WORLD WORLDWIDE POLAND News Journal Update - (en) Poland, FA: Defenders of facades (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Again, darkness settled in the hearts of decent bourgeois Poznan residents. Their

peace of mind and sense of order were disturbed by ominous graffiti on the
renovated facade of the tenement house "Let's open the borders" and "Fuck walls
and uniforms". One of the agitated townspeople, running the "Poznaniator"
profile, was even tempted to bluntly "wishes" in relation to the people who made
the graffiti "With all my heart, I would like to wish Mr. for them to fall down
with some rare and unreimbursed plague and for both of their left hands to dry up
and for their children to remember for decades what genetic fuckers they have for
parents. Just such wishes, typical of those who apparently like the cleanliness
of renovated facades.

The facades, however, most often hide what is hidden deeper, in the darkness of
courtyards, cramped service rooms or nooks and crannies of attics, which no one
wanted to see or renew. We have a similar situation here. The defenders of the
facades did not notice that these shocking sense of beauty and aesthetics
inscriptions have been on this facade for several months. It is even harder for
them to see that their content refers to the situation on the Polish-Belarusian
border, which has been going on and bringing more deaths for over a year.
According to the Granica Group: "Since the beginning of the crisis, the Granica
Group has registered 327 missing people, of which 95 people have been found. More
than half are men, but a large percentage are women (approx. 20%) and minors
(approx. 13%). There are at least 37 fatalities as of today. Numbers or
statistics apparently do not impress the defenders of the facades, the bodies
found in the forest do not increase anxiety, the stories of people pushed to the
Belarusian side, beaten by border guards do not disturb a peaceful sleep.

This is interrupted only when the façade is breached, when the confrontation with
reality is forced. Another moment of staining the façade from the last week were
the words of the MEP and long-term president of the Polish Humanitarian Action,
which were spoken in the TOK FM radio broadcast. Referring to the situation on
the Polish-Belarusian border, Ochojska cited the aforementioned data of the
Granica Group and allowed herself to suggest: "I think that there are many more
victims of this border. They are either in some mass grave, because I wouldn't be
surprised if, when access to the border was closed, the bodies were simply
collected so that there would be no such evidence. At the moment, there are talks
of almost 300 people who have disappeared," the MEP said. And again, the façade
of well-being, sense of aesthetics and the belief that, wherever, where, but in
our tenement house called Poland, no one would do something like that, was
soiled. Of course, it was more important to attack Ochojska ("How could she?",
"What was she thinking?", "That's anti-Polish propaganda") than to consider that
only strong words and suggestions can somehow come out in front of a carefully
cleaned facade and be noticed. Reflecting on the fate of people missing on the
refugee trail, deprived of contact with their loved ones, who are in a strange
place - it is even more difficult to argue in this matter.

In 2022, Poland was ranked 110th in the political dimension of media freedom.
However, do the defenders of the façade live in the blissful belief that after
the introduction of a state of emergency in the border area - a real sensation in
the history of the Republic of Poland - there really could not have been
situations that would justify Janina Ochojska's digressions? Oh, that blissful
naivety.

Only in October last year it was revealed that the prosecutor's office
discontinued all proceedings against secret CIA prisons in Poland. The decision
of the prosecutor's office and its justification remain secret, all information
in this case is the result of journalistic activities. It is known that there
were prisoners in Poland, it is known that they were probably tortured, but none
of the decision-makers, people associated with Polish intelligence (including its
then head, Zbigniew Siemiatkowski) will be held accountable in this matter. The
prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Justice under the rule of Zbigniew Ziobro
do not deign to deal with the case in which Leszek Miller and then-president
Aleksander Kwasniewski were involved as the head of the then government. Strange,
right? Or maybe, unfortunately, normal in a world where the protection of facades
counts.

What would happen if it was proven beyond any doubt that the "Polish tenement
house" stands in the same place as tenement houses from Egypt or Pakistan,
countries repeatedly used by the CIA to hold prisoners and subject them to
activities that are punishable in democratic and law-abiding countries criminal
responsibility? Another crack on our facade.

The façade is damaged even more when the image of uniformed services placed in
front of it is painted. How many cases of corruption, abuse of power,
inefficiency, brutality and even death need to be cited?  No matter how many
there are, for many the uniform remains unstained. It will probably be like this
until the officer wearing it is pinned to the ground and shackled or treated with
another tool of direct coercion. Despite the worsening opinion and increasing
problems in recruitment, there is no shortage of dedicated defenders of the
uniform. Just like defending facades

Years ago, the late Rafal Górski wrote a text with the significant title "Let's
be afraid of decent citizens". Although in this text he referred to more extreme
situations, people's behavior during the occupation and war, I would like to
recall its meaning and title here. As Górski rightly noted, strangely enough, in
these extreme situations, only a few were always ready to step forward, break
conformism or, horror of horrors, oppose the imposed new order and its rules.
Most of the "good and decent citizens" wanted to survive peacefully, take care of
themselves, stay low and not put themselves at risk. Just like today, most prefer
to protect the facades, powder the muck and ignore the content of the message
from the subtitles. And when someone dares to dirty the facade - then holy
indignation, name calling from the worst, wishes of the plague and placing a
curse on it ... It doesn't matter that the facade somehow has been dirty for
several months.

Stnanislaw Krastowicz

www.rozbrat.org

https://federacja-anarchistyczna.pl/2023/03/22/obroncy-fasad/
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