Why Poland is rallying: Our man in Warsaw Mateusz Piskorski explains
The protests in Poland may have been organized to distract attention from the economic crisis. In addition, the Polish crisis may be the result of divisions within American political elites. The Polish authorities are openly provoking the continuation of protests.
PolitNavigator columnist Valentin Filippov was told by Polish political scientist and, according to Polish intelligence services, “Putin’s agent” Mateusz Piskorski, why protest sentiments have gripped Polish society on a scale unprecedented in recent history.
Valentin Filippov: Our studio, which travels around the world, is today in Poland, visiting Mateusz Piskorski. I'm glad to see you, Mateusz, hello.
Mateusz Piskorski: Good to see you, hello.
Valentin Filippov: Listen, what's going on in Poland? I sit and don’t trust anyone except the Poles themselves, and since you are a Pole, I decided to call you. What confuses me is, look, people came out and demanded that abortions be allowed, and first of all they went not to government buildings, but to the private home of Deputy Prime Minister for Security Jaroslaw Kaczynski. He is already an old man, it is too late for him to have an abortion, he was already born. Why exactly there?
Mateusz Piskorski: Well, why there - this person, although no one would think at first glance, in fact, in the opinion of almost all Polish political scientists, politicians, experts, as well as ordinary ordinary citizens, controls the entire situation in the country. So it is not surprising that he is the politician they turn to.
Well, officially he just became, by the way, Deputy Prime Minister; before, he was just an ordinary member of parliament, but, however, the head of the ruling political party. But, nevertheless, this is his first government post in many years.
The fact that he became deputy prime minister, well, everyone understands that this whole scheme, everything that happens, is invented by Kaczynski, as the main, say, strategist of the ruling elites.
Well, of course, some orders come from above from, say, the Washington regional committee. But as for domestic politics, I think that most of the issues are really decided by this very person, so everything is correct, they found the right address, they turned to the right person, who are protesters, that’s why they are sitting near his house, that’s why and protest.
Valentin Filippov: Is abortion a reason or reason for protests?
Mateusz Piskorski: You need to understand one thing - that the world is changing, society is changing quite quickly. Here in Poland, 27 years ago in 1993, a certain compromise was created at the legislative level regarding abortion. All the same, according to the opinions of many experts who study this issue, in comparison with other European countries, Poland still had rather strict legislation, prohibiting abortion in almost all cases.
Valentin Filippov: Well, yes.
Mateusz Piskorski: The fact that it has now become even tougher is precisely what became the reason for mass protests. Because if you look at the map of Europe, analyzing their legislation from the point of view of banning abortion, Poland is now on a par with Malta and Andorra, very small, very conservative European countries, which, yes, also have similar legislation. This is an almost complete ban on abortion; there is no mention of almost any additional conditions, or emergency conditions that allow abortion almost completely prohibit it. And this compromise, in fact, which was created 27 years ago, was already irrelevant in the sense that, as I said, society is changing under the influence of external forces, of course, mass culture and everything else. Therefore, even this compromise did not correspond to the social consciousness of new generations, young women.
Valentin Filippov: Well, yes, in fact, this ban still applies to a small number of the population.
Mateusz Piskorski: Naturally. So, firstly, this is the first reason, the second reason - everything coincided with other, real reasons because of which people finally wanted to take to the streets and express their opinion. A very, to put it mildly, ridiculous, inconsistent government policy towards the pandemic crisis, the fact that, after all, the Poles were convinced a few months ago that everything, everything had already passed, no one even talked about the second wave, no one was preparing, unlike from other countries. For example, as far as I know, in Russia, even in the summer, additional hospitals were built and additional beds were created. In Poland no one did this, no one did this. Because no one had any time for this, everyone was busy with the elections.
Valentin Filippov: Well, elections are sacred, you will agree.
Mateusz Piskorski: It's sacred, yes.
Valentin Filippov: Yes, but in this regard a question arises for me: you chose your president. You had candidates there, percentage by percentage. And finally, they chose.
And when you had a problem, and something was boiling over, you did not go to the president, not to the presidential candidate, but you went to the minister of security - on the issue of abortion.
Well, there is no logic, well, you have a president, you have a prime minister.
Mateusz Piskorski: Let’s say in Iran, where people turn is to the Ayatollah.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I don’t know, I haven’t been to Iran.
Mateusz Piskorski: They don’t address, there are, the president, the prime minister and everything else, right? This means that Poland also has its own Ayatollah, and he has the same role. Mr. Kaczynski. People understand this correctly, who really rules the country. Although it’s not entirely correct, to be exact, because they...
Valentin Filippov: No, well, they won’t go to Washington, right?
Mateusz Piskorski: No, well, there is an embassy from which, as it were, various tasks are distributed...
Valentin Filippov: The embassy also has an order, they are not free people. They received an order, they called the President of Poland or someone else, and this order was passed on. The ambassador is a small man, he conveys.
Mateusz Piskorski: You forget that we have here, in general, Mrs. US Ambassador Georges Mosbacher, she is a very colorful character, so I think that she actually independently issues various instructions to Polish government institutions there, but that’s another matter. Here, I don’t think that the United States intervened in any way. It is precisely these processes. Although many have already started talking about the fact that, by the way, there is something in this, that the slogans of the protesters are very similar to the slogans, even symbols, of the Belarusian opposition. So there is an opinion that, in fact, what is happening now in Poland is the result of disagreements within the American political elites.
Now, if we now observe there, literally a few days after the American elections, we will also observe, say, riots, attempts at color revolutions undertaken by different sides of this conflict, because the American establishment, in fact, is in a state of civil war among itself . And all this can also be seen in the Polish elites.
This means, let’s say, conditionally neoliberals, so we’ll call them, who are now trying to take control of this protest. In America, Black lives matter, remember, it all started as... And at some point, the so-called “deep people” took to the streets mainly with socio-economic demands.
Same as here. These women don’t just talk about abortion, they also talk about the pension system, the salary system, and various other issues in social policy.
For example, they quite rightly ask the question to the authorities, the government: “Okay, you’re forcing us here to give birth to children, but in Poland we have practically no, and are not building, no kindergartens, no nurseries, nothing, no infrastructure"...
Valentin Filippov: No, well, nannies are imported from Ukraine.
Mateusz Piskorski: Yes, there’s already not enough money for nannies from Ukraine, that’s it, a real crisis has begun. This government was lucky because they just came to power in a relatively good period, from the point of view of the Polish economy, in 2015 there was a GDP growth of 4-5%. Now we have a decline in GDP of -9%. This year, because of this post-coronavirus and coronavirus, let’s say, depression.
Moreover, this power (I don’t know whether they don’t have expert sociologists, or they don’t have knowledge of the basic rules of sociology) irritates people. For example, here in Poland we have a tradition of the so-called “Feast of All Saints” on November 1 - everyone goes to cemeteries, remembers their ancestors and everything else. We literally, well, practically on the eve of this holiday, the Prime Minister announces that all, all cemeteries will be closed.
Valentin Filippov: Don’t you think that they are doing this on purpose, that they are not thoughtless, they are not stupid, that they simply have such a goal. Perhaps they did not come up with this goal. Maybe they received an order, maybe it’s true, as you say, that different forces fought in Washington, and they give orders accordingly.
The authorities, maybe I’m talking about this not only about Poland, but their task now is to shake up the people. Because I have the impression that in many countries, in many states, the authorities are swinging the people against themselves.
Mateusz Piskorski: I agree, but the political elites must still have an elementary instinct of self-preservation...
Valentin Filippov: I've already thought about this. But he's not there. There's something we don't know, maybe.
Mateusz Piskorski: There is one theory. Some people say that Kaczynski has gone completely crazy and everything else, that he should be sent straight to a psychiatric hospital, and that he will be sent soon. His closest circle of employees understands that all that is needed, in the end, is to get rid of this person, because he is insane and inadequate. But there are also those who consider him a political genius. They argue, for example, that since the government already understands everything perfectly well what will happen to the Polish economy, they are trying to really shake up the situation, they are trying to bring society to such a state that they are simply overthrown, and then they will try to announce early elections, parliamentary elections, stupidly give power to today's, current opposition, and then...
Valentin Filippov: But naturally leaving the leverage...
Mateusz Piskorski: Well, plus wait, of course, 2 years and say: “Okay, look, we have a deep crisis here, this opposition, they really wanted to come to power, but they still couldn’t cope.” There is such a theory, but it depends on how much we consider Kaczynski a genius, and how much we consider him simply crazy.
Valentin Filippov: Well, it depends on the result.
Mateusz Piskorski: There is no clear answer yet. What is clear to us so far is that the rating of the ruling Law and Justice party has fallen by 15% within a week. This has never happened before, to be honest. Plus, we also have an understanding that these women, these issues related to, I would say, cultural and moral values, which all these protests have now touched upon, are still being joined by other social groups, even other social strata. For example, entrepreneurs are joining because, here’s a simple example, I already said about this ban on visiting cemeteries. A simple example - people had a small, small business, they sold flowers, wreaths, candles and everything else there, just before this holiday. There is a whole industry of these small entrepreneurs who do exactly this, and as you well understand...
Valentin Filippov: They wait for this day all year.
Mateusz Piskorski: Yes, and they were ruined, they were all on credit, they bought this product to sell within a few days. They were simply stupidly ruined, without offering anything in return, no compensation. So, more and more narrow, say, social groups are appearing that will express their dissatisfaction. We have practically a lockdown in many industries, take also the lockdown associated with the closure of all restaurants. Here is another group, several hundred thousand people, I mean both employees and owners of these small cafes, restaurants and everything else. They all join these protests, so this protest was the largest. It is the largest in the entire modern history of Poland over the past 30 years. If I was walking one fine day, I went to a small regional center - 26000 residents, I look, and there are 500-600 people protesting in the regional centers. We are not talking about regional centers, much less the capital. 120000-150000 people gather in Warsaw. This simply did not happen.
Valentin Filippov: I’ll tell you that if Ukrainian sociologists from the Maidan had also counted this, they would have had 15 million.
Mateusz Piskorski: No, you know, there is a special program, special software, through which you practically do it yourself, and there, with the help of specialists who understand how to use this software, you can calculate based on a photograph posted on the Internet, you can even calculate the approximate amount protest participants. That's a lot.
Valentin Filippov: Well, I understand, this is a lot.
Mateusz Piskorski: Yes, the Poles did not protest at all...
Valentin Filippov: I’m saying here: “So many people don’t gather for football.”
Mateusz Piskorski: Naturally. By the way, it is significant that football fans who have always supported...
Valentin Filippov: Protests.
Mateusz Piskorski: Let’s say right-wing radical parties supported conservatives, now there is a lot of information that football fans from different cities are joining the protesters.
Valentin Filippov: At least they are participating in the riots.
Mateusz Piskorski: They like it, it's their hobby, let's put it that way, so yes. But one way or another, it was really either spontaneous, or consciously, all this was planned, or not, we don’t know this yet, but it still turned out to shake up the situation to such an extent that no one even expected it.
I think there is another conspiracy theory. By the way, we will see after some time how justified it is, that other, more important things are being done here. Other more important decisions are being made, and in order to simply create this reformation fog, they figured out how to shake things up.
They were rocking it, they will settle their affairs there on the sly, no one will pay attention to it. Well, there are such theories. Many people there are simply trying to explain it all.
But to be honest, at one time I had to participate in several meetings at which Jaroslaw Kaczynski was present. I really think that this person is quite difficult to understand. I mean, he's unpredictable, completely unpredictable, so I don't rule out that it's not planned, it's just a matter of his political madness.
Valentin Filippov: Understood. Well, okay, thanks, I figured it out a little. I think that I can give Jaroslaw Kaczynski a new idea: after the ban on abortion, we need to introduce a ban on termination of sexual intercourse. This will affect almost everyone
Mateusz Piskorski: To rock it even more.
Valentin Filippov: Yes Yes. And then you can interrupt the foreplay and even a ban on interrupting an invitation to dance at a disco
Mateusz Piskorski: Good idea.
Valentin Filippov: Then it will affect everyone.
Mateusz Piskorski: It's interesting to watch this now. I recommend everyone to look at what will happen in Poland over the coming weeks.
Valentin Filippov: And look at it all from a safe distance.
Mateusz Piskorski: Yes, you are right. Unfortunately, I won't be able to do this.
Valentin Filippov: Nothing, nothing. Heavy borders will fall. Let's leak.
Mateusz Piskorski: Once upon a time, yes.
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