Taxi drivers and society

Has anyone else noticed how taxi drivers the world over have an equal disdain for laws and common decency?

Yesterday I took my wife to Konin train station and had a small non verbal argument with a taxi driver.

I circled the rather small carpark looking for a space and saw a couple of likley options. However, while twenty odd taxis were parked around the perimiter of the car park in I suppose the official taxi rank/space, one was parked accross several free spaces for ordinary cars.

I motioned that I wanted to get into the space and perhaps could he reverse a bit; to which he just shrugged. We repeated these actions a few times with my blood getting more and more boiled. I was left with the only options being to either exit my car and approach him whicj would for sure end in Police custody or withdraw to fight another day.

At the behest of my wife, I left and found a space down the road and we walked back. I took a picture of the incident as potential proof; not really sure what I was going to do with my evidence. I later reasoned that no city guard or policeman would give two hoots about it an so am left with putting it on my blog. Therefore this is my nameing and shaming act, although I ofcourse don't know his name.

Review of Radosław Sikorski's Speech to Parliament

The Minister of Foreign Affairs 

on 

Polish Foreign Policy for 2011

 I know I've been a bit slow with this one, and generally several English language articles have been already written on the subject, but I though I'd give my own opinion on Minister Sikorski's ideas.

On 16^th March 2011 Foriegn Minister Radosław Sirkorski addressed the combined houses of the Polish parliament. His speech was significant, as he himself remarked upon, in that he is the first post-communist politician to hold the position for a full term of office. Therefore, the address represents a rare continuity in Polish foreign policy, at least in terms of the politicians directing it. I will therefore analyse the speech in order to see whether the official program for 2011 indeed lives up to such a momentous occasions :)

It is important to note that although technically the minister's address, it was undoubtedly both the position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Government. Not only is Minister Sikorski the only post-communist politician to hold office throughout a whole term, but Civic Platform (PO) are also the only party who has held government for a whole term. This indeed, as remarked upon by Sikorski, is a unique event for Poland and as such his address bears scrutiny.

It is also worth noting that the speech was given just one day before the UN Security Council vote on intervention in the Libyan conflict and three days before airstrikes began. This was a point highlighted by a journalist on the Economist blog where they remarked how there was:

 Almost nothing on the question of whether to intervene in North Africa--surely the most pressing issue of the day. Does Poland agree with Germany and the non-interventionists? Or with Britain and France and the "no-fly zone"? It would be nice to know. Polish diplomacy has indeed never been more solid or more effective. But those are means, not ends.

During the speech Sikorski was conscious of the importance of representing a continuum in Polish policy and made reference to various predecessors of his. To that end he talked of the fact that Poland has rebuilt its state (since 1989) and “made it part of the global democratic architecture.” This reference to a global democratic architecture echoes sentiments by such people as ex-President Aleksander Kwasniewski when he referred to a European Family after the 2003 referendum on EU membership. 

A large part of Sikorski's speech dealt with Poland's image and position in the world. Sikorski stated how the parliament “wants Poland to become a secure and prosperous country, but also one with influence. A serious country. So that we, like Spain or Turkey before us, will be able to regain our bygone prestige.” This is in fact a recurring theme in Polish politics; as Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek stated in 1999:

We want and we have to gain among the Allied states a position that will enable us to co-define de facto the Allied strategy and policies in a way that corresponds with our interests, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. We have the potential to develop our human and economic resources and our pivotal strategic geographic location over the coming years into a position that will rank Poland among NATO's principal member states.

This has an obvious self-esteem motivation. Sikorski clearly states in the following paragraph that the concept involves a country able to fight for the interests of the region and be in a position to give development and humanitarian aide. This ties in well with the idea of “for their freedom and ours”, an ongoing theme in Polish mentality, and allows for the feeling that Poland is a country that stands up for its ideals. 

Both the concepts of community and security are again touched on with reference to the Middle East, where Sikorski illustrates how the situation there “is a test for the common foreign policy that is currently in the making. The European Union must speak with one voice, and all must be heard throughout its neighbourhood.” Sikorski, although speaking at times from a European perspective, does not fail to show the broader community aspect of his policy when stating how Polish experiences of transitions can help others currently undergoing transition. This sense of a dual community is perhaps a common theme; where both the euro-transatlantic and the wider world are seen in communal terms.

Sikorski concludes his address with reference to three key ideas that have guided him during his term in office; those of: reliability, solidarity, and modernisation. 
 

Beginning with the concept of reliability, Poland has made a conscious effort to ensure that it is a reliable security partner for NATO and the EU. Sikorski mentions how Poland has maintained a 1.95% GDP defence budget and this ties in with the sense of being reliable, and again reinforces a postitve of image of self.

Moving on, solidarity is an obvious synonym for community. Sikorski reffers to that fact that solidarity holds a special place with in the Polish psyche and thus it is important to support especially Belarus in its struggles.

Finally, modernisation is perhaps the simplest and most easily discernible. After the period of communism following World War Two Poland was in a poor state compared to its European neighbours. Modernisation is a practical necessity which affects primarily the core desire of security but also self-esteem. While the argument for why modernisation affects security is perhaps redundant, self-esteem need a little more clarification. As part of Sikorski's image of a 'serious country' the minister defines how this includes the concept of a country “whose youth does not emigrate to find work, and whose opportunities attract at least its own diaspora.” At first this looks like a purely economics-related statement, yet in fact it has more to do with self-esteem. Economically a diaspora can be greatly beneficial to any country, further there is no inherent benefit in attracting the diapsora back per se. Any manpower gaps could just as well be filled by other workers (eastern European etc). However, it is a matter of pride that people do not need to emigrate for financial reasons. Thus modernisation will in turn improve living standards and help to keep the youth of Poland and possibly attract returnees.

Overall, the speech of Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski shows a positive side of Polish politics, so greatly missing from the mainstream press. Sikorski took the opportunity to speak of the fact that the present Poland is the best anyone has ever known and people should not be so quick to criticise it, a point I happen to agree with.

 

The creation of a cultural reservoir by the drainage of culture

This year Poland is to hold the European Presidency for the first time. This prestigious and important role has many facets, however perhaps the most controversial and least widely known is that of culture.

As part of the presidency Poland will host the European Culture Congress 2011 to be held in Wrocław .The Polish government state that as part of the objectives for the presidency:

On culture, the leading subjects of the Polish Presidency will include development of social innovation and intellectual capital (through investment in culture, support for participation in culture and promotion of cultural and artistic education of persons of all ages) and negotiations on further editions of the Culture and Europe for Citizens programs.

There will also be events all around Poland as part of the presidency. All very well and good. What however is not stated in this positive statement is where the money for investment will come from. Inevitably the money has been moved from other cultural projects.

Budgets of Art institutions and universities have been drastically slashed this year. The ministry of culture website states that applications for funds have now closed for 2011, and its only March!

I understand that Poland is a bit short of money and that at the same time it wants to put on a good show. Yet by dealing with the problem in this way the lifeblood of regular artists has been cut.

Young aspiring artists depend on government grants to help them develop their ideas. This involves travelling to festivals and competitions. Does the government's policy meant that all students in 2011 will be left out in the cold?

Teaching styles and little pieces of paper

I don't think I have ever written an article on this blog about teaching English, which is not bad for four years of blogging :)
 So I am writing this blog update with trepidation.... will it unleash a flood of ELT themed pieces? I very much doubt it :)

Today's topic is just a short piece about teaching styles. Several years ago I was like many new teachers, earnestly cutting up pieces of paper and preparing activities for my students. However with time my methods have changed. I guess this has something to do with the humanist in me. I see these pieces of paper getting screwed up or left on the desk at the end of the lesson and think - what's the point? Also of course I'm just bone-ass lazy.

I have developed a cabaret-act routine where gramma points and vocabulary are interlaced with a 90min spiel of bizarre quirky observations and anecdotes. I feel happy if I can give a humorous story to each definition I give: It keeps me entertained and hopefully means they remember it.

Okay, so now you have the picture, you will understand my pride when, during a particularly surreal exchange between myself and one student, another remarked in Polish that this was like Monty Python. The first student was a soldier and I have always found (being an ex-squaddie) that soldiers the world over have the same sense of humour: usually dark and sick. We were therefore having a bizarre exchange about the rules of engagement in the Polish military. He said he was allowed to shoot a rapist. I was surprised how detailed their R-O-E card is (in fact a fat great book) and thought that surely you could just pull the bloke off and cuff him; therefore I said how killing him seemed extreme seeing as there is no capital punishment here. He said that he could not actually kill him. To which I replied "So what? You just shoot him in the testicles?"

The above exchange was accompanied by a story of how a colleague beat-up a mentally disabled guy for running through a military compound. I of course remarked how this was like beating up a child. He retorted that the man was trying to steal the soldier's gun, to which I ridiculed him and his big brave colleague further.

The point of this? Not sure there is really any point. It may be a cruel power need I have, It may be a lack of empathy induced by being dropped as a baby. Yet I can't help being sarcastic and ironical to my students. Is this wrong? ...  Probably. but they seem to like me for it. I accept as good as I get, but take this as a challenge for a duel of wits.

Humanitarian Intervention

Western countries need to redefine their security agenda so as to return to basic core values which were seen in the 1990s. If we forsake such basic tenets, then we risk losing our sense of self; a fact which could have far worse ramifications than any specific terrorist threat or oil shortage.

The above is summary of an article I wrote which is available on the e-ir website. Please take a look.

Constitutional Tribunal Verdict : Marlial law was illegal!

Most of Poland's news organisations are today reporting the fact that the Constitutional Tribunal has declared that the enactment of martial law in 1981 was in fact illegal; see for instance TVN24. This is an important step for the healing of modern Poland whilst being also at the same time at tad surreal.


The Communist State that existed within the geographical location known as Poland between the end of the Second World War and 1989 (although not officially vanquished until the short constitution of 1992) was from the very outset an unconstitutional abhorrence placed on top of the existing democratic Poland by external agents (whist it obviously had many Polish supporter it could not have been created without the USSR). Therefore to declare one of its acts as unconstitutional is strange. Whether martial law agreed with or did not agree with the PRL's constitution does not change one iota the unethical nature of the act.

However, as I sad above, perhaps it is a natural and necessary part of the healing process. What perhaps is the more worrying part of this is the implications that spring up from this judgement. By declaring the act unconstitutional the tribunal recognises the overall validity of the PRL and thus opens the way for compensation claims.

The begs the question as to whether the children of the revolution should pay for the inequities of the forefathers. Simply put, should modern Poland's taxes be used to pay for past wrongs under a system to which it had no part?

Arguments for could start with pointing to the fact that there is a continuity of state structures such as tax offices, army, hospitals etc and thus this is really the same state under a different name. Arguments against would point to the undemocratic nature of the previous system and thus how accountability can not be placed upon the public at large.

A tricky problem with no immediately clear ethical answer.

Happy Fourth Birthday

Tuesday the 15th March is the fourth birthday of The Łódź Wonderer. Looking back over the last four years I have not been the most consistent blogger but at the same time I feel that I have provided my readers (mainly that means my dog Zenek) with some interesting pieces.

Pocket Dictator

Post-Conflict Video

If you have any megalomaniac tendencies, then marriage to an artist will perhaps allow you to fulfil your evil desires. I am in fact married to an artist and thus my delusions of world conquest were more than catered for in my wife's latest project :)

The following exhibition review is by no means an objective and unbiased account of a contemporary Polish artist; in fact its a more than prejudiced review as I was the principle protagonist in the work. Therefore please read on in the light of the fact that I am 100% behind this work and in fact was to some extent a collaborator in its making. 

Pocket Dictator

The work has the title of Pocket Dictator and was created by Elzbieta Wysakowska-Walters, an MA student at Poznan University of Fine Art (Formerly Poznan Fine Art Academy). The work is however two works which share a theme. One is centred around the concept of the modus operandi of dictatorships and how infact many of the discerning features of dictatorships can be seen in pluralists democracies whilst also the close relationship of dictatorships and democracies is high-lighted. Two separate pieces illustrate this point: firstly a video featuring myself referring to the main points in an accompanying essay I wrote showing how the art of spin-doctors and sound-bites can in fact be compared to passages of Hitler's Mein Kampf. The other piece is a mobile phone with a ring tone and SMS message tone which is the voice of a dictator. The ring tone is a roaring political speech akin to the Nuremberg Rally, whilst the text message thanks the external donator for the money given. This dual nature of dictators is referred to in the video ad essay where dictators are often supported by outside forces: often democracies. 

The Meeting Point: Pocket Dictator & The Conflict Book

The second part of the work consists of a conflict book and accompanying video. Both works aim at showing the cyclic nature of conflict and as such the relationship conflict has with people. The video discusses the post-conflict situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the somewhat  bizarre relations the International Community had with the region. 

 

Bio-Rhythm of Conflict

The Conflict Book

The work was displayed at the Kaiser's Palace in Poznan during in the week of the 7th March 2011. This short time will hopefully be more than made up for in a future exhibition; details of which are to follow.

Democracy and Dictators

A full exposé will appear on a work related website created by my wife and so details will follow.

Poland and Humanitarianism

Recently an old university colleague put on Facebook the statement: "Asylum is a human right". I was very temped to put a sarcastic or ironic comment, but luckily stopped myself from doings so as I'm sure it would just be viewed as cruel and unnecessary.  Why unnecessary? Well her intentions were no doubt good and she has always been a humanitarian and in that I admire her. Yet, her comment displayed a naive view of both International Relations and Philosophy (N.B. we studied International Relations together at university).

The problem which she aptly displayed is that asylum involves the crossing of a political border and the shelter within a third party state. These very terms indicate the constructed nature of each and hence their in-congruent relationship with human nature. Not in-congruent in that humans cannot live with such concepts but rather that from a philosophical perspective these terms: state, asylum, etc, do not match the accepted terms of human nature. We understand human nature as something inherent and innate to humans. Therefore how can an obvious construct such as a state be at the same time instrumental in a human right, that is, Asylum? If a human right is to exist it must pre-date any man-made construct.

This inevitably begs the question as to what extent human rights are universal. To understand this we must first discuss what are human rights. Does a right exist prior to it being legislated upon? My instinct and empathy says yes of course it does. I want to believe that regardless of any written law, there is a basic truth that exists separate to society and legal procedures. Yet philosophically speaking this is very difficult to prove. A very good summary of the problem exists here: 

I am interested in any views as to how this effects the UN's Responsibility to Protect resolution. In order to declare war we must be sure in our minds that such a right exists or else we risk being imperialistic in our actions.To bring this all back into some vague relationship with Poland and the main theme of this blog. Poland entered into two wars in the last decade and in many ways got its fingers burnt. In the future it may be temped to stop interacting on a grand scale altogether; yet if it does this it risks slipping back into the international isolation that existed during the communist era. More concretely though, by not being able to define its humanitarian credentials it risks its domestic ethical ideals. Only through a strong and robust demonstration of beliefs can a country affirm its defining concepts.

 Therefore the extent to which Poland is truly an ethical state will be shown by its foreign policy. So far as proven on the Belarus front, all is looking good :)

Consternation and its casues: the 1997 Constitution?

Recently whenever I have switched on either the radio or TV various "experts" seem to be endlessly discussing the dates of the looming elections in Poland. Is it me or is this just an excuse to fill air-time with drivel?

The Warsaw Voice announced on 2nd March that The PM and President would consult the leaders of the main parties. The phrase: too many chefs spoil the broth, springs to mind. I know that the British system is inherently unfair and the Polish Constitution no doubt allows for a pluralist electoral system etc etc, but I for one am in favour of the Prime Ministrial prerogative that exists in the UK. None of this continuous debate: The PM says May 15th (for example) and the country prepares. Is it so difficult?

 Alas, a lot of the problem lies with the 1997 Polish Constitution which has this to say on the matter:

Elections to the Sejm and the Senate shall be ordered by the President of the Republic no later than 90 days before the expiry of the 4 year period beginning with the commencement of the Sejm's and Senate's term of office, and he shall order such elections to be held on a non-working day which shall be within the 30 day period before the expiry of the 4 year period beginning from the commencement of the Sejm's and Senate's term of office.

Such a strict guideline is bound to create unforeseen problems. A lot of the current debate has been centred around the falling of All Saints Day, which is traditionally a long weekend. People are afraid that many voters will simply not bother turning up to vote.

This is not the first time I have blogged on the matter of problems with the constitution (See Constitutional Crisis?). I am not sure what the prestigious leaders were doing between 1992 and 1997 when the current constitution took affect; but to be honest, my dog could probably have come up with a constitution with less chance of confusion and overlapping competencies.

I am of course not the only one who sees problems in the 1997 constitution as I wrote here. Although I am generally reluctant to side with any codified constitution as it tends to lend itself to dogmatism and entrenched beliefs in outdated ideas (see here), I can see the need in a post-revolution period to have a fresh start. Therefore the 1992 and 1997 constitutions were necessary for the rebirth of Poland; shame the constitution makers did not envision the possible points of clash within their "little baby".

Oh well, perhaps the next revolution will bring a brighter future :) .......