collective institutions which the West has slowly and painstakingly created.
Eurocrats became isolated from the national aspirations of their own peoples. They had a chance to reframe and reassert the collective post-World War II narrative that strongly argued for the creation of transnational institutions. The Balkan Wars should have been the wake-up call that all was not well, as Europe needed the U.S. to halt the carnage. Those failures are what we are facing now.
Poland, in true Orwellian fashion, has outlawed any mention of complicity by Poles in the Holocaust. How can such occur? Consider the tweet from Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawieck: "...Jews, Poles, and all victims [of the Holocaust] should be guardians of the memory...." That in itself indicates a broad Polish attitude toward Jews. Most of the Jews killed in Poland were Poles. It is not 'Jews and Poles' but 'Jewish Poles' who were systematically slaughtered. Even after the Holocaust, a substantial part of the Polish population can't seem to accept that Poles can be Jewish.
10
So does this mean that Poland's attack on Czechoslovakia is a non-event?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Czechoslovak_border_conflicts
The Germans were delighted with this outcome. They were happy to give up a provincial rail centre to Poland; it was a small sacrifice indeed. It spread the blame of the partition of Czechoslovakia, made Poland an accomplice in the process and confused the issue as well as political expectations. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany – a charge that Warsaw was hard put to deny.
3
We're in no position to tell Poland what to do......it's a great country, leave them alone.
9
awaken, america, before it is too late
9
The next Polish general election must take place before November 2019. A lot can happen between now and then, but these are the polls right now according to Wikipedia:
PiS (ruling party): 40-40%
PO (main opposition): 15-20%
Everyone else: <10%
I don't know Poland well enough to know what possesses people to vote for the PiS after all this, but I'd love to read more in-depth coverage by the NYT as elections draw nearer.
4
Congratulation on writing "historic expose" on WW2 without once mentioning a word "Germany". Speaks volumes.
12
Right! They accuse Poland of "whitewashing" but are themselves practitioners.
1
Americans can help move the country along by simply willingness with our tourist dollars. Any thing to help foster democracy without fascism helps.
3
The Polish Resistance fought suicide battles against the Nazis. The Poles abroad fought side by side with the Allies. FDR and Churchill rewarded them for their valor by turning them over to Stalin. Churchill called it the worst thing he had ever done. Stalin and later Communists treated the Poles so cruelly that the Russians eventually surpassed the Nazis as their greatest enemy ever. Now that they have been free for all of 25 years, I lack the chutzpah to tell them how to rule their country.
22
Since when did it become a crime to protect and preserve one's country? Isreal built a HUGE wall on the American taxpayer's dime costing BILLIONS to keep it's enemies out. Sounds very Trump-like to me.
All this Pole bashing started with the Clintons. First, Hillary's "World," commercial with the quote, "a world in turmoil," and a 1-second clip of Polish flags waving. Really, Poland? This is the country she picked to highlight a world in turmoil? Maybe she didn't think we Poles would notice.
Then in 2016, to quote President Bill Clinton alleging Poland and Hungary find “democracy is too much trouble” and “want Putin-like leadership, ‘just give me an authoritarian dictatorship and keep the foreigners out’…sound familiar?” Really?
Since then, I've read nothing but Poland-bashing and twisting of a 100-year-old tradition of celebrating November's Independence Day as a right-wing event.
All forms of media have falsely reported on Germany Death Camps as being Polish and wanting to correct that is long overdue.
My great-aunt spent 4 years in Auschwitz as a Catholic Pole, so I "too," know this history personally, except these victims are the FORGOTTEN ones and minimized, though in the millions killed.
Poland is wide-awake and sees what's happening to the rest of Europe. Wiped off the map several times and finally one again, Poland will not be defeated and will always fight to exist as a free, democratic country with strong Christian values.
19
It's not just Poland that's the problem here. The fact is, Israel is also a genocide denier, in that it refuses to acknowledge the fact of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, from 1915 - 1923. The Armenian genocide provided the blueprint for the Holocaust, as German war officers were in Turkey at the time, and were allies of Turkey during WWI. They saw and learned everything they needed about how to carry out a successful genocidal campaign from their Turkish counterparts, and brought that knowhow back to Germany. The fact that Israel will not face these facts of history is deplorable. Why don't you write an article about that, Mr. Cohen?
11
Israel does now acknowledge the fact of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, from 1915 - 1923. Their Lobby has helped push recognition of it in the US Congress.
That was not always the case. What changed was a falling out between Israel and Turkey, power politics. Israel was Turkey's greatest defender, until it wasn't. The change came when the right wing dictators were overthrow, and the Midnight Express abuses were challenged. Now they threaten return of course, but that change was when Turkish government had its falling out with Israel.
6
I'm not certain of the chronology but didn't Turkish-Israeli relations really take a dive when Erdogan and Netanyahu (when you think of it perhaps very similar personalities) got into a spat over--let's call it decisive--military action by Israel against a Turkish ship carrying peace activists for Palestine?
1
Democracy is a relatively recent phenomenon in Europe. Until 1991, authoritarianism was the norm in Hungary and Poland. General Pilsudski seized power in a coup in Poland in 1926 and its five-year experiment with democracy was over. Later came Germans and Soviet rule. Horthy ruled Hungary from 1920-1944. Horthy supported Hitler and the country was one of the Axis powers. Antisemitism was common in both countries. It could be that Eastern Europe is just returning to its normal state - authoritarianism. The US has tried to impose its liberal democratic values on Europe. Poland and Hungary will eventually make their own choices. After escaping the grip of Moscow they don’t want to take orders from Brussels.
27
Poland of old was one of the world's original democracies. Its great weakness that led to its destruction was an excess of democracy, which had given an effective veto to so many groups that the country could not act even to defend itself.
Poland was very welcoming to the French Revolution, and to Napoleon seen as bringing it to Poland.
There were hard times since, but if we are talking traditions and understanding, there is nothing defective about Poland's political philosophy or understanding of freedom.
That is a warning to us. Our own political understanding is not alone enough to protect us. See what happened to Poland, more than once.
7
....or the citizens of their own countries.
Does anyone else remember the Kielce pogrom of 1946? This blood-libel massacre was contrived by the Poles to put up a warning sign that Jews were not welcome to reclaim their former homes and businesses in Poland after WWII. We have visited Poland several times, always a somber occasion, but now with the latest developments it's off our bucket list of destinations, along with fascist Hungary. Permanently.
8
You might want to put the U.S. on your list. Since the election of Trump foreign tourists are staying away.
4
Pogroms of that kind were instigated by the Soviets and occurred throughout Soviet-occupied Europe after WW2. For that matter, there were anti-Jewish riots in the UK in 1947. It's curious that only the one in Kielce is widely known.
2
Better headline:
Awaken, United States, Before it's too late.
It's like the kettle calling the pot black or worse.
8
I am disappointed that Roger Cohen waited until almost until the end of his column before mentioning Poland's shameful history during the Holocaust. Poland had always had a difficult time coming to grips with the fact that the worst death camps, Auschwitz and Treblinka, were located in their country. Why Poland?? Because the Nazis knew that they would have no trouble establishing death camps in Poland thanks to Poland's long history of antagonism toward its Jewish population. As the Jews fought the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto, they received no help from the local Polish population.
I'm not at all surprised that Poland decided to legalize Holocaust Denial. It's just ugly manifestation of Polish anti-Semitism at its worst.
9
I don't know where you get your facts, Poland was central in Europe and had the most Jews. It was also occupied and not allied like Romania and Hungary which had a population of about 800,000 Jews to Poland's 3 Million. It did not need a permission from an allied government to build and staff the Camps and it was close to Germany to supply them with the Gas etc, I am pretty sure that Horthy would have refused death camps in Hungary. When you read his history he was a fairly decent Human being, Carol of Romania was not a monster either. Horthy had to be deposed in 1944 before Jews started to be shipped to the death camps and no Germans were really employed in the process. Same goes for France by the way. So let's let off Poland and talk a bit about French Holocaust Denial and collaboration which was not addressed until last year.
Jewish, Israeli Born and actually Lived in Poland.
7
"I'm not at all surprised that Poland decided to legalize Holocaust Denial. It's just ugly manifestation of Polish anti-Semitism at its worst."
They are anti-semitic and that's why Poland's Prime Minister is Jewish, right?
8
So tired of this tired rhetoric, sharon5101. It's a bit more complicated than that.
10
I’m sorry that Roger Cohen does not mention the thousands of courageous Polish women who demonstrated in cities all over Poland in September 2016 and again this January 2018 against the government’s attempts to make abortion even more restrictive (e.g. forcing women to carry a non-viable fetus to term and imprisonment of women and doctors) in a country which already has the most repressive abortion laws in the EU. Their efforts have so far forced the government to back down and they are determined to keep fighting for women’s rights and democratic norms.
Empowered Polish women will continue to play a vital role in keeping Poland free and democratic for everyone. They are an inspiration!
10
The problem with a lot of the tough talk many of my fellow readers is that it will push Poles to unite and fight against the punitive measures, sacrificing their liberalist tendencies in the process. Cohen points out that Poles have long united to fight against this or that, but not for anything. Cohen is saying that, throughout history, Poland, once free, loses focus.
Poland has a story to tell, and now its myths are being used to push it towards ugly nationalism, just as Russian myths are used by Putin to get his people to circle around the wagons there. There is also a myth of Polish heroism, equally compelling, and which I embrace to find hope for Poland.
I worked in Warsaw for a year and a half. It’s hard not to fall in love with the place.
8
Awaken Poland, Britain, America, western nations.
Because this is in one sort or another something that troubles us all. The populists are impairing the trust in a balanced democracy. And the democratic institutions, designed weak by purpose, can not retaliate. This has happened before, 80 years ago, and this is happening again in plain sight.
But than again, if we have nothing but pleas to moderate people, this is not so persuading. If we need a proof for populism being wrong, we must let this go all they way.
3
We Americans, in our cozy isolation of the 20th Century, had the good fortune to escape the horrific bloodbath that was 20th Century Europe. That cozy isolation is gone now, with technology and globalization. What’s happening “Over There” can easily, and in Donald Trump and conservative Republicans, is happening over here. We must be wary of the naked authoritarianism of Trump and his followers and demand our nation remain dedicated to democracy, freedom and justice throughout the world, in Poland, Hungary, Russia, Dutarte’s Philipines and Elsewhere. The future of the world, including the United States of America, is at stake.
48
If I were a liberal living in Poland and writing an article about the current state of affairs in the USA, it would read like a mirror of Cohen's thoughts on Poland. I continue to be amazed at why Trump supporters don't see what is happening in this country. I can only think of "First they came...", the poem by Martin Niemoller. Eventually, they will come for the people who watched the rights of others disappear, and there will be no one left to speak for them. Not the Judiciary, and not the Justice Department, as they will be gone by then as well.
5
So much for winning the Cold War. Yes we were successful in dissemination of the Soviet Union but did we change the hearts of the liberated States?
Obviously not. Convictions remain the same - anti-semitic and illiberal. So why the surprise? It is just the same gift wrapped in a new package.
Besides Roger, we have a great threat from Russia invading our country with a cyber war, a war we are losing with the help of our Leaders. That concerns me not Poland.
12
The U.S. doesn't exist in a vacuum. What happens in Europe can have a profound effect on the U.S. and vice-versa. If U.S. and European leaders begin questioning the legitimacy of their judiciaries and try to stifle the press, I fear we will all be lost.
21
YOU won the Cold War? I believe we fought alone and won it ourselves. YOU did not need to change anybody’s minds and hearts, they were united in fighting against the Soviet’s.
And, yes, be concerned about your own country...I’d say there are as many reasons for it as there are in Poland
3
National histories often rhyme, and so it may be with Poland and all of the former Warsaw Pact countries. In the 1930s, before they were squeezed and swallowed by Russia and Germany they had been the new countries on the block. Many like Poland had been nascent democracies, but Poland under the pressure of too much change and fear became a Military Autocracy. That time It took about 15 years after the reemergence of the country; this time it is taking 30 years.
Hungary too started out as an independent democratic nation, but evolved into a military Facist autocracy by WW2. In either case it was a minority that through generally legal means took over the politics under the name of Nationalism. We are now seeing the same, but not only in east Europe, but The US as well (think post Wilson republican Normalcy). A revolt by the (often aged) fearful against youth, uncertainty, and the "other" who ever that may be.
The one thing we can be sure of is that, if not opposed vigorously by both the national population and the world at large, the future will go very badly.
20
Start with Hungary The EU should strip voting rights from Hungary and proceed to end its EU subsidies. If that doesn’t work, and it’s likely that it won’t, then expel Hungary from the EU. Hungary should also be expelled from NATO if Orban and his cronies continue to lead it. It may be too late to salvage Hungary’s role in the EU or NATO, but perhaps strong actions against Hungary will prevent Poland from pursuing the same path towards illiberalism. If not, let Poles and Hungarians ally their futures with Russia and watch how their hobbled economies parallel their hobbled politics
27
"Yet now, a miserable bunch of small-minded nationalist upstarts are trying to play jingoistic games with historical facts in pursuit of their illiberal betrayal of the great Polish contribution to European freedom."
Such a reductive conclusion disrupts the previous political analysis about Polish history. There is no "miserable bunch of small-minded nationalist upstarts" ruining the Polish democracy. Unfortunately, there is a democratically elected majority government, which is decided to starkly limit the European model of the democratic rule of law.
Maybe, was the EU wrong to give in to the USA push to accelerate the European enlargement process and bring in countries, which have not fully prepared to sustain the natural difficulties of a democratic regime?
The superior, geopolitical objectives of the NATO enlargement and expansion towards East Europe were overwhelming and had to be fulfilled fast and at any cost.
When the European Union adopts a true free speech right as opposed to the current mess that allows prosecutions and jail for speech the respective national governments deem improper, I'll care more about the excesses and mistakes of the current Polish leadership. Until then spare me the hyperbole.
4
In some regards, this account reflects events here in the USA, especially the politicization if the judiciary. Mr. Cohen's argument shows that constitutionality is a fragile thing that can be protected only by a fierce determination of the people to resist its destruction.
Absent such will, anti-democrats lurk perpetually in the wings to dismantle the rule of law. Such threats come from the extremes of the left and right. These extremes are shameless, for they respect no ethical code necessary to sustain constitutional governance.
Here, we saw democratic erosion with Joseph McCarthy. We are seeing it again today in the White House, Congress and on college campuses where unorthodox speech is foreclosed, sometimes violently. Only we can stop the entropic slide toward authoritarianism.
2
"Yet now, a miserable bunch of small-minded nationalist upstarts are trying to play jingoistic games with historical facts in pursuit of their illiberal betrayal of the great Polish contribution to European freedom."
History has shown that no country can fall to illiberal governments unless the majority of its citizens approve. Only the Polish people can stop this slide into autocracy and dictatorship, but they need encouragement and support from the democratic nations. The United States used to be the leader in such fights but we have lost our way ourselves. The example to the world that we are setting today encourages right-wing regimes such as exist in Poland and Hungary. More fall-out from the Trump election.
3
It confuses my why people would default to nationalism.
Nationalism is proven over & over to be a destructive disease, a flaw, a fraudulent failing of the mind, an anti-rational, anti-human disproved disaster.
As soon as a national identity goes beyond polkas & pierogies, or other mutual enjoyment of nostalgia for the trite trappings of old cultural affectations, its gone awry.
When nationalism becomes yet again violent, vindictive, persecution of perceived 'other' people, fear-aggressive & at opposition to human rights & the rigors of rational rules of law, courts, justice, it's gone beyond pathological.
I get that law is byzantine, subtle, complex, a chore & inevitably seen as unfair by someone, but the alternative is so obsolete & unthinkable, why would any remotely egalitarian populace ever willingly go there having achieved at long last & such sacrifice, constitutional democracy?
If there's one thing humanity needs to purge from its collective subconscious, it's weird, anomalous, vestigial wiring. Nationalism needs to stop, what could possibly be the attraction? It's a flaw, a trap leading to hate & wars. Nationalism is utterly unnecessary.
I get that there's some common comfort in shared features, food & local lore,
Some find comfort also in vodka, but falling into a bottle of the stuff will kill you in the end.
So will an overindulgence in nationalism, as we all know from such painful, horrible history.
Nations must be based in rationalism, not nationalism.
28
What does the loss of voting rights mean? Does that mean they could be thrown out of the EU?
More likely than kicking Poland out of Nato is the USA forms an alliance with Russia, Hungary and Poland against the EU.
2
Yet another spectacular failure of Cohen's beloved but utterly feckless EU.
The other important story here is that the EU is unraveling in real-time, but nobody seems to notice. Kind of like an avalanche.
Many of the CEOs, world leaders, and other "experts" at Davos casually repeated something rather remarkable, over and over, and it's something that Cohen has implied often. They said that without institutions like the EU, Europe would descend into chaos reminiscent of the first half of the 20th century.
And, strikingly, nobody ever challenged it. You'd expect somebody to have been offended and stand up with righteous indignation to defend the people of Europe and say it is not a continent of savage barbarians.
Nobody did.
It seems to be accepted as conventional wisdom.
So apparently monumentally incompetent bureaucrats like Jean-Claude Juncker are all that stands between us and the killing fields of Europe.
Let's hope the conventional wisdom is wrong, because the EU is going down.
7
May God be against you.
3
@AH
How very Christian of you.
Jesus is weeping.
3
There is a lesson here for all countries, not just Poland. People don't want waves of migrants imposed on them, and they don't want to see a few elites and fat cats benefiting from globalization while they toil for the man. Whether progressives like it or not, that is the reality, and if you don't believe it, take a look at who's in the White House.
7
Stop blaming others for your problems.
3
Poland's history shows how infertile a soil democracy tried to grow.
After WW1 when a free Polish state was created there was a brief period od democracy before a military coup led to a military dictatorship that lasted until WW2.
The German occupation with all of its horrors followed by decades of Russian occupation.
The Poish people elected the Law and Justice party which appealed to a part of the population that clings to the Church and then the Polish nationalists.
The events there show how weak the EU really is. Poland benefited from the millions of Euros the EU poured into it yet the EU has done nothing to Poland or Hungary as both slip back into their familiar territory of dictatorship.
Of course Trump has done nothing for he knows nothing.
19
“The Law and Justice Party has turned the Polish lower house of Parliament, or Sejm, into a rubber stamp for its agenda.”
As we look to places like Poland and Hungary moving in the direction of authoritarian rule, shouldn’t we as Americans start to ask the question, Can it happen here?
The Republican Party is becoming a rubber stamp of Trumpism. Just like in Poland, Trump has declared most of the press to be enemies of the people. He encourages the crowd to attack his main political opponent with cries of “Lock her up.”
Illiberalism is Poland? We need to make sure it doesn’t happen here.
11
The fact that Republicans in Pennsylvania want to throw the judges out of office rather than follow their mandates to get rid of gerrymandering is a sign that we're well along the path to illiberalism in the US. I'd argue that the GOP's refusal to grant hearings to Merrick Garland in accordance with their Constitutional duties is similar: both seek to impose Republican rule, against the wishes of the majority, ad infinitum.
7
i would not count Poland out yet. For sure these new and troubling developments are real. But young Poles now understand Freedom and they are pushing back . We all need to push back !!!!
1
The ongoing travesties of Polish and American democracies are the result of (what else?) democracy. That 60 million people voted for Trump and Poland's Law and Justice Party thrives reflect only one thing: the will of the people. The people may be ignorant, xenophobic, easily misled et. al. but they voted for these travesties and it's about time the handwringing pundits accept the fact that these are the countries we're living in. The people of Poland and the US don't need awakening; they need to be reckoned with.
3
"A revolution for a constitution, not a paradise; an anti-utopian revolution, because utopias lead to the guillotine and the gulag.”
So true.
Trump "called the American criminal justice system a “laughingstock’ and “a joke,” dismissed the legal system as “broken,” insulted judges, called for quick “strong justice” (read the death penalty), and labeled courts as “political."
And yet that seems to be the way the Progressive Left wants to go as well, except the other way, with its "smash the Patriarchy" at any cost, (who cares about individual justice?, due process, the presumption of innocence, etc.), having apparently not learned that lesson either.
It is so tempting to imagine that "smashing the system" to institute one's own understanding of utopia, is the way to go, isn't it? Normality, liberalism, moderation, Enlightenment values...they have gotten so boring!
1
The fervid Roman Catholicism I encountered in Polish people on my one and only visit to the country was enough for me to go away shaking my head. For all the modern trappings, Poland is stuck in the Middle Ages.
6
This only shows what you think about Roman Catholicism. Better stay away from Rome too.
8
Exactly want Trump is doing in the US while the GOP aids and abets him:
“We are witnessing a slow but insistent and intentional process of undermining the courts so that they will not enforce the Constitution against the executive and the legislature,” Sarah Cleveland, the American member of the Venice Commission and a law professor at Columbia University, told me. “It’s a process of death by 1,000 cuts.”
4
Beholding the heroism and freshness of the Solidarnosc uprising was the most exciting experience of my life. True, the nationalism of the movement did disturb me a bit, but I hoped that with freedom, Poles would reconsider the anti-Semitism and aggression (eg, against Czechoslovakia) of their properly-beloved interwar republic.
This did not happen. And I hold the West responsible for this failure, which has led to the nauseating present politics in Poland and Hungary.
Instead of saying, "Look friends, there are some difficult things in your history with which to deal", the West said in effect "you guys are so pure, especially in contrast with the always-devious Russians".
With this kind of cheering section, is it surprising that instead of undertaking a salutary penance for the dark side of their pasts, East Europeans embellished their chauvinistic taless?
While this orgy of self-regard was occurring, the West gave the biggest symbol of approval possible, by bringing Poland, etc, into NATO. Not surprisingly, the abscess of uncritical nationalism continued to fester.
The logical end of this process of the West's coddling of the Polish, Hungarian, etc, victimhood-chauvinists is the latter's sorry affirmation of their (ethnically-vile) immaculate interwar dictatorships.
We need to say to the East European malefactors, "We both have really fouled up; we need to talk, and to repent".
Instead we point fingers and say, "Oh, you terrible Poles." Or Hungarians.
1
Israel has a long history of hatred towards Polish people. Yitzhak Shamir said "every Pole sucked anti-semitism with his mother's milk."
And Cohen continues that tradition by further maligning Polish people. He makes the false claim the Poland is "rewriting history." In fact, it is Cohen who is rewriting history. Poland is just protecting itself against slanderous accusations. Poland has only made it illegal to say the Polish government cooperated with Germany in WWII.
31
Your opening statement gives you away, as this is a common anti-semitic trope. Mr Cohen's piece is addressing the increasing autocracy shown by the current Polish government, of which the recent law regarding responsibility for the Holocaust is a small part. You've made the latter front-and-center and made Mr Cohen the slanderer.
Modern Poland has had a history of wrestling with autocracy during the Second Republic. That this history would repeat itself is not surprising in a nation where the old bugbears -- Germany to the west, Russia to the east -- are still perceived as threats. Polish anti-semitism has a very long history, and is never far from the surface, witness the recurrent graffiti on the few tangible remains of Jewish presence in that country -- not to mention the post that I'm replying to.
Poland will survive (as its national anthem states), but until the threat from Russia to re-exert dominance recedes, it's going to be a rough road. Putting the country under a magnifying glass will only make things worse.
8
First of all, it is a clear violation of the principle of free speech to criminalize statements of historical fact, e.g. that some Poles--though obviously not all--collaborated with the Nazis. These are not slanderous accusations, merely the truth.
Second, your comment is borderline anti-Semitic, suggesting as it does that "Israel" is somehow behind the criticism of Poland. The idea that the hidden hand of the Jews is responsible for slandering innocent Poles is itself slanderous.
Third, the bulk of the article is about Poland's move toward authoritarianism , which you don't address at all. Criminalizing free speech is simply part of a larger trend in Poland toward a new, "soft" (for now) dictatorship. That's what is most troubling.
7
Not Drinking the Kool-Aid, I agree. Moreover, the history behind Jedwabne pogrom shows that when the town was under Soviet occupation many of the town's Jews went over to the Soviet side and helped compile lists of Polish Catholics to be deported to Russia. This is according to Wikipedia. Does this excuse the Polish murder of all Jews? No. But this was Eastern Europe in 1941 and none of us were there.
7
"A formal European procedure has been initiated that could lead to the loss of Poland’s voting rights within the Union; it should be pursued with vigor. Poland and Hungary cannot be allowed to sabotage without cost the club of which they have been, and remain, such conspicuous beneficiaries."
Let's see if NATO can do something to awaken average Poles and the government. Because the US, traditional supporter of democratic states, has abdicated his (and our) role, because he's too busy plotting to save his own skin.
The transformation of Hungary and Poland is frightening to behold, since the average folks seem to be backing this backward move. What did Lech Walesa fight for, if not a constitution and Democratic norms? Two popes ago, John Paul Waitla threw his moral force against the rule of law and freedom for his people.
I've heard it said that authoritarian rule is hard to escape after long experience with it, which is why, for example, Russia never seems to stay democratic for long.
But one did have hopes for Hungary and Poland, and to watch them fall to the classic autocrat playbook is painful.
Of course we try to compare what's happening there with our own situation. For the moment the rule of law seems to be prevailing, but one wonders for how long given the sizable support for a man who would do away with it all together.
Democratic norms aren't guaranteed if the people won't demand and protect them.
83
Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria constitute the greatest danger for EU, far more than Brexit. They should be put on hold, stop receiving huge European funds and maybe encircled within the very walls they build to stop migrants
87
there is no wall between Poland and Germany or any border to speak of, many of those migrants would head west even if resettled in the east as the economic differences in development are still very large
Everything old and rotten is new again in Poland and Hungary. They're falling into Putin's filthy arms and should be given an ultimatum to stop the extreme rightward flow or get ousted from the EU and NATO. We should not be in the same tent as countries that self-destruct democracy.
114
I'm deeply concerned about the authoritarian drift in Poland--it greatly saddens me as a Polish-Americans--but it isn't into Putin's arms. The Poles are not pro-Russian.
I do hope the Poles rescue their democracy--whether it be conservative or not--before they lose what they had and won by themselves.
16
We are the biggest self destructors of democracy; let's not fool ourselves.
1
Illiberal and nationalistic like Putin's Russia but actually the current Polish government hates the Russsians and is not remotely in their political camp.
3
If Shakespeare was still around he'd say "Methinks Poland doth protest too much!" Just like a certain president who keeps repeating "no collusion" or "no puppet" the effect of such desperate denials is only to shine a brighter light upon the alleged activity, and raise more questions.
31
There were Poles that worked to send Jews to the death camps.
There were NOT Poles that formed a collaborationist government with the Nazis--unlike in say France or Norway.
5
Good point. But was Poland given a chance by the Nazis to form a collaborationist government like that of France or Norway? (I don't know, I am only asking.) Recall that the Germans viewed Poles as an inferior race, superior to the Jews, but still inferior to Germans and (perhaps) also to the French and Norwegians. So I am not sure how much credit can be given to Poland for not forming such a collaborationist government.
For Americans who experienced the late Cold War years in Eastern Europe, these recent developments in Hungary and Poland are a travesty whose shocking impact is surpassed only by emerging similar developments in our own country. Yet many Eastern European countries revealed populist and authoritarian tendencies in the interwar period (between the World Wars) as well; maybe this is a kind of longue duree revival of them. What is different now is Germany under Merkel; without that bulwark the situation would indeed be frightening.
45
The struggle over limited resources: water, land and oil in the Middle East, fostering the human heart of darkness continues to dog democracy. That strife spills over to create problems that are used by autocrats to sway their electorate away from democracy. Both Poland and Hungry are nations that sat on the edges of empires, the same religions whose fear of the other is fueling the current unrest. Imposed autocracy under the Soviet Union to democracy only to have victory snatched by the jaws of defeat. Our own national experiment with democracy is under stress. The conclusion is that nations succumb to internal strife under the guise of external threat.
7
See Claude Lanzmann's FOUR SISTERS [accounts recorded during filming of SHOAH but not included in that film]. Two of the "sisters" [in the sorrow of the Shoah, not biologically] are from Poland: Paula Biren from Lodz, Poland; Ada Lichtman from further south in Krakow. Would Poland's new law jail them and Lanzmann?
11
I’m not defending the new law, I do think it’s defensive and unhelpful. But it does have a few words in it that everyone seems to miss: “against facts” — meaning accusations that slanderous, not based in fact. So nobody would doubt the Sisters’ accounts, much less pursue legal action against them.
1
Trump is at his most damaging when he's tearing Europe apart through praise of nationalist leaders and negligence and inaction, His incompetence threatens world order and American interests all over the world. Work even faster Bob Mueller.
64
There's a difference between incompetent and malevolent and rapacious and corrupt. Trump is all that, but it is the later 3 qualities that do the most harm.
3
Sad. I had a Jewish friend in Boston who took a high school trip to Poland in 1996, and they threw rocks at the bus. Something I never forgotten.
21
The human race is beyond redemption.
1
The Poles are a little like the American midwest, you have some very good people, but there is no shortage of very self centered xenophobic types who would love to go back, back, back, even to a world that may only have existed in their imaginations. Many of these people do have immediate problems competing in a globalized world where cheap manufactured goods from the far east and third world replace locally manufactured products. And if anything, like a flood of immigrants/cheap labor occurs, they will naturally respond by trying to build a wall around the place. This is a challenge for everyone, and nobody is handling it well. The elites in all of the Western and European countries need to form progressive alliances with their local workers, with a shared goal of preserving personal freedom, democracy, and seriously addressing EVERYONES financial problems.
60
Actually it's a bit worse than you describe in one way, but you don't have their economic circumstance right. The Poles are well-educated and their regionally low labor costs allow them to complete very well in the European economy. They've not had a down quarter economically since 2008. Their birth rate is low and unemployment is very low.. Ukranians are flowing into the country in increasing numbers to address labor needs. It's the Middle-Easterners and Africans that the Poles don't want in the country. Interestingly, even those immigrants aren't much of a threat to local labor because they quickly move on to Western European countries when social welfare programs and wages are better. It's not that overwhelmingly conservative Cathoic Poles don't want immigrants in general, they are allergic to specific ones.
5
Poland is a word that points to a geographic area where people live that consider themselves polish. So the country can't be catholic only its people. And when you look at any people of any country, we tend to simplify and generalize from what we have seen and cast that doubt or belief on all of that entity's inhabitants. Religion is a structure like any other and I will be now the "advocat diaboli", that helps us to give some kind of meaning (and hopefully a reward if we are spiritual materialists) for something that comes when we are not here.
Having said that, religion can propel us toward being there where we can help, tolerate, see "Jesus in the beggar" on the street, but it only goes so far as how paranoid we decide to see the world around us. And get caught up in it.
And yes, Trump and other leaders, political parties and movements (also across all of Europe and probably many regions around the world) have sown the evil seed, the dividing seed, and by doing so, have shown to the onlookers that it has become what we call in Austria 'salon-fähig' i.e. widely acceptable in social discourse to do and say the things that they say and do. But the seed also needs the soil, the people who see and hear. And that I can guarantee you has been cultivated, prepared for the conscious and subconscious messages that Trump and other right leaning parties are propagating and living by example. So, how do we prevent people eventually turning to rocks rejecting seeds good or bad?
6
Democracy is a fragile thing, and quite easily dismantled by authoritarian rulers. The fragility is worse in countries with little history of democracy and the institutions required for its functioning .
Sadly Poland has no such history. It is precariously placed between two great powers, whom periodically invade the country.
Given the history, I suspect for the older Polish people at least, the main imperitive is just to stay alive. Six million Poles were murdered in World War Two ( about 2.9 million Jews, and 2.7 non-Jews.).
I know a few young Polish people and their view is different. They are connected to a larger world, have different experiences and they definitely do not want things to slide back into the dark ages.
24
Excellent comment, of Poland's place is between two great Powers. Truth be known, however under current circumstances, that is still very apparent. Looks as if Poland doesn't want to go down the EU road of Germany influence, nor Putins model. Common knowledge, Germans prefer Pole's in Germany, pack up and leave.
1
Creating and sustaining a WE-THEY culture which both constructs
a selected "the other" to be focused on, and violated, is
misleadingly related to as nationalism; whatever it's nuanced
“wing”-right, left, etc.Discrimination, stigmatizing,excluding,
dehumaninizing,marginalizing are not “wing-bound.” Nor are they
the monopoly of only certain political ideologies and parties.This article
focuses on one party and a few names of elected policy makers.
Missing is the role of Poland's Church. THEN, and now. Enabling
less-than-loving one’s neighbor who is different in many ways, beliefs,
lifestyles, etc. Missing is the role of complacency amongst many diverse
ordinary Polish folk about what is happening now. Also THEN.Missing in this
overview is raising a multi sentenced question: how many Poles, now, and
THEN, lived their daily lives as if being willfully blind to violating
words and deeds? Deaf to unnecessary voiced pains? Silent, when active
outrage is called for?Ignorant about "violating" which is glaringly obvious, both in terms of knowing and understanding? What enables this to begin?To continue? To “infect?”What are viable options for making needed
changes in contemporary Poland; not revised history?Where are today’s pro-menschlichkeit change makers in Poland? As well as in the rest of the world wherever the implications and consequences of a WE-THEY culture is seeded, harvested and enabled. At whatever levels; from neighborhood to national.
2
The April 2010, Polish Air Force plane that crashed near the city of Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 people on board, including Polish President Lech Kaczyński was the beginning of this trend in Poland. And it is very likely linked to Russian meddling, probably at the orders of Vladimir Putin who has one mission in life: Restore the USSR's geo-political grip on Europe; and now the Middle-East. And evidently, America, via subterfuge. If the Polish people want to maintain the glimmers of personal freedom that Lech Walesa fought for, then they better start fighting themselves. Including looking at anyone, in any area of government with Russian ties and outing them. This is what will soon happen in the USA, if the Meuller indictments that were made today run the course that many of us assume: a purge of the USA government, and especially the GOP, like never seen before in American History.
22
Sadly, the GOP is adept at spin. After Trump is indicted, they'll create a new reality-defying narrative (who knows what, but they're really quite inventive), and will go merrily on their way - no purge (sadly) - continuing to control the US.
2
There is no evidence that the Russians and their leader had anything to do with the crash of the Polish Air Force plane carrying Poland's political leaders. Stating that it was done "probably at the orders of Vladimir Putin" is stating something that you cannot know, and have no facts to back it up.
2
Landing in dense fog and a history of previously commanding his pilot to land in spite of horrid weather are more probable causes of the plane crash. There was no evidence beyond hate and suspicion to support the claim of Russian involvement. The current Polish government has a Trumpian relationship with the truth.
I am still confused why a government is put in place and when the other side loses the crutches magically come out and the losers limp back to nearly a hundred years in the past.
1
It's funny to read how an American author writes about Poland, a country bitterly shaken by history. Besides, you can't compare Poland with Hungary. The motivations are quite different.
Poland is still the most Catholic land in Europe, and besides all the progress made in the last years (and thanks to money flowing from the EU) it continues to be influenced by its rural society.
And then there's this strange Polish word with this strong underlying of fatalism: shiskoyenno (phonetically written). It means "it doesn't matter", " it's not a thing of importance" or " it doesn't count". It's a word of total resignation. No other European language has such a word.
11
The EU should suspend the membership of countries that veer from the required standards of democracy and constitutionality. However, the first step should be taken by Hungarian and Polish voters themselves to show their repulsion of a new autocratic government.
111
The U.S. should provide a good example for the EU by firing the current administration and marshalling our citizens in the struggle against totalitarianism.
37
Sam, I couldn't agree with you more.
13
Hungarian, Polish and American votes did exactly what you ask choosing current governments in free elections and sorry looser will always cry.
2
"It is also testimony to how illusory the triumph of liberalism in 1989 has proved under the pressure of globalization."
The above phenomenon deserves greater exposition than given here, Roger, and I suggest it be explored in depth in a future column. Western democracy had a great run of success when its competitors were nations of other ideologies and economies on the national scale. I'm not sure it is bearing well the additional strains of economic globalization, particularly one fairly well hijacked by oligarchical and extra-national forces, and of environmental calamities, e.g., looming climate change (including the secondary effects of drought, drop in water quality and the unleashing of microbial infection), the economic impacts of which we have barely seen yet and are woefully unprepared for (reckless deficit spending on the wealthy, anyone?) amidst the continuing great strain by population increase in general.
30
Best to look to the Polish people, rather than blaming the Polish apparat or Donald trump, for the one would never have formed as it has without the democratically-expressed convictions of the other.
Moreover, there is no evidence whatsoever that Donald Trump has instigated this very Polish mess by imagined attacks on our own judiciary. This is a constant refrain here in the Times, but the simple truth is that Trump obeys federal court rulings scrupulously, even when he disagrees and appeals them to higher judicial authority – which he also obeys scrupulously.
I support Roger’s plea that Poland awake, but given the exclusionist convictions that were so evident to history during WWII and long before, it may be a Pyrrhic plea: there’s something knee-jerk about the Poles and ethnic and religious hatred, which is the button currently being pressed to empower the autocrats. Before Poles can awake, they must first overcome their fevered nightmares of being subsumed by an advancing host of the different.
15
Scrupulously? "Diligent, thorough, and extremely attentive to details . . . very concerned to avoid doing wrong." Trump???
10
To say that "Trump obeys federal court rulings scrupulously" is a gross mischaracterization....his lawyers tell him that he has to obey these rulings; if it were up to him it would all go to hell. In Trump's defense, he's just an ignorant clown- the Poles and Hungarians with the same goals are not and they might just succeed.
2
bob:
You should write a book about what Trump knows and doesn't, given your obviously intimate familiarity with him.
Poland is a very Catholic country. Where does the Church stand on these developments?
31
It was a far MORE Catholic Poland that so thoroughly shut out their own Jewish population 1939-1945. I wouldn't look to Catholics to save Poland from extreme xenophobia.
65
Sadly, Karol Wojtyła, a Polish priest and prelate, who would go on to become Pope Saint John Paul II, is no longer a unifying force for Poles to be courageous. The Catholic Church, in the person of Pope John Paul II is widely acknowledged to have been the catalyst in the rise of Solidarity and the fall of communism in Europe in the 80's.
2
So, we are told by this writer (in another comment above) to give Pres. Trump a pass for looking the other way now as democracy is undermined, but in this reply to sdavidc's question, Polish Catholics today are thrown into a heap with dead Polish Catholics of 80 years ago, some of whom looked the other way when they shouldn't have. Did the question beg for an opinion about Polish Catholic people 80 years ago? At least this writer could explain why he offered that opinion to a question that asked for facts about the Catholic Church's position today on democracy in Poland. We remember very well who was pope in 1989 and 1990 and the significance of the Church in the revolution of which Mr. Cohen speaks. As a result, the question is a reasonable one. Equating Polish Catholics today with Polish Catholics of 80 years ago without proving the equation is like claiming that FDR and Donald Trump are cut from the same moral cloth because they bear the same title of president. Perhaps Mr. Cohen could present the facts about the Church's current position in a future column on the topic.
4