Post by pjotr on Jan 15, 2016 22:39:19 GMT 1
Dear Friends,
I want to be positive and optimistic and bring good and nice news, but fact is that Europe in the form of the European Union is in crisis. I see Geological Fault Lines in Europe in which North-West Europe, Central- and Eastern-Europe and Southern-Europe are split in three entities, like the Roman Empire was split in three Frankish Empires. The country I live and work in, the Netherlands had and has old trade (import-export)-, monetary (Deutsch Mark-Gulden connection -before the EU came to existence-), transport line and political ties with our Eastern Neighbour Germany. Like The Poles have with their Czech and Slovak neighbours and old Hungarian brothers and sisters in the Visgrad Group and with Germany and France in the Weimar Triangle. For instance the German and Dutch Social-democrats were close and so were the Dutch and German Christian-democrats (an example of that is that we journalists in the Eastern-Duch city Arnhem say, our -Dutch- mayor Herman Kaiser is a typical CDU mann - a German style Christian-democrat -).
The Dutch christian-democratic mayor of Arnhem Herman Kaiser looks and acts like a typical German CDU politician according to local politicians. He has good connections with his German counterparts. Some people call him the Prus (like in Polish Prusy) (He is member of the Dutch christian-Democratic CDA)
Chancellor Schröder met the Dutch prime minister in The Hague
Dutch and German Social-democratic comrades. The German and Dutch prime-minsters Den Uyl and Schmidt and the Dutch minister of foreign affairs van der Stoel during the seventies.
Christian-democratic brothers Helmut Kohl and Ruud Lubbers, the leaders of Germany and the Netherlands
And the Dutch and Germans had and have good ties with their Northern Neighbours by sea and land, the Scandinavians, which whom we shared social well fare state and our continental, Rhine land, Social-capitalist economical model. Via the EU and NATO these countries also had and have good trade, financial-economical, political and cultural ties with the Anglo-American world (Great-Britain and the USA). The Netherlands and Denmark are very Anglophile nations, maybe more than Deutsch orientiert (German orientation) (called Deutschfreundlich in Dutch and German) and Francophone. Britishness replaced the French style in the twenties in the Netherlands in the ruling economical and political classes.
Southern-Europe was and is different than Northern-Europe, due to the Latin-Romanesque Roman-Catholic corporatist influence there, and the long influence of fascist regimes in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Southern-France you could say fits more with the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Mediterranean cultures. While Northern-France has a Germanic and Celtic influence. Southern-European nations could get closer relations, since their political culture, their mentality and their social culture are more close than the North-West-European cultures.
In Poland I see a mix of Józef Piłsudski's Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ideals of a strong historical alliance with independent states of Lithuania and Ukraine and Roman Dmowski's re-establishment of Polish independence by nonviolent means, and policies favorable to the Polish middle class, workers and Polish farmers. Dmowski believed that only a Polish-speaking Roman Catholic could be a good Pole. I see a new prototype of Polish right-wing nationalism is appearing, in which the antithesis of Józef Piłsudski's Sanacja Polish Patriotism and Dmowski's exclusive Polish nationalism are overcome and merged. I don't see any Solidarność elements in the new Polish government. The difference with Piłsudski's and Dmowski's Twenties and Thirties of the Twentieth century is that Poland is stronger politically and military today. And the other difference is the fact that Poland has stronger ties and treaties with the West than in those days. Poland has close and good ties with Hungary, and probably good ties with the Czech republic and Slovakia too. The relationship with Lithuania is complicated due to conflicts in the twentieth century and during World War Two (when the Polish resistance clashed with collaborationalist Lithuanian nazi sympathizers), and I don't know how the Polish Latvian and Estonian relations are?
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman; Chief of State (1918–22), "First Marshal of Poland" (from 1920), and de facto leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic, Minister of Military Affairs.
Roman Stanisław Dmowski (9 August 1864 – 2 January 1939) was a Polish politician, statesman, and co-founder and chief ideologue of the right-wing National Democracy ("ND": in Polish, "Endecja") political movement.
Decommunization
PiS is a strong supporter of lustration (lustracja), a verification system created ostensibly to combat the influence of the Communist era security apparatus in Polish society. While current lustration laws require the verification of those who serve in public offices, PiS wants to expand the process to include university professors, lawyers, journalists, managers of large companies, and others performing "public functions". Those found to have collaborated with the security service, according to the party, should be forbidden to practice in their professions.
PiS also supports revealing the names of all secret agents from the time of the communist regime.
I (Pieter) strongly oppose the lustration (lustracja) in Poland. By isolating, shaming and blaming, labeling and humiliating former Polish communists you do not only do an unethical, morally wrong thing, you also create future problems. I am going to defend some former Polish communists now. You had people of poor peasent and working class background who gained from the communist system and managed to get a better life in the Polish Peoples Republic. Nothing is black and white and so many or some Polish communists had dual or multi-facetted identities. From one side they believed in the socialist society and economy and communist party, and from the other side they were often Roman-Catholics and Polish patriots in the same time. Some of them tried to work for and find a Polish kind of socialism. It is ridiculous to make many people with a career in the Peoples Republic Poland unemployed because they were communists, or former Polish Social-democrats who were forced to become a member of the communist party, because their party merged with the communist party into the United Polish Workers party (PZPR). A communist witch hunt like the "McCarthyism" of Joseph McCarthy in the USA or the 1972 Anti-Radical Decree (Berufsverbot) were and are disastrous in my view. The problem of former communists will resolve itself in time, because the generation of communists will fade away soon. A new left of leftwing politicians, activists and leftwing journalists with no ties with the communist regime of the Peoples Republic will emerge soon. Again to prohibit university professors, lawyers, journalists, managers of large companies, and others performing "public functions, because they had ties with the communist regime will damage the Polish education system, the Polish economy and threaten the Polish unity. People without jobs will become revengeful. People will commit suicide, and maybe others will due to an impoverished situation become criminal. The Polish organised crime and foreign organised crime organisations like the Ukrainian, Russian and Georgian mafia will gain from such deteriorations of the financial and health situations of people and often whole families. This lustration (lustracja) is a counterproductive, inhumane and stupid idea.
PiS sees the present opposition towards it's government as a bunch of communists, socialists and liberal-democratic (West-European oriented) un-patriotic and less Roman-Catholic Poles. PiS in my view combines Polish conservatism with reactionary catholicism and nationalism. In that political course PiS allies itself with Endecja (Narodowa Demokracja) kind of people. People who combine a anti-German, anti-Russian, Islamophobe, xenophobe, racist and anti-semitic, anti-Western and anti-intelligentsia stance with far right nationalism and a hostility towards the establishment of the democratic political parties, press, media and cultural circles. Mind you I see a difference between the rightwing conservative and nationalist PiS and the Polish Ultra-right of violent hooligans, Neo-Nazi's and other thugs. But the present government goes far in what Jaga and Polish journalists describe as governing at/by night.
I hope not that Poland will be a driving force behind a disintegration of the EU and an expansion of the Visgrad Group. The worst case scenario in my opinion would be when the Visgrad Group would become an East-European Union of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and probably Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and maybe Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia too. That East-European Union would in the case that it would be founded a clearly Christian Union of countries with strict border controls, conservative, nationalist ideals, and national sovereignty, strong national democracies, and cooperation between slavic nations and an historical alliance between Poland and Hungary. Poland would love to restore something of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a modern, democratic way. A Union of equal Central- and Eastern-European states.
A map of the Visgrad countries
I believe Geopolitically that in that case Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Sweden and Finland would form the West-European Union. Great-Britain could go into two directions if such developments will take place. Great-Britain could establish closer ties with the Anglo-Saxon nations the USA, Canada, Australia and New-Zealand. It could strengthen it's ties with the USA. But it also could join the West-European Union and in the same time keep close ties with the USA.
The Southern-European Union of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, and probably Greece could be a succes too. The three Unions would have new borders in the middle of Europe. The East-European Union with it's clear Christian and nationalist and more conservative identity will monitor it's borders with the West, South and North (Scandinavia) and the East (with Russia and Belarus), because it would not want future Islamist infiltration from Southern-, West- and North-Europe, nor the infiltration of West-European Union or South-European Union secret services.
Ofcourse the Russian Federation would and will do it's best to expand it's Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU). The Eurasian Economic Union today consists of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Russia ofcourse would try to get Ukraine, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece into it's Eurasian Economic Union.
I hope that this split of the European Union and thus the disintegration of Europe will never take place, but it is a possibility we have to reckon with. I wish we could continue the peace and prosperity in Europe and could end the terrible bloody conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Libiya, Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia. If we don't do anything, ehtnic, nationalistic, religious and cultural tensions will divide Europe in the future and will drag Europe back to it's dark past of the Middle ages and centuries of armed conflicts and destruction.
Cheers,
Pieter
I want to be positive and optimistic and bring good and nice news, but fact is that Europe in the form of the European Union is in crisis. I see Geological Fault Lines in Europe in which North-West Europe, Central- and Eastern-Europe and Southern-Europe are split in three entities, like the Roman Empire was split in three Frankish Empires. The country I live and work in, the Netherlands had and has old trade (import-export)-, monetary (Deutsch Mark-Gulden connection -before the EU came to existence-), transport line and political ties with our Eastern Neighbour Germany. Like The Poles have with their Czech and Slovak neighbours and old Hungarian brothers and sisters in the Visgrad Group and with Germany and France in the Weimar Triangle. For instance the German and Dutch Social-democrats were close and so were the Dutch and German Christian-democrats (an example of that is that we journalists in the Eastern-Duch city Arnhem say, our -Dutch- mayor Herman Kaiser is a typical CDU mann - a German style Christian-democrat -).
The Dutch christian-democratic mayor of Arnhem Herman Kaiser looks and acts like a typical German CDU politician according to local politicians. He has good connections with his German counterparts. Some people call him the Prus (like in Polish Prusy) (He is member of the Dutch christian-Democratic CDA)
Chancellor Schröder met the Dutch prime minister in The Hague
Dutch and German Social-democratic comrades. The German and Dutch prime-minsters Den Uyl and Schmidt and the Dutch minister of foreign affairs van der Stoel during the seventies.
Christian-democratic brothers Helmut Kohl and Ruud Lubbers, the leaders of Germany and the Netherlands
And the Dutch and Germans had and have good ties with their Northern Neighbours by sea and land, the Scandinavians, which whom we shared social well fare state and our continental, Rhine land, Social-capitalist economical model. Via the EU and NATO these countries also had and have good trade, financial-economical, political and cultural ties with the Anglo-American world (Great-Britain and the USA). The Netherlands and Denmark are very Anglophile nations, maybe more than Deutsch orientiert (German orientation) (called Deutschfreundlich in Dutch and German) and Francophone. Britishness replaced the French style in the twenties in the Netherlands in the ruling economical and political classes.
Southern-Europe was and is different than Northern-Europe, due to the Latin-Romanesque Roman-Catholic corporatist influence there, and the long influence of fascist regimes in Italy, Spain and Portugal. Southern-France you could say fits more with the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Mediterranean cultures. While Northern-France has a Germanic and Celtic influence. Southern-European nations could get closer relations, since their political culture, their mentality and their social culture are more close than the North-West-European cultures.
In Poland I see a mix of Józef Piłsudski's Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ideals of a strong historical alliance with independent states of Lithuania and Ukraine and Roman Dmowski's re-establishment of Polish independence by nonviolent means, and policies favorable to the Polish middle class, workers and Polish farmers. Dmowski believed that only a Polish-speaking Roman Catholic could be a good Pole. I see a new prototype of Polish right-wing nationalism is appearing, in which the antithesis of Józef Piłsudski's Sanacja Polish Patriotism and Dmowski's exclusive Polish nationalism are overcome and merged. I don't see any Solidarność elements in the new Polish government. The difference with Piłsudski's and Dmowski's Twenties and Thirties of the Twentieth century is that Poland is stronger politically and military today. And the other difference is the fact that Poland has stronger ties and treaties with the West than in those days. Poland has close and good ties with Hungary, and probably good ties with the Czech republic and Slovakia too. The relationship with Lithuania is complicated due to conflicts in the twentieth century and during World War Two (when the Polish resistance clashed with collaborationalist Lithuanian nazi sympathizers), and I don't know how the Polish Latvian and Estonian relations are?
Józef Klemens Piłsudski (5 December 1867 – 12 May 1935) was a Polish statesman; Chief of State (1918–22), "First Marshal of Poland" (from 1920), and de facto leader (1926–35) of the Second Polish Republic, Minister of Military Affairs.
Roman Stanisław Dmowski (9 August 1864 – 2 January 1939) was a Polish politician, statesman, and co-founder and chief ideologue of the right-wing National Democracy ("ND": in Polish, "Endecja") political movement.
Decommunization
PiS is a strong supporter of lustration (lustracja), a verification system created ostensibly to combat the influence of the Communist era security apparatus in Polish society. While current lustration laws require the verification of those who serve in public offices, PiS wants to expand the process to include university professors, lawyers, journalists, managers of large companies, and others performing "public functions". Those found to have collaborated with the security service, according to the party, should be forbidden to practice in their professions.
PiS also supports revealing the names of all secret agents from the time of the communist regime.
I (Pieter) strongly oppose the lustration (lustracja) in Poland. By isolating, shaming and blaming, labeling and humiliating former Polish communists you do not only do an unethical, morally wrong thing, you also create future problems. I am going to defend some former Polish communists now. You had people of poor peasent and working class background who gained from the communist system and managed to get a better life in the Polish Peoples Republic. Nothing is black and white and so many or some Polish communists had dual or multi-facetted identities. From one side they believed in the socialist society and economy and communist party, and from the other side they were often Roman-Catholics and Polish patriots in the same time. Some of them tried to work for and find a Polish kind of socialism. It is ridiculous to make many people with a career in the Peoples Republic Poland unemployed because they were communists, or former Polish Social-democrats who were forced to become a member of the communist party, because their party merged with the communist party into the United Polish Workers party (PZPR). A communist witch hunt like the "McCarthyism" of Joseph McCarthy in the USA or the 1972 Anti-Radical Decree (Berufsverbot) were and are disastrous in my view. The problem of former communists will resolve itself in time, because the generation of communists will fade away soon. A new left of leftwing politicians, activists and leftwing journalists with no ties with the communist regime of the Peoples Republic will emerge soon. Again to prohibit university professors, lawyers, journalists, managers of large companies, and others performing "public functions, because they had ties with the communist regime will damage the Polish education system, the Polish economy and threaten the Polish unity. People without jobs will become revengeful. People will commit suicide, and maybe others will due to an impoverished situation become criminal. The Polish organised crime and foreign organised crime organisations like the Ukrainian, Russian and Georgian mafia will gain from such deteriorations of the financial and health situations of people and often whole families. This lustration (lustracja) is a counterproductive, inhumane and stupid idea.
PiS sees the present opposition towards it's government as a bunch of communists, socialists and liberal-democratic (West-European oriented) un-patriotic and less Roman-Catholic Poles. PiS in my view combines Polish conservatism with reactionary catholicism and nationalism. In that political course PiS allies itself with Endecja (Narodowa Demokracja) kind of people. People who combine a anti-German, anti-Russian, Islamophobe, xenophobe, racist and anti-semitic, anti-Western and anti-intelligentsia stance with far right nationalism and a hostility towards the establishment of the democratic political parties, press, media and cultural circles. Mind you I see a difference between the rightwing conservative and nationalist PiS and the Polish Ultra-right of violent hooligans, Neo-Nazi's and other thugs. But the present government goes far in what Jaga and Polish journalists describe as governing at/by night.
I hope not that Poland will be a driving force behind a disintegration of the EU and an expansion of the Visgrad Group. The worst case scenario in my opinion would be when the Visgrad Group would become an East-European Union of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and probably Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and maybe Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia too. That East-European Union would in the case that it would be founded a clearly Christian Union of countries with strict border controls, conservative, nationalist ideals, and national sovereignty, strong national democracies, and cooperation between slavic nations and an historical alliance between Poland and Hungary. Poland would love to restore something of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in a modern, democratic way. A Union of equal Central- and Eastern-European states.
A map of the Visgrad countries
I believe Geopolitically that in that case Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Sweden and Finland would form the West-European Union. Great-Britain could go into two directions if such developments will take place. Great-Britain could establish closer ties with the Anglo-Saxon nations the USA, Canada, Australia and New-Zealand. It could strengthen it's ties with the USA. But it also could join the West-European Union and in the same time keep close ties with the USA.
The Southern-European Union of Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, and probably Greece could be a succes too. The three Unions would have new borders in the middle of Europe. The East-European Union with it's clear Christian and nationalist and more conservative identity will monitor it's borders with the West, South and North (Scandinavia) and the East (with Russia and Belarus), because it would not want future Islamist infiltration from Southern-, West- and North-Europe, nor the infiltration of West-European Union or South-European Union secret services.
Ofcourse the Russian Federation would and will do it's best to expand it's Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU). The Eurasian Economic Union today consists of the Russian Federation, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Russia ofcourse would try to get Ukraine, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece into it's Eurasian Economic Union.
I hope that this split of the European Union and thus the disintegration of Europe will never take place, but it is a possibility we have to reckon with. I wish we could continue the peace and prosperity in Europe and could end the terrible bloody conflicts in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Libiya, Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia. If we don't do anything, ehtnic, nationalistic, religious and cultural tensions will divide Europe in the future and will drag Europe back to it's dark past of the Middle ages and centuries of armed conflicts and destruction.
Cheers,
Pieter
