Column_THIS HORRIBLE DEMOCRACY
An allergy to democracy is spreading around rapidly. It sounds like a chorus in the statements of viewers calling “Szkło Kontaktowe”1 – the favourite television program of all the “wykształciuchy”2 , comes on in every self-respecting column and blog, is a subject of the talks in trams, buses and plains, ousted traditional problems brought up in drunken mumbles. Generally speaking: it’s not the way it should be.
At this point I must boast that the literature, in accordance with its immanent nature, has foreseen this phenomenon in advance. Not to be groundless, in my novel “Rezydenci” written in the mid III RP the author noted down such a reflection: “We thought that both worlds differ as the day and the night. But the new reality quickly became miserable, so after the years we noticed that the previous one was only the darker side of the same thing”. From the perspective of suppressed nation it seemed to us that the form of government ruling in the Far West doesn’t contain any perversions and our crude pseudo-socialism has no ‘positive pluses’. So when we could finally taste democracy we choked. We felt that in place of glace cookies we got sad cake.
And here we reach the point, so cold the matter of fact. Now, we’re still looking at world with eyes of a person socialised in a communistic camp, we identify democracy with the relations top–bottom. Don’t we like the mug of His Most Gracious Highness? So awful! How unsuccessful democracy is! What a horrible thing! We need to heap our pennies to buy the nearest cheap flight and escape to the place where rulers’ faces are more amiable. But before that I encourage you to retreat a few steps to have a wider view on our lame democracy. Maybe from such a broadened perspective we will manage to see that the system is much more capacious as, but the stick with two ends – “rulers” and “subordinates”, it contains uncountable number of other, sometimes extremely complicated tools.
To certain extend, no matter if we like the idea or not, democracy means also the free economy. And it keeps in ‘great respect’ the political absurd, it lives with its own life, resembles an elephant which walks in chosen direction, at chosen rate, seats where it wants to and there’s no aggressor which could threat it. Such a political tiger, leopard or at least fox, can only scratch on a back or tickle in foot such an economic elephant, but it would be better not to stand on its way, otherwise the aggressor will be certainly minced.
Not to talk only about money, let’s have a look on the other efflorescence of democracy – the free media. It would seem that the thesis about the fourth power as a guardian of citizens’ rights it’s a perfect truism. But still there are many politicians who think that media can be pacified, appeased or simply bribed. Certainly they can, however this would mean the end of democracy once forever. Free media and democracy can’t be taken apart from each other. We may not like the frantic run of youth reporters, sticking the microphones under the noses of intellectual troglodytes, searching high and low for the affaires and grubbing in the dumps but as a result of all those, sometimes unhygienic, activities create the force which is able to sweep every politician from its chair.
Let’s look round the democracy once more. How many traps, tunnels, walls growing right under your nose, the meds unmarked on the maps there are in this system. National Elective Commission can all of a sudden close the inflow of money to the party budget. Constitutional Court can overthrow absurd acts; nurses wearing their gowns surround ministerial buildings; doctors stop treating and miners stop mining… Almighty, it would seem, politician grows smaller just in a minute.
And here’s another difficult world for today – decentralization. Of course, as to make the media to keep their mouth shut, we can also centralize decentralization; the only problem is that if we succeed democracy would be abolished. It wouldn’t be a reason for complaining! Democracy means an agreement on the existence of slightly anarchized territorial self-governments whose habits are similar to the habits of economic elephant. Ant it’s, as a matter of fact, the most pleasurable feature of democracy since in majority we live in our small fatherlands: villages, little towns or even metropolis ruled by the local bosses. And they, elected by us and known with both their names and surnames, are to take care not only so that we wouldn’t twist our legs on an askew pavement but also to secure us against the blindfold blows of the Robocop of the state. Embodiment of this rebellious, self-governing, anarchistic force was found in a person of the famous major from Mazury who detected the signature of his which has been falsified by well-paid amateurs from CBA and by doing so he thwarted an elaborate spec-action.
This tiny accident it’s nothing else but the democracy in action. Can you imagine something like that happening under the previous system? Along the most possible version the major would go to buy a sugar to tea (drunk from the glass with a spoon inside it) and then he would sink without a trace. Along the hard-core version his remains would be spread from Stettin to Ustrzyki Dolne. Along the most horrifying version the major… wouldn’t notice anything. He would look at the falsified signature once or twice, he would put the document into the administrative course at ease and then he would dip his mouth in unsweetened tea with a felling of relief.
So I ask you kindly – do not complain.
3/8/07
Adam Ubertowski
Translated by Monika Jankowska