LGBT, feminists and minorities are othered and abjected.

But there are also inclusive voices such as that of the filmmaker Agnieszka Holland and her lesbian movie director daughter, Kasia Adamik who said: “Two years ago I had an accident, but my partner could not receive any information about my condition. That was a dramatic wake-up call for someone who was not very/all that interested in this issue. Today I am convinced that the possibility of entering into a civil union is absolutely essential. It really simplifies life: you can buy a flat together which you can then pass on to your partner as an inheritance, but he or she will not have to pay any property taxes on it. Right now it may likely turn out that after the death of one partner, their extended family will inherit their property. But the possibility of registering a civil partnership is also an issue of identity: it would give you the sense that you are a citizen with full rights rather than someone from a lesser category. I am lucky because I lived abroad for a long time and I didn’t have to struggle with these types of problems, but I think that for a homosexual in Poland this is a fundamental issue.” Agnieszka Holland added: “It’s possible to live without this law, but why? People who love each other want to promise one another a shared life, as well as share the fruits of their labor and shared responsibility. The existence of civil unions doesn’t take anything away from heterosexual partnerships.”

Also on the optimistic side, a new visibility campaign with parents of lesbians and gays has been launched in Poland. Grodzka City Gate-NN Theatre cares for Jewish memory in Lublin: http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2013/01/21-notes-on-polands-culture-wars-part-1-1-11/ And an artistic project involving the homeless is taking place in Cracow’s Bunkier Sztuki (artist: Lukasz Surowiec, curator: Stanislaw Ruksza). Eastern Europe’s culture war is going on: http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/128799,Lech-Walesa-%E2%80%93-Gays-should-be-made-to-sit-at-the-back-in-parliament Thank you to Tim O’Flaherty for his help in translating these statements.

On the other: All Polish Youth, Krzysztof Bosak, Krystyna Pawlowicz, fascists, ultrantionalists, offensive placards, combat boots…

 The latter attack the former as they have in the past and as they will in the future. The former attempt to respond with poetry, art, peaceful protest and the occasional defamation lawsuit. This culture war ebbs and flows, today entering a new and disturbing phase of escalation. I join in your outrage, Tomek. But I also wonder: what’s up with the bystanders? Poland is inhabited by millions of citizens eligible to vote and otherwise participate in democracy. They watch these battles. True, some turn away, or regard them with nothing but mild amusement or total indifference. But isn’t it the case also that things are in flux, that more and more people do show up for Gay Pride and other protests, that scholars speak out loud and clear against abusing academic authority by “professors” like Pawlowicz, that xenophobes and homophobes are slowly finding themselves on the defensive? Could it be that the National Movement is regrouping and attacking with an increased viciousness because increasingly they are seeing their discourse delegitimized? I might be too optimistic or simply wrong as I watch things unfold from a distance. But for example the Polish debate on civil partnerships seems to be showing that it is no longer ok to say, as Pawlowicz did, that “gay people contribute nothing to society.” Even the Civic Platform, the ruling party of bystanders, is undergoing some turmoil precisely because it underestimated the importance of the issue of civil partnerships.

Don’t get me wrong—I’d be the last to say that the neofascists are not dangerous. They are, very much so, and especially as long as the social and economic injustice generated by the transition and exacerbated by the crisis continues to drive people into the arms of demagogues. But in Poland and elsewhere we have a deep reservoir of powerful ideas with which to fight ultranationalist extremism. These ideas, of tolerance, respect and equal rights, are contagious. The fascists know that and they respond with hatred and fear.