JANEK SKARZYNSKI via Getty Images
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Usually in the editorial office of the largest liberal newspaper in Warsaw, the legendary Gazeta Wyborcza, they tend to censor abusive expressions, but this time they have decided not to do so because the squares sing in chorus and they keep repeating together for days: “Pierdole Pis”, fuck off Pis, the Law and Justice party, founded by the conservative Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
The images of the streets filled with young people demonstrating against the government’s latest decision – the ban on abortion even in the case of fetal malformation – says from the newspaper’s offices the editor-in-chief Bartosz T. Wielinski, that ” to expect them, but at the same time they turned out to be a surprise. Already four years ago the Government tried to impose these measures, to then withdraw the proposal due to the large street demonstrations that we still remember. Now they have tried again, committing a gross miscalculation: they thought that with the pandemic underway, people would not have raised their voices or thought about anything else. They thought they were using the crisis triggered by the virus to tighten freedoms further ”.
Instead the Poles, but especially the Poles of Strajk Kobiet, the women’s strike, occupied the squares.
″ It happened because Kaczinski lost touch with the reality that surrounds him. In any case, I think he regrets this move. But let’s remember that we are talking about a dictatorial party, in which only one leader reigns, which has been purged of any voice out of the chorus and where only puppets are allowed that repeat his version. Al Pis thought they had won the elections and had total control of society: then they realized that young people, in their twenties and thirties, do not vote for their party. When Kaczinski understood that the electorate had shrunk, he tried to please the rural and the Church ”.
It is a decision that could make abortion illegal even in the case of congenital malformations.
“In the last year a few hundred abortions have occurred due to fetal malformations, but we do not know the real numbers of those who practice it illegally, nor of those who go over the border to be eligible. This law against abortion does not eliminate abortion in Poland ”.
In Germany at the border many German clinics have opened for the numerous Polish women and girls who are arriving.
“Not everyone is rich, not everyone has thousands of euros saved to go to German hospitals: many women go to Slovak and Czech clinics”.
Women who along with the others are now on the street.
“The demonstrations were spontaneous, popular and not political. Especially young people: made up of students, activists, ordinary citizens. I’ll give you an example: in recent years an activist friend of mine, aged 58, always told me that he was the youngest in the strikes he took part in. Now he tells me that when he marches, he looks around and is the oldest. They are depriving people, especially young Poles, of their most basic rights. We all wonder what the government’s next move will be: censor the internet? Declare pornography illegal? We must expect everything ”.
In recent days, Kaczynski has stated that he will use the army to restore order. The Union has made its voice heard against violence.
“Europe has tolerated the narrow gap between the judiciary and the media system in recent years and will keep away from entering into a legal dispute within the country, to determine whether abortion is a human right or not. The saddest thing is that a European country is hostage to an autocrat, an old man who has lost touch with reality, who threatens violence by the police, a violence even more brutal and radical than what we have seen so far. The leadership of his party trembles and when he leaves the seat of power, the party will implode ”.
Kaczinski’s recent statements are very similar to those of a man who is at the top of a country not far away: Lukashenko in Minsk. There, too, the women took to the square.
“Here women have been the fuse: now on the street there are activists, students, ordinary citizens fighting for their rights and those of all. The Belarusians are protesting for a freedom they have never known: after the collapse of the USSR they suffered Lukashenko for over 25 years. Poland instead protests for its lost freedom, which it wants back. The great Polish marches and strikes of 1968 are different for one reason: people were not free to leave the country. Today we are in the European Union, young Poles can get tired of taking to the streets and crossing the border to build a life elsewhere ”.
Will they go instead of staying to fight for democracy?
“I hope not”.
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