Different Worlds
It is much easier to assume that a topic has been exhausted than to recognise new facets of something about which everything, or nearly everything has been said. The clash of opposites – two different visions, ideas, and worlds – has long been a source of debate, yet such confrontations are worth exploring as long as they can tell us something about ourselves. The latest, October issue of Odra seems to follow such a rationale and deals with issues revolving around – to simplify – the planes of religion, politics, and literature.
In his text "War of the Worlds" Andrzej Jonas ponders the appropriateness of comparing the present war between Islam and Christianity to the religious wars of the Middle Ages. He attempts to determine whether terrorism is really a battle for souls. "What, then, is the point of this murderous strife?" he asks, and concludes that: "the premise seems trivially simple: leave our world to us! Let us rule and profit from it, and to benefit from contacts between your world and ours. We are not tolerant, and proud of it. There is no room here for human rights, religious freedom, political liberty. The law is to be interpreted by ourselves alone to serve our interests and ours alone. All attempts at loosening the collar we've placed around the necks of people in our world will be punished mercilessly and with all severity. You must accept this unconditionally. Otherwise our suicide-bombers will blow themselves up in your streets. We shall drown you in fire and blood if you do no let us do as we please in our world." Terrorism would then be a struggle to preserve a world based on principles poles apart from those which govern the Western world.
Such a context lends further interest to Michał Mońko's "Escape from Freedom" on how terrorism has limited civil rights in America. The Patriot Act, as Mońko points out, enables arbitrary surveillance of American citizens in the name of the overriding cause that is defence against terrorism. Ironically, Islam in defending its right to a lack of tolerance and limited freedom, contributed to the reduction of tolerance and restriction of civil rights in the USA. Curtailment of democratic freedoms in the wake of the war with Islam is a fact; what seems interesting, however, is the question whether the personal must always be political, whether privacy can/should be protected against encroachment by the state?
Piotr Tadeusz Kwiatkowski's "Our Memories of the Polish People's Republic" contrasts the worlds of capitalism and so-called "people's democracies." The article underscores the growing nostalgia for those times and the surprisingly fond memories people have of them. Delusion gets the better of reality. The author identifies four reasons why Poles speak about People's Poland so willingly and in such good terms. First, there are many who believe that life was better then; second, people miss the developed welfare system of the time; third, relations between individuals were more familiar as opposed to present-day rivalry; fourth, there is the conviction that law and order prevailed in the country. "In the memory of Poles today, the Polish People's Republic is made out to be a state that looked after its citizens; although the standard of living was mediocre, life was predictable, stable, and unhurried. Positive memories of that time draw on the everyday joys of private life, the warm haze of stability – stuff to produce a waft of nostalgia, but too fragile for a symbol which could 'rise above history – a legend,' as Broniewski put it in his about Karol Świerczewski, 'worker and general,'" Kwiatkowski concludes.
Another area where different worlds and interests clash is that of literature and of the awards which help create literary fashions and contribute to the emergence of a contemporary canon. In "Victories and the Vanquished" Przemysław Czapliński analyses the phenomenon of literary prizes in terms of their undeniable utility and concurrent adverse effects. "Ultimately, it is not important," he writes, "how many prizes there are, but how many people they encourage to read. The more we treat awrds as an enticement to read the greater the chance that we won't be dependent on any single discourse about
literature, any single hierarchy or measure of value. It is wrong when we believe that only a handful of prizes matter: a fixed number recognised as the creme de la creme." Rivalry between the awards parallels the competition between literature published by major houses and the literature of fringe publishers, between literary celebrities who profit and are profitable and new writers who require promotion if they are to generate sales. Awards can make or break writers; this dimension of letters is one of domination and degradation where literature is no longer an end unto itself but a way to make big money.
The problems addressed in the October issue of Odra only appear to be diverse. A closer inspection reveals that politics has much in common with religion, upholding liberty with its limitation, promotion of literature with the creation of elitist ghettos, rankings with the eradication of the Other. It turns out that the matter at stake is still primarily power and influence.
Bernadetta Darska
Translated by Marta Malina Moraczewska
Discussed journals: Odra