Скачать или смотреть Aleksander Smolar - Defining the political field (62/201)

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Aleksander Smolar (b. 1940) is a Polish writer, political activist and adviser, vice-president of the Institute for Human Sciences and president of the Stefan Batory Foundation. [Listener: Vitek Tracz]

TRANSCRIPT: And so it all came to an end. My contact was later re-established to a degree, but to this day I’ve had almost nothing to do with the group that surrounded Tadeusz Mazowiecki, sometimes from choice. It depended on the people, some of whom I judged negatively. In any case, there are interesting things in this government. Tadeusz Mazowiecki spoke to me often and at length; as I said, I used to write his speeches for him – I wasn’t the only one who wrote his speeches, corrected them, outlined them. On certain subjects, he didn’t consult me at all believing that I wasn’t the right person for the job as, for instance, the issue of introducing religious education in schools – this was completely beyond me. I mean, this was entirely his decision; I believe that the word ‘proper’ in this context isn’t the best description – it was inevitable. In post-PPR Poland, we couldn’t say no to the Church on this issue especially after ’68 when the communists themselves introduced religious education as the result of weakness and because they were under pressure. They were under pressure from the Church, but they introduced religious education. The authorities later withdrew this ruling. In other words, it was seen as something necessary, unavoidable and just. Was this good? Even for the Church itself, it’s very doubtful. This is very doubtful and much has been written about it. But the fact remains… it’s an example which has a more general resonance. In its early stages the political field itself is being defined, so not only are political decisions taken, but politics itself is being defined. You could say this happens on three levels. There’s the level of metapolitics where the territory of a country is determined. Fortunately, Poland had no difficulties with this. Each of her neighbours acknowledged Poland’s borders, and Poland didn’t lay claim to any others. Nor did Poland have any issues with her population or citizens; there were no tragic events because in the context of Europe today, Poland’s population is exceptionally homogenous. This is the first level. The second level is the establishing of fundamental rules of the game, this is a problem… a problem of the constitution, it is a problem of the decisions that are taken, fundamental decisions, rules. Politics on the constitutional level, fundamental rights. And the third level is everyday politics – who gets what, redistribution and reallocation, so current political decisions. Poland had no issues with the first level, on the third level everything progressed as normal in the formation of political mechanisms. However, on the second level, Poland had issues which it still has to this day including issues it had and still has with the Church.