“Speaking of a right-wing majority in the mouth of a political scientist, a defender of democracy, seems rather strange. Any political option should think of the majority and not try to act against it. On the other hand, in Mr. Markowski’s work, we are dealing with a vision that is an attempt to include current politics in a kind of culture war. Mr. Markowski worries that a lost battle could translate into a postponement – what they hope for – a victory in the form of distance between people and the Catholic Church, says Prof. Arkadiusz Jabłoński, KUL sociologist.
wPolityce.pl: On April 2, a series of marches took place across Poland in defense of John Paul II. The one in Warsaw attracted many thousands of people despite the bad weather. These meetings were organized from the bottom up. What does this mean?
Prof. Arkadiusz Jablonski: It was a special occasion, as it related to the anniversary of John Paul II’s death, and there was also the context of attacks on his reputation, which turned out to be completely unfounded, based on unreliable secret service material. This made the Poles decide to show their attachment to John Paul II.
Do you expect it to be a one-off spurt, or will something come of it in the future, e.g. knowledge of the teachings of John Paul II will increase?
Of course I wouldn’t overstate the importance of these events as an introduction to deepening the teachings of John Paul II, but it seems to me that there will come a period when John Paul II is treated in the context of non-cream cakes, memories of him , but perhaps he will also come to live as someone to whom he has left us a considerable intellectual legacy. It would be good if it went in this direction, a mature treatment of John Paul II as someone who tried to build our identity as Poles with his message.
However, these fondant creams are alive forever, recently they were given to passengers of PKP trains. The left became interested in the subject and Prof. Radosław Markowski, who instead proposed … the organization of marches against John Paul II, additionally advised Szymon Hołownia to do the same. According to the sociologist, the opposition “must take the bull by the horns and change public opinion in its own way”. Is such an activity a good idea to increase support for the opposition?
It is difficult the logic of Prof. Markowski. On the one hand, he rightly attacks political infantilism – taking on some stage directing, trying to be outraged by the fact that there are papal cream cakes on PKP trains is, of course, a very infantile action. It also seems to me that any serious political activity should take the bull by the horns, but the question is whether the bull that the left should be facing actually touches John Paul II’s good name. If I were left-handed, I’d be looking for serious issues worth addressing. As you can see, opposition politicians who have something to say are trying to calm these excited waves of emotions related to John Paul II and are looking for ideas that will silence this topic and allow at least part of the opposition to break free from it odium of attacking the pope. If I were left-wing, I would try to show that John Paul II doesn’t even bother her.
Opinions among well-known figures, one could say from authorities on the opposition side, differ on what the opposition should do about this matter. For example, journalist Tomasz Lis and lawyer Roman Giertych argue in favor of concealing and avoiding this topic, while Prof. Radosław Markowski thinks the exact opposite – you have to take it up, organize counter-marches on JPII, otherwise “it will turn out that the so-called majority”.
Speaking of a right-wing majority in the mouth of a political scientist, a defender of democracy, seems rather strange. Any political option should think of the majority and not try to act against it. On the other hand, in Mr. Markowski’s work we are dealing with a vision that is an attempt to include current politics in a kind of culture war. Mr Markowski is concerned that a losing battle could lead to a delay – what they hope for – a victory in the form of people’s distance from the Catholic Church. I would rather treat his comment as a complaint against politicians that they are not now trying to raise their banners against the Church, the Catholic heritage. Most electoral pundits point out that this would be suicidal from the point of view of current politics at this point.
however, Prof. Markowski praised TVN’s report on John Paul II, which he felt was “exceedingly well done”, saying that it was based on UBC material is not true. He appeared there – as Markowski said – “an excellent expert on Poland”. The role is played by Dutch journalist Eve Overbeek, author of the book entitled “Maxim Culp. What the church is hiding about John Paul II. I’ll ask perversely – maybe many Poles just can’t appreciate the artistry of TVN’s reporting?
The defense of this report and the published book against John Paul II is probably something that can be considered justification. I don’t know if Mr. Markowski wants to act as spokesperson for TVN and try to defend something that is hard to defend, in a way that sometimes even offends a certain good taste, because it can also be considered in these categories.
How should the opposition as a whole behave in the light of this situation with John Paul II? In fact, it was not the politicians who raised this issue, but the TVN channel did it by broadcasting its report, but it revealed a problem among many opposition formations that they do not know how to deal with this matter should behave when PiS takes a clear position on this subject.
Certain televisions, media, are also propaganda tubes of certain political forces. Directly attacking these media for the production of such or other material is treated as a certain threat by the opposition. Opposition politicians behave so ambiguously, at the same time they distance themselves from these attacks, and on the other hand they admit that something true has been shown in this report, because they fear that their separation from TVN could be detrimental to their participation in the campaign elections, when there will be they wanted to appear on TVN.
Adam Stankiewicz spoke
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Source: wPolityce