Jarosław Kaczyński: To sprawa pana Tuska

Hiya Rooboy,

Yes, OK. Mr Tusk is not, or had not been, till the most recent developments, as
good a manager as he should have been. This has led to the present crisis, one
could perhaps even say, constitutional crisis, where the boss of a political
police force, parading as an anticorruption bureau (CBA), openly challenges the
rule of law by attacking the office of the Procurator, and accuses the PM
himself of not telling the truth. (And that’s "the tip of the iceberg".) Mr
Tusk's procrastination in putting CBA in its proper legal framework is not a
good testimony to the qualities of his management. He is not alone. Politicians
are notoriously bad managers. Politicking without good management results in bad
politicking. Consider also the present government's failure to put matters right
at TVP/Telewizja Polska (Polish public television). When Mr Tusk came to power
the chairman of the board there was a former neo-Nazi (this description of him
is quite kosher, approved by a Polish court) a bloke called Farfał. (Can you
imagine the BBC, or your ABC, with a neo-Nazi in charge?). Now, this bloke
Farfał was placed there when the PM was Mr Jarosław Kaczyński. The neo-Nazi has
now been removed, after a long legal battle, and TVP is now back in the hands of
Mr Kaczyński's party (PiS), and of the post-Communists (SLD). They have just
shared the spoils between their own people, thus removing the possibility of TVP
becoming an independent public broadcaster in the near future. Mr Tusk, however,
has always been a strong and vociferous advocate of TVP becoming a totally
apolitical broadcasting entity. He has been in the office now for two years.
Even allowing for a very primitive Polish legal culture and understanding of
public responsibility - a really huge and crucial obstacle this, directly
attributable to the cultural legacy of 40 years of Communist rule in Poland - it
is a long time for any PM to allow for a main television broadcaster to be able
to set up what is in effect a team of "journalists" and producers, whose aim is
to prevent unbiased and honest presentation of facts. And this as a result of
removing a neo-Nazi!!! Just think Rooboy. Elections in a year's time and the
BBC, or ABC, are taken over by two political parties in order to have political
control over the news and current affairs. And they call themselves European;
you know the traditions of democracy and rule of law, and all that. Thus TVP is
now in the hands of Mr Tusk's political adversaries - what's more, he will be
their main target - paid for by the licence payer. (Mr Tusk wants to scrap the
licence fee, as part of a program of reform of the media to make them
apolitical. A very bad idea.) Is that good management? No, it is not. But it is
a different sort of bad management, from the one imputed to Mr Tusk by you. A
quirky combination of too much politicking and honesty seems to be the cause for
Mr Tusk's present bad times. A civilised and well mannered liberal that he is,
he does not seem to respond quickly enough to the shit that is directed at him.
He is behaving as if he were in a truly civilised and pluralistic system. Alas
he is not. Who knows, perhaps it is not a bad way to behave, rather than
lowering himself to the level of Mr Kaczyński, or some neo-Nazi, whose
understanding of, the rule of law, free speech, and civilised public debate, is
totally beyond the pale of what is acceptable in a supposedly free country. Mr
Tusk certainly has got his work cut out now, as you rightly say.

Rooboy, I have no problem with reading books by Janusz Tazbir or Norman Davies.
I was not impressed by your definition of nationality. Never mind.

Przypomnij mi łaskawie o tym "i". Coś sobie kojarzę, ale nie do końca. Jestem
przekonany, że nikomu nie przeszkadzamy na tym forum. Nikt przecież tego nie
czyta. Proponuję jednak jeszcze tylko jeden drobny tekst, czekam na to "i", i do
ponownego spotkania niedługo, pod innym już tematem.

Pozdr ciepło,

t1