The Daily - Part 4: Poland’s Culture Wars

Episode Date: June 13, 2019

In Poland, a nationalist party has been in power for four years. We went to Warsaw, the capital, and Gdansk, the birthplace of a movement that brought down Communism, to see how this government has changed democratic institutions. Guests: Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times, and Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison, producers for “The Daily,” spoke with Jaroslaw Kurski, a newspaper editor; Magdalena Adamowicz, a politician and the widow of a liberal mayor who was murdered; and Danuta Bialooka-Kostenecka, an official with the governing Law and Justice party. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Poland’s nationalists aren’t seeking to take the country out of the European Union, but to take the European Union out of Poland.With national elections approaching, both the government and its opponents have sought to shape the country’s historical memory.Poland’s governing party has made opposition to gay rights a cornerstone of its campaigning, escalating fears that the divisive rhetoric could translate to violence.

Am I 14? Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. We started this trip by going to France, where we spent time with these people who were in the middle of this loose movement without a leader. A movement that's dying and that, for the moment, has no hope of really running things in France. We then went on to Italy, where the frustration of people has been channeled into another movement, but one that has been successful at actually being elected into government. But it's only part of a government, part of a coalition government.

They're not running things yet. In Poland, a nationalist government has actually been in power for four years. And we're here to sort of see what that does to institutions, what that does to democracy. We want to see what that looks like. From The New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Katrin Benhold. Today, Poland. It's Thursday, June 13th. So we go to Warsaw, Poland's capital, the biggest city in the country.

You guys want to go in this cab? We grab a taxi and we head over to see this newspaper. Is it Wyborcza? Wyborcza. Wyborcza. The Gazeta Wyborcza. Thank you. we head over to see this newspaper. Is it Viborska? Viborcha. Viborcha. The Gazeta Viborska. Thank you.

What did you say? We're here? We're here. We went inside to ask for Jaroslav Kuski, the deputy editor. Hello. I'm Claire. Hi. Most people call him Jarek. Jarek, c'est moi.

On a parlé en français. So I don't speak Polish. Jarek is not super comfortable in English. So actually this whole meeting had been arranged in French. We ended up speaking this strange mix of the three. Thank you for making time. Should we go and sit? You're welcome.

So Jarek walks us down the hallway. He's this tall, composed, pretty formal guy in his mid-50s. And we take the elevator up to an office. The newsroom at this point is pretty empty because it's late at night. And we sort of all huddle on this couch in the corner of the office. And I'm suddenly reminded of this thing that my dad used to tell me when I was growing up in Germany. My father used to say that Polish is the language of freedom. used to tell me when I was growing up in Germany. My father used to say that Polish is the language of freedom.

Yeah, it was true. During the 80s, yes, it was absolutely true. And that launched him into the story of Poland's history, his paper's history, and his own history, which we realized are all linked. We were the witness to many, many events. Tonight, the politics and the practical problems of feeding Poland. So when Jarek was a kid in the 70s and 80s, Poland was a communist country. It was part of the Soviet bloc.

One month of martial law has not solved Poland's acute food crisis, and private Western agencies are rushing to help. And at the time, the Polish economy was struggling. Wages were stagnating. The media was censored. And a lot of people longed for more freedom. The police shot the people, and there was the victims and the death. And then this movement started, this movement against communism. It was called Solidarity. The new Solidarity movement was born last summer. It started with a group of shipyard workers in Gdansk, a city on the Baltic Sea, Jarek's hometown. When striking workers forced the communist government to grant many concessions. Jarek was a teenager when all this was going on.

And he and his younger brother Jacek saw all of this happening right in front of them as this movement was growing. And they took part in it. I take my bicycle and put the cigarettes and sandwich to the people who participated in the strike. They also wrote for this illegal student newspaper, an anti-communist student newspaper. And later they wrote for another newspaper

linked to the Solidarity Movement itself. They did everything they could to support the movement. And all across Poland, the support for this movement, for solidarity, was growing. Good evening. Leading the news this Wednesday, Poland's Solidarity Union was legalized, a move that will end the communist monopoly of power. And in the end, the movement prevailed. Communism fell, and Poland became a democracy. Poland was the most free country in the Soviet blocs. And at that important moment in Poland, the Gazeta Wy in the Soviet blocs.

And at that important moment in Poland, the Gazeta Wyborska was born. This was Poland's first free, non-communist newspaper since World War II. Have you been at the newspaper from the start, when it first started 30 years ago? Have you been here? Jarek started working there just a few years after the newspaper started. As a reporter or as an editor?

As a reporter. And Jarek said the Gazeta Wyborska had become the voice of a liberal democratic Poland. And as the paper was growing, so was Poland's economy. And then in 2004, Poland joined the European Union, and this helped develop the country even more. You have the European flag in your house? And once

Poland joined the EU, the economy improved, life improved for a lot of people. The country opened up, wages went up, people could travel. But there was another narrative that started to play out across the country, especially in rural areas. In the countryside and in smaller towns, the transition from communism to capitalism had proved particularly painful. These state-run businesses and farms had closed down with the fall of communism,

and there was often mass unemployment for a period of time. And a lot of people there felt left behind. These people have been watching their country change. They've been watching as church attendance rates have been falling, as gender equality and LGBT rights and other sort of liberal ideas are taking hold. They worry about their familiar old way of life changing. They worry about their values being diluted. They worry about losing what it is to be Polish.

And they blame the EU. And they blame the EU. And out of this frustration, a new political party was born. Law and Justice, or PiS, P-I-S in Polish. The party promises to represent these people. It's a message that resonates. And Jarek's own brother is one of these people. So Jarek goes into journalism, but his brother pursues a career in politics, and the two

drift apart politically. And in 2015, just as this migrant crisis unfolds in the rest of Europe, this conservative nationalist party wins the majority. And it becomes the first single party to control the government in Poland since the end of communism. And up until this point, the Gazeta Wyborczka is basically Poland's main daily newspaper.

But Jarek says that once this new party is in power, things start to change. Almost immediately. And the first event that he sort of recalled this kind of ominous warning sign was that one day, when he was at work in the newsroom, they were having this office party. It was a singer and a concert. And while this was happening, a priest showed up outside the office. A priest who supported the new government. And this priest

had come to stage an exorcism. An exorcism of the newspaper. He was there to exorcism of the newspaper. He was there to exorcise the devilish spirits of liberalism from the building. And what starts as a kind of bizarre, absurd, almost funny scene becomes increasingly threatening. Because the crowd is growing. It's chanting. And it's becoming more aggressive. It's chanting about the paper promoting Islamic terrorism,

promoting LGBT rights, promoting a transformation of Polish society. The crowd becomes so threatening. Jarek tells us the police had to secure the building. So very soon after this very public exorcism, Jarek told us that the government started to go directly after the media. Jarek told us that the government started to go directly after the media. And the first thing they did is they took over the state broadcasters. So radio and television stations that were owned by the state but had previously had editorial independence, kind of like the BBC,

were now basically controlled by this government. They came in, they fired journalists, they put in their own, and they brought in a new chairman, someone who supported the government. I can't explain this. I have a brother who is the head of the TV. Jarek's own brother.

What is public television in Poland today? I don't have to say. So as soon as he took over, he started running news and segments that were basically in line with the values of the party. Anti-Islam, anti-migration, anti-LGBT, anti-press and anti-EU. Once the state media were under control, the government went directly after the independent press. And for Gazaravi Borszka, Jarich's newspaper,

he says this meant that basically all the subscriptions and all the advertising linked to any government-affiliated office or enterprise were cut. When was that? office or enterprise were cut. When was that? 2016, 15, 16. 15, 15. December 15, January 16.

Gas stations run by the government were instructed to hide the Gazeta Wyborska to make it more difficult to find if customers wanted to buy it. Can I just ask you in terms of the impact, the financial impact, can you quantify that? Can you sort of give an idea of, I don't know, you lost in one day, you lost, I don't know, half of your subscriptions or like a third or 10%

or whatever it was. He said he doesn't know exact numbers, but he said it was huge. The government is using its power to try to strangle the newspaper. to try to strangle the newspaper. And then they're starting to sue journalists. It starts suing the paper.

It starts suing individual journalists. Jarek tells us that there have been at least 30 cases against the paper. And that means that journalists are operating in this environment of intimidation on a daily basis. So at some point, the newspaper starts referring to itself as the opposition. So we're back to a historical moment. A crucial moment now. One second. Yeah. The opposition to the government.

Just like they were the opposition to communism 30 years ago. That's not usually the role for a free and independent newspaper in a democracy. democracy. The paper would say they have no choice in this moment but to fight back, and that they'll drop opposition from their name as soon as law and justice is out of power. But I'm struck that just by calling itself the opposition, they are actually contributing to this divide in Poland. And that's basically where things stand today. The divisions in Poland run really, really deep. Me and my brother, we served as an example of this clivage, this split.

We were hoping to interview your brother, but he hasn't really responded. It's obvious for me. He refused to have the interview with any international, broad newspaper and media. He was a supporter of Solidarity then. When did it turn? When did he turn? Do you have a night? I mean, this story of Jarek and his brother,

it's kind of an incredible story. They don't talk to each other. They haven't talked in years. Jarek can barely talk about his brother. It makes him too upset. And it seems crazy, right? This one brother running a liberal newspaper and this other brother running the state-controlled broadcaster. But it's not an uncommon story in Poland. These divisions run right across families. They run through friendships. And people literally stop talking for life. Jarek thinks this is all incredibly dangerous.

Because he thinks that the kind of propaganda that is coming out of the state-controlled broadcasters is fueling hatred. The atmosphere, atmosphere was created. And if you are the responsible to this propaganda, you have to take into consideration the possible consequences. And Jarek tells us about something that happened in his hometown of Gdansk earlier this year. Something that he said could be seen as a kind of direct consequence of all this hatred. It was the product of the propaganda. And so we went to Gdansk

to hear that story. We'll be right back. So we get to Gdansk, and we head over to this Catholic church at the center of town. It's this church... To meet Magdalena Adamovic. Do you come to this church for Mass? Yes, yes. This is the basilica. This is the biggest church in the world built by bricks, right, out of bricks. And here my husband is buried. So? Outside the gate.

So she invites us to her apartment and shows us into the living room where we sit down with some tea and some cookies. I will serve a little one. We call them magdalene. Magdalene. And she starts telling us about her late husband, Pavel Adamovich, who was mayor of Gdansk for 20 years. My husband was before a conservative person. He was considered to be a conservative? Yeah, he was like conservative person. He stood as a conservative and he represented conservative values to the point of banning gay pride in Gdansk in the early years. But he was someone, she said, who always challenged his own views and he was happy to listen to other people's opinions.

He observed the people, he observed not only, you know, the infrastructure, but what the people are doing, how they react, what is the culture, what is the tradition. So she said, for example, he would speak to people in Gdansk and scribble down notes whenever somebody said something that surprised him or challenged him. He always had some small papers in his pocket here and always put some notes. Then he would come home at night and would take all these little scraps of paper out of his pockets and he would review them with a glass of wine and just make sure that he remembered what people had told him. Then after years, he changed. And it took him some years, but when the nationalist government

came into power in 2015 and started coming down hard on the LGBT community, he shifted on that issue. He said, no, we cannot allow to treat these people as sick people because they were considered by our government as sick, as people who are in danger because of diseases and so on. And in 2017, he not only allowed gay pride, but he marched. And when he took part in this LGBT parade, gay pride, was there a backlash? Yes, there was some hate on him.

some hate on him. For example, National TV did over 100 programs showing my husband as a thief, as a liar. He became a target on state television. But even as his views shifted, Pavel was still re-elected. And in 2018, he began a sixth term as mayor of Gdansk. So I went to California at the end of November. Around this time, Magdalena was in California with their two daughters. And Pavel joined them for a family vacation.

and Pavel joined them for a family vacation. And that has never ever happened before that we were all together so long without his job, without any, let's say, friends and duties. So it was a very special time for us, you know. After a couple of weeks, Pavel had to head back home because he had business to attend to as mayor and Magdalena stayed behind with their daughters.

And then he called her early in the morning, soon after he got back. I had some nightmares. And he said he'd had nightmares that night and he couldn't really sleep and he didn't know maybe it was the jet lag. And I said to him, he told me goodbye. It was a short conversation and they say goodbye.

And then Magdalena goes to church later in the day and takes her daughters. She turns off her phone during the service. And when she comes back out. I turn it on and I saw my niece was calling three times. She realizes she has a ton of missed calls. So she calls her niece back and her niece tells her that her husband has been stabbed. I thought it's not true. And I was starting to call all his deputy mayors, you know, one and the other one,

and nobody answer, nobody answer. I said, okay, this is winter. He has, you know, a thick jacket and probably he's only a little wounded, you know, and nothing happened. And probably he's only a little wounded, you know, and nothing happened. It is winter. He would have worn a thick winter jacket. He's probably in a very good hospital. It's probably all going to be fine. But then more calls start coming in,

and she's beginning to realize that this actually happened, that her husband was stabbed in Gdansk, on stage. He was stabbed in the heart. I really didn't know what to do. I called my agent to find tickets. Eventually she finds an indirect flight via London, gets on it. So all the way, you know, we were like praying that he would be alive. And then she lands in Gudansk. She's picked up at the airport and she's told that her husband is already dead.

So she goes to the hospital and she sits with his body. So I have to unzip him. I have to unzip him. And... And I was talking to him, telling goodbye. Touching him, kissing him. What did you tell him? Why, why he... Why he...

left us. Why he left us. That we need him. The man who stabbed Pavel Adamovich was a mentally unstable individual. He'd been in an institution. But in that institution, he'd been exposed to a lot of state television. And this is one thing that leads Magdalena

to think pretty much immediately that her husband was killed by an atmosphere of hate. She blames the media. She blames what she called institutionalized hate speech on the public broadcaster. I think it is polarization. Without that, I believe my husband would still be alive. Polarization killed him.

Yes. And I thought, I have to do something. His death cannot be waste, you know. She decides to run for office. She decides to run for a seat in the European Parliament. What is it that you, if you get elected, what is it that you want to change? So what I'm afraid,

it's that nationalists and the people who who are really against the european union and would like to blow up the european union from inside it can happen everywhere you know she told us of her grandmother and her great-grandmother, who had both survived Auschwitz. If you divide people, if you differ the people between them, if you think that someone is better than the other, you know, then you can have the same story as it was before, you know? We'll be right back. So we say goodbye to Magdalena. And we reached out to the Law and Justice Party

to basically find someone to ask this question to. Is this government and the state-controlled media, are they creating an atmosphere so full of hatred and so full of division that it may have inspired the murder of Magdalena's husband? Danuta? Hello. Nice to meet you.

And we meet Danuta. Danuta Bialuka Konstaneka, a local official from the Law and Justice Party. I prefer to speak through the interpreter. We meet her at our hotel in Gdansk. She's very conservatively dressed, elegant,

and she has this kind of nervous laugh. And I asked Anuta, do you think that your party's discourse contributes to an environment in which societies become very polarized and a deranged individual might have the idea to stab a mayor on stage? Now, it was interesting because Danuta did not dispute that there was a lot of division in Poland. She did not dispute even that the state-controlled media was blatantly biased in favor of the government. But she rejected the idea that the murder had in any way been inspired by that atmosphere. inspired by that atmosphere.

She claimed that this had simply been the act of a mentally unstable individual and that division in society, which she also considered a problem, was the fault of all sides involved. And the Law and Justice Party is changing Poland what does the party stand for? and she basically said we are Polish

and we want to stay Polish we want Poland to stay Polish what does that mean? it's a different question it's more of a different question it's more of a philosophical question I think there are certain things that all Polish people have in common and that's language, culture, tradition and history And religion I asked her and she said yes, religion too

Christianity Can you be gay and atheist and Polish? Of course you can She said her party doesn't tolerate discrimination can you be gay and atheist and Polish? Of course you can. She said her party doesn't tolerate discrimination. But what she said she didn't like and what her party didn't want is what she called active promotion of those values.

Is that what the mayor in Gdansk was doing? By marching with gay pride? Is it what allowing an openly gay person to teach in a school would be doing? Is it what letting someone be openly gay on the street would be doing? What does that phrase really mean? Active promotion.

Thank you. I think I'm done now. So I thank her. We wrap up the interview, but she looks pretty exasperated. So now we just take a photo very exhausting i'm sorry but it's so interesting thank you it's really interesting you know i mean we need to understand everybody better i i'm not quite happy because i have a feeling that you don't understand

our point of view maybe we need to meet again and talk some more. What do you think we don't understand? I think you're still thinking that our democracy is flat and we are fighting for democracy. I don't think that Poland is the same. Do you think Hungary is a democracy? I ask her if she thinks Hungary is a democracy. Hungary has had a nationalist government for even longer than Poland. And there, the free press is pretty much entirely gone. And the country actually calls itself a liberal democracy. A democracy that is no longer built on liberal values.

Do you think Hungary is still a democracy? Yeah, I think so. Okay. And do you think Germany is a democracy? Yeah. I think so. Come to me. Do you think Germany is a democracy? I think it is, but I can see some threat for democracy in Germany.

And I'm beginning to realize she wants to take the liberalism out of democracy. She thinks liberal democracy ultimately limits freedom. She says having a system which guarantees freedom for the individual, that's just fine. But it's when that system is imposing specific behaviors on people that it's not right anymore. She says democracy should give people what they want and that that's what Poland is doing. Her party was elected by a majority and it's keeping its promises to that majority. Whereas a liberal democracy has these freedoms that aren't negotiable. It imposes minority rights on the majority.

So we have this sort of moment at the end of this interview. minority rights on the majority. So we have this sort of moment at the end of this interview where these two opposing visions of democracy suddenly clash and just kind of sit side by side. And honestly, I think this is the closest we've come to understanding what the battle for Europe's future is over. It's not about democracy versus something else. It's about these two

opposing views of democracy. We've been coming at this like there's no such thing as democracy without liberalism and she's saying you've got it exactly wrong liberalism is actually undemocratic it only allows for one perspective and in poland she's saying the majority of voters, not only do they not share that perspective, they voted against it. That's democracy. I don't know the German society. I have been to Germany a long time. Germany, she says, not so much. And that's where we're going next, back to Germany, to find out about the results in these EU elections,

to see how Europe is starting to answer this democracy question. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Goodbye. That's it for The Daily. I'm Katrin Benhold. See you tomorrow in Germany.