Police forces on the Poland-Belarus border.
-OpEd-
WARSAW — Everywhere we look, there is a disaster.
The zloty is sinking because of inflation, which we owe to the head of Poland's central bank Adam Glapinski, a political ally of ruling PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski since the early 1990s when the pair demonstrated against then President Lech Wałęsa and joined in burning his effigy.
At the same time, we also have a COVID-19 catastrophe. As we've witnessed, 25,000 daily cases and hundreds of deaths are not enough for the government to introduce any kind of restrictions. The Prime Minister is afraid of demonstrations that could lead to deaths from COVID-19, while tens of thousands of people recently attended the National Stadium without masks and nobody checked whether anyone was vaccinated.
When journalists ask representatives of the Health Ministry why there are no restrictions or vaccines mandates, the answer is that we have a different culture than in other countries, we are not like the Germans or the Austrians… we are more rebellious!
The power of anti-vax
How are we different from Spaniards, French, Italians, Czechs, Ukrainians, Austrians or Germans? What is this utter nonsense? This government is simply afraid of anti-vaccine sentiment. It is shameful that the Medical Council of the Prime Minister says one thing and the government says another. Why do you need this Medical Council, Mr. Prime Minister, if you do not listen to it?
Is it a restriction of freedom?
Or do Poles have different organisms than other nations, and will somehow survive this pandemic? When we hear about COVID-19 infected newborns at the hospital, our hearts go out to them — but we also ask why nobody told their mothers that they should get vaccinated during their pregnancy.
And is it so difficult to go to the cinema, theater, restaurants with vaccine passports or negative test results? Is it a restriction of freedom? Is following traffic regulations when driving a car a restriction of freedom?
When Kaczynski gets involved
And finally, we have a moral disaster at the border, as historian, journalist and Holocaust survivor Marian Turski declared. We are in a diplomatic debacle indeed. When Aleksander Kwasniewski was Poland's president, he took a stand in the Maidan Square conflict in Ukraine to such an extent that he probably lost his chance to become UN Secretary General because Putin never forgave him. When there was a conflict in Georgia, President Lech Kaczynski got involved. But now that there is a conflict on the Polish-Belarusian border, and President Andrzej Duda tells the German president: "We will not accept any arrangements that were made without our approval."
Sure, it is bothersome to see Chancellor Angela Merkel talking to Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko or President Emmanuel Macron talking to Vladimir Putin. But instead of being annoyed by this, Mr. President, you should have organized a Franco-German-Polish summit. That's what the presidency is about, not just throwing around big words.
So the best we can do is flex our muscles, since the government itself can't confront any of these disasters. And on each front, it is Poland's citizens and good name that pays the consequences.
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