A dispute about who is “more Russian”. Prof. Paulina Polko: They were outraged at the “grandpa from the Wehrmacht”, they did the same
Once again we have an empty dispute between Kaczyński and Tusk about who is “more Russian”, instead of a debate about the EU and Poland. The campaign will come down to a PiS-PO duopoly, the remaining parties, especially the coalition ones that make up the current government, will be marginalized. The toughest electorates will go to the polls, and society will be convinced that these elections do not concern them at all – says Dr. Hab. in an interview with “Wprost”. Paulina Polko, head of the Department of Security Sciences at the WSB University in Dąbrowa Górnicza.
Agnieszka Niełościowska, “Wprost”: The polarization of political moods is increasing not only in Poland. Wednesday's attack on the Prime Minister of Slovakia was the first such serious attack on a European political leader in over 20 years. How to control social anxiety? Politicians pass the exam?
Paulina Polko: They don't pass. They polarize society themselves, because when emotions are heated it is easier for the electorate to mobilize. In Slovakia, as in Poland, elections coincided, so this polarization lasted longer than usual. Radicalization is one of its effects. It is symbolic that on the day of this attack, an aggressive election spot was released in Poland, which the government promised to avoid. They were outraged when PiS played the “grandfather of the Wehrmacht”, when it presented Donald Tusk as pure evil and a friend of Putin, but in the wake of the fight for a few percentage points – they did the same.
PiS, in turn, retaliates with a not-so-better spot about Tusk and who was “really an ally of Russia.”“ over recent years.
And thus we once again have an empty dispute between Kaczyński and Tusk about who is “more Russian”, instead of a debate about the EU and Poland. The campaign will come down to a PiS-PO duopoly, the remaining parties, especially the coalition ones that make up the current government, will be marginalized. The hardest voters will go to the polls, and people will become convinced that these elections do not concern them at all.
Magdalena Adamowicz, the wife of the president of Gdańsk who was murdered several years ago, published an open letter to Jarosław Kaczyński. “Slowly, I started to deal with the trauma. But the assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico brought back this trauma and made me understand that I must not remain silent. It is my duty to remind people of what the use of hatred in politics leads to,” she wrote. Yes, but does this public appeal change anything?
Words matter because they are where action begins. Especially when they are said by a person who has experienced the effects of this hatred. But change requires non-acceptance of aggressive and polarizing behavior by the media, which loves simple dichotomies, by experts, who are also beginning to radicalize their statements in order to be invited and quoted, and by society.
