Yesterday, before the House of Detention in Radom, I had the great honor of speaking with the legendary bard of the anti-communist opposition, author of the ballad about the persecution in Radom after June 1976, sociologist and moral authority, Jan Krzysztof Kelus. The artist took part in a demonstration of resistance to the return of political prisoners to our reality – because those are parliamentarians Maciej Wąsik and Mariusz Kamiński.
Here is a transcript of that conversation.
Michał Karnowski: Why are you here?
JAN KRZYSZTOF KELUS: Because I have a habit that when something happens that moves me so much that I give up my privacy, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t come here.
Is something evil happening?
Yes. It is really not usual in a democratic country for a change of government, which took place through elections, to be accompanied by excesses such as the arrest of ministers from the previous government. That’s what juntas do! And no junta will admit that they have political prisoners. This is what dirty dictatorships or juntas do. I hope we are not yet a dictatorship, but this is a very dangerous step towards a dictatorship. A very dangerous path with no way back.
Afterword Maciej Wąsik is a political prisoner? Mariusz Kamiński is a political prisoner?
If there’s anyone, it’s him. This is obvious to anyone who has a basic sense of justice. His only crime is that he has fought corruption at the highest levels of government. And this message is simple: you can more or less rise to the level of mayor, but God forbid you get as close as our colleagues. These are glosses according to the Neumann formula.
Do you feel like history is repeating itself?
No repeats. There are no simple repetitions of history anywhere. This is a different situation, but a dangerous step that could lead to dictatorship. I prefer that groups of people, to which I belong, arrive at prisons when they are not really full. We have to start [protest] while we have two political prisoners and not hundreds of political prisoners. I think that’s clear.
Thank you for the interview and for being here.
Source: wPolityce