I moved to Warsaw from Croatia two and a half years ago.
I remember my surprise when I realized that Lech Kaczyński still does not have its own street in Poland’s capital. I was already familiar with the political and intellectual arrogance of the Civic Platform, but I must admit that in this case I was amazed at the level of it.
The President of the Republic of Poland, who died tragically while performing the duties of a statesman, a veteran of the anti-communist movement, a former mayor of Warsaw, during whose tenure many important projects were carried out … All this was not enough for two Warsaw presidents of the Civic Platform to name one of Warsaw’s streets after him, marking the memory of about the Polish statesman. Petty political interests and selfishness prevailed over a sense of belonging to the national community and its symbols.
I can’t understand it, even as a croatian.
We Croats are a nation no stranger to sharp political divisions. In this respect we are no different from Poland or from other Central European countries struggling with the legacy of communism.
I’ll give an example. The first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman always had his political opponents among the Croats. After his death in 1999, these opponents, mainly people from post-communist structures, waged war against his political legacy. Despite this, in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia long ruled by the left, there is a square named after him (and in a rather important place), as well as a statue of him. Even his fiercest critics didn’t think they could question all of his contributions to Croatia.
However, the platform, which is Hanna Gronkiewicz Waltz in the past and Rafał Trzaskowski today, believes they can question and ignore absolutely everything Kaczyński has done for Poland.
I repeat again: as a Croat, such a level of historical injustice is incomprehensible to me.
And it was in Warsaw, the nation’s capital from which the rest of the nations of Central Europe learned patriotism and respect for their own history.
Source: wPolityce