WHAT EVERY EUROPEAN MUST KNOW
More than one torch of enlightenment lights the mind of Polish readers lost in a mass of information. At the newsagent’s occasionally the new issue of “Niezbędnik Inteligenta” (Tool Kit of Educated Person) appears. One can also regularly buy a supplement to the Saturday’s “Dziennik” – “Europa. Tygodnik Idei” (“The Daily – Europe. A Weekly of Ideas”). However the publisher of “Europe” has decided to use a less pretentious title, the strategy taken is almost identical to the one of “Polityka”s (“The Politics”, a weekly supplemented by Tool Kit of Educated Person). To educate, enlighten and form a European Pole. Never mind the details and subtleties as both of the projected Europeans don various costumes, have different taste, habits and book collections. The essence of similarity lies in their principles: both Europeans feel provincial lack of universal thought. Even if they have not felt this way yet, they will soon do so.
The strategy of “Europe” characterized in such a way and up till now hidden under the innocent title, has entered a definitive phase. John Gray and Richard Perle, invited by the “Dziennik” have visited Poland. Attention please, “only in Warsaw have they talked to each other in person for the first time”, as we are informed by the editor Krasowski in the introduction to the discussed issue of “Europe” (51/2006). The striking power of this confession may be properly evaluated only remembering the introductory rhetorical questions asked by the “Dziennik”s editor-in-chief: “May the most influential minds be invited to Poland and treated like humans not demigods? May we ask them questions which not only they find interesting? Certainly, we may.”
After the prolonged series of discussions whether the American empire will fall down or whether it will graciously reign over the whole Solar System, the main issues addressed by “Europe” in the series of debates which have just begun have not been fundamentally remodelled. The conversation between two kind gentlemen, for whom the essence of dispute remains the attitude towards America, its actions and plans for the future, was emphasized as the hit of the issue. Is Iraq a failure or victory? Was there a moral right to intervene after the attack on WTC or did America formulate the right too hastily? The questions are well known to the regular readers of “Europe” as well as the set of possible answers. Therefore, it seems doubtful that such series appeals to the readers. All the probable geopolitical scenarios, from democratic optimism of Fukuyama to sacrificing apocalypse of the enchanting Rene Girard, have already been presented by “Europe”. It only remains to wait which one comes true.
So as not to sit idle maybe it is worth trying to introduce new problems, to introduce new “Europe”. Before the familiar world turns ultimately into the paradise or wilderness, maybe it is worth trying to put aside the discussions about Putin’s authoritarianism, Islamic fascism or globalisation. We could, for instance, read literature however demagogic and naïve it would sound. Formerly, in pages of “Europe” Markiewicz and Markowski discussed criterion of truth in interpretation, we could read the interview with Rymkiewicz (lately once again, except that in pages of the “Dziennik”), learn something about Houellebecq. The editorial staff of Weekly of Ideas less frequently decide to initiate such themes and presence of such personas. Maybe it results from the precise specifying of the magazine’s subtitle: maybe the editorial staff understand those ideas only from the narrow ideological perspective – in the meaning of the term given by Karol Marks.
In this respect a fragment of the autobiography of Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk does not also give a reader a moment’s rest. Pamuk observes himself, his family and nation from the wide sociological perspective. What is more, he himself uses the tools of thorough observation generated by mentioned-above Marks, as for example the category of social class. Pamuk’s childhood takes place in the idealized setting: there are no plush toys, swings, fights or the first love but only “occidental Turkish bourgeoisie”, “great modernization projects”, “secularization”. Old little Pamuk flicks through his own memories and smiles indulgently. “But that’s the result of Occidentalism of Turkish middle class”. A bright kid from a bourgeoisie Turkish family tries to make us believe that he could look at life from the perspective since the very beginning. “Even with my childlike mind I was able to comprehend that virulent comments of my grandma, about our electrician stopping the job to say the prayers, referred not so much to the unfinished job as general habits that prevented the development of the country.”
Pamuk does not leave the first questions about the existence of God without sociological commentary: “My fear was not the fear of God but, as in the case of the whole Turkish secular bourgeoisie, fear of anger of those who believe in God too zealously (…) As the rest of the cautious inhabitants of the building I feared God’s anger but like others I associated religious habits with low social position.” Despite the fact that the Nobel laureate seems to put brackets of irony round all the remarks, he does not depart far from the ideological convention of his own childhood’s perception. Homo politicus, emerging from the short fragment of the autobiography of Orhan Pamuk, is apparently not strong enough to finally abandon political categories. What a pity! It could have been even more interesting.
Dilemmas of Miłosz
In the discussed issue of “Europe” the editorial staff call from the beyond Czesław Miłosz himself to answer the ideological questions. One can familiarize oneself with the yet unpublished letter of the author of Trzy zimy (Three Winters) addressed to Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. The epistle will not provide any reader of Zniewolony umysł (The Captive Mind) with shocking experiences. Maybe Daniel Beauvois, the discoverer of the fragment of correspondence, still has not read it yet as he writes that Miłosz gives in the letter “remarkably unequivocal expression of his political dilemmas.” It makes us say that it has not happened for the first time. However, one can ask what for… Miłosz was posthumously labelled a communist, social democrat, liberal. It has eventually left only the bad aftertaste.
Andrzej Franaszek, who watches carefully the correspondence between Miłosz and Iwaszkiewicz, tries to ease the ideological tension. However his draft manages only to even the outline. Franaszek avoids radical expressions, flinches at the thought of unequivocal judgment and nevertheless he remains within the deliberations on the attitude of Miłosz to ideology. As we read: “Certainly, it is difficult to assume that the author of letters to Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz was perfectly honest when writing them, there is also no pose stricken if only to himself. Undoubtedly behind the self-portrait outlined by young Miłosz stands a romantic and modernist mythology of the author – an oversensitive nature, the cursed poet… With no doubts, however, this image is closer to the truth than the image of communist sympathizer and fierce enemy of lordly Poland.”
Miłosz, in his lifetime engaged in the current disputes, lives in the public debate as an immune bard or politically embarrassing commentator of the contemporary history of Poland. The questions referring to the ideological horizon of the author of Dolina Issy (The Issa Valley) appear to be still the most attractive.
Weekly of Ideas?
My relentless declension of the term “ideology” stems from bitterness – “Europe” limited its possibilities. It is becoming a weekly concerning political science as if against its subtitle. Within its range of interests have invariably remained global political scenarios or individual confusion of world views: arguments with the authority, arguments close to the authority, and arguments over the authority. Problems outside the political spectrum are once again subject to ideologization. I, by no means, accuse “Europe” (and similarly the “Dziennik”) of promoting a certain world view. The problem does not lie in lack of pluralism but in the more and more limited space of its realization. The editorial staff make the weekly interesting only to sociologists, political scientists, market analysts, historians of political doctrines. Even the last page of every “Europe” issue (traditionally devoted to the selected poet) does not cover up this impression. A poem by T.S Elliot from the cycle of Ariel Poems was added to the discussed issue of the Tool Kit of Educated Person. As en embellishment four reproductions of prints by Franciszek Starowieyski have appeared in the issue as well. The true European should feel fulfilled.
Arkadiusz Wierzba
Translated by Barbara van Dommelen
Discussed journals: Europa – Tygodnik Idei