Democracy in Retreat

1. Democracy in Retreat Populism and Anti-liberalism in Europe

2. Looking back to the End of History • Francis Fukuyama predicted, The end of Fascism, Nazism  The end of Communism  The end of history and the final victory of Western Liberalism. • 1989 represented a symbolic triumph of liberal ideals. With the fall of the Berlin Wall liberalism became ‘the only game in town’ across the entire continent. • Post-communist states have become the most enthusiastic advocates of neo-liberal economics.

3. Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe

4. Democracy in Revolt • In contrast to the predictions, the post-communist countries departed from Western liberal democracy. • Freedom House Report 2018 Democracy in Crisis • Democracy is under assault and in retreat around the globe, a crisis that has intensified as America’s democratic standards erode at an accelerating pace. • Once-promising states such as Turkey, Venezuela, Poland, and Tunisia were among those experiencing declines in democratic standards.

5. What went wrong in the 30 years after 1989? • Economic insecurity: Resentment was growing among the population who were left out. People who could not adapt to technology or market economy. • Dysfunctional system of liberalism: In part their ascent reflects the aftershocks of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Pessimism grew about the economic and political prospects of the West. • Disconnection of citizens from ruling elites: Citizens were to be educated rather than listened to. Michael Gove, the then justice secretary made a famous remark, “[people] had enough of experts from organizations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.” • Fear of immigration: Great migration of refugees from the Middle East threatened national identity.

6. The revolt of people in Europe • The liberal democracy could not solve their problems. The case of Greece is very illustrative here. Greece is no longer allowed to take sovereign socio-economic decisions, but the policies imposed on it by fellow Europeans are clearly not working. • The electorate has been remarkably patient for some time, but it has slowly started to desert the established parties. This has opened a window of opportunity for alternative politicians. • Experts and elites lost credibility: generals, bankers, traders, lawyers, and, of course, leaders of the ruling parties.

7. The rise of populism • Populism is a political philosophy or movement supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against a privileged elite. • Populism is on the rise - especially among Europe's right, and in the US, where it helped crown Mr. Trump, according to BBC article. • Society is separated into two groups at odds with one another – “the pure people” and "the corrupt elite.” • Populists loathe the elites that ruled their countries for the past decades and they both aspire to transform their respective countries in a fundamental way.

8. Who are populists? • Their personal backgrounds and ideological roots are very different: from neo-fascist to neo-communist, from libertarian to conservative, from anti-austerity to anti-Muslim, from nationalist to secessionist. • Donald Trump wants to deport undocumented immigrants. Podemos, the populist Spanish party, wants to give immigrants voting rights. Geert Wilders, the populist Dutch politician, wants to eliminate hate-speech laws. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the populist Polish politician, pushed for a law making it illegal to use the phrase “Polish death camps.” Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ populist president, has ordered his police to execute suspected drug dealers.

9. Under attack in Europe: • EU • liberal democracy • neo-liberal economics • migration and a multicultural society • historical ‘truths’ and political correctness • moderate political parties • mainstream media • cultural tolerance and religious neutrality.

10. Some common features of populism • Populists are said to overemphasize the cleavage between ‘the elite’ and ‘the people’; the former is being demonized and the latter idealized. • Propose simple solutions to complicated problems • Make unrealistic promises • Use moralistic rhetoric, and launch unfair personal attacks on their opponents • Attempts to revise history.

11. The case of Poland. • The country was once viewed as a symbol for the successful integration of former Eastern Bloc countries into the West. • Poland’s president signed sweeping legislation in 2017 to overhaul the country’s judicial system. • The new laws effectively put the Polish courts under the control of the right-wing governing party, Law and Justice.

12. Solidarity and Walesa • Solidarity is a Polish labor union that was founded on 17 September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first trade union in a Eastern European country that was not controlled by a communist party. • In the early 1980’s Solidarity was engaged in a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance. • Pope Saint John Paul II and the United States provided significant financial support. • Walesa was elected president in 1989.

13. Law and Justice party of Poland • A populist party came to power in 2015. It is nationalist, anti-Communist and revolts against European liberalism. • The party has come under international censure for recent steps undermining the functioning of the constitutional court, politicizing the civil service, • They found the elite successfully ruling Poland more interested in the opinion of international rating agencies, foreign press, and European bureaucrats than in that of their own ordinary citizens. • They also argue Poland is a nation uniquely harmed by history and for that reason should have a louder voice on the world stage.

14. Poland and the World War Two • Poland's population losses during World War II were proportionately by far the greatest of any nation participating in the war. Of its 35 million people before the war, Poland lost 6.5 million. An estimated 664,000 were battlefield deaths. • Both Germans and Soviet Russians killed Poles. Together, Nazi Germany and the USSR conspired to wipe the country off the map, working to annihilate Poland’s people, culture and national identity.

15. How Germans killed Poles • 3 million of the 3.3 million Jews who lived in Poland before World War II, or 90 percent of the Jewish population. • More than 2 million Polish Catholics, with special emphasis on eliminating the national elites. • One out of four (25 percent) of Catholic clergy. • One out of four (25 percent) of all Polish scientists. • One out of five (20 percent) of all Polish schoolteachers. • 200,000 Polish children were deported to Germany for purposes of Germanization.

16. Russians killed Poles • 21,000 Polish officers murdered by the NKVD in the Katyn Forest and elsewhere. • Between 1.6 million and 1.25 million Poles were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan between 1939-1941. An estimated four-fifths died either directly or as a result of privations incurred during the deportations. • State Security in Soviet-occupied Poland between 1945-1955 murdered tens of thousands of political, military and intellectual leaders.

17. Poles killed Jews • However, many Poles also participated in some of the worst atrocities of World War II, collaborating with the Nazis, denouncing one another, indulging in rampant anti-Semitism and even participating in pogroms and death camps. • It is this complex and uncomfortable history that Poland’s current right-wing government wants to revise. • “Auxiliary Polish police, fire brigades and ordinary people killed Jews running away from the ghettoes when the Germans were rounding Jews up for deportation to extermination camps. Of the 200,000-250,000 Jews that were alive after the liquidation of the ghettos many were killed by Poles, so that only about 40,000 survived the war.”

18. The law (Anti-defamation act) The bill calls for an imprisonment of up to three years for violations of the legislation, which forbids public mention of Polish responsibility of atrocities in WWII. Law and Justice argues the law aims to fight expressions such as "Polish extermination camps," which purportedly attribute guilt for the Nazis' crimes to the Poles. Guardian article Story idea: Bring history to the present. History is often rewritten, is a great source of news stories. Clash of histories in Poland: • Historians, Government Officials Clash Over Polish History at New Museum People prosecuted by the Polish Holocaust Law • Politico, A Polish-Jewish historian comes under fire for questioning Poland’s historical record.

19. Movie: Aftermath • The fictional Holocaust-related thriller and drama is inspired by the July 1941 Jedwabne pogrom in occupied north-eastern Poland, in which 340 Polish Jews of Jedwabne were locked in a barn later set on fire by a group of Polish males. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIWT0kOzH7Y

20. International repercussions • The Polish Foreign Ministry has said that law would also not limit the freedom to conduct research or to hold historical debate. The United States asked Poland to rethink plans to enact proposed legislation, arguing Wednesday that if it passes it could hurt freedom of speech as well as strategic relationships. • U.S. State Department spokeswoman NeatherNauert voiced her government's concerns, saying that the U.S. understands that phrases like "Polish death camps" are "inaccurate, misleading, and hurtful" but voiced concern the legislation could "undermine free speech and academic discourse." • Israeli view on the matter: Haaretz, Analysis The Polish Were Once Victims of Historical Whitewashing. Now They Are Doing the Same

21. Why do populist regimes revise history? • They think history is not universal. Every nation has their own view of history. It is a post-truth society. “Others (the West) don’t understand” argument. • To create an enemy, and manufacturing consent of the people. Populist regimes exploit people’s angers. • To make people feel good in the age of insecurity.

22. The case of Law and Justice in Poland • Law and Justice thrives on cultural and identity politics. It has contrasted a conservative, Catholic Poland and its family values with a godless, freethinking, gender-bending Western Europe. • Slawomir Debski, the director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs: “The history is part of our identity, which people in other parts of the world don’t understand. What is it to be a Pole? We are the nation that survived World War II and were the victims of both totalitarian systems.” • The party is a combination of Polish nationalism, religious conservatism, anti-elitism and attacks on those who migrate to Poland and threaten Polish values. • The party has risen from almost 38 percent of the vote in the 2015 election to about 47 percent in recent opinion polls. Much of that success is attributed to its investment in the poorer countryside. • Change of Jewish population in Poland:

23. Response of some Poles: An Intercept article • “Stop Jewish Aggression against Poland” is a common catch phrase. • “Israel is fighting to keep its monopoly on the Holocaust. Anti-Polonism in Israel is motivated by a feeling of shame at the passivity of the Jews during the Holocaust.” • Polish news reports. • The phrase Poles are most offended is “Polish Holocaust.”

24. How some Israelis reacted: • Perhaps the most inflammatory response to the new Polish law came from an American Jewish organization, the Ruderman Family Foundation. It produced an intentionally provocative YouTube video in which a series of American Jews pledged to break the law by saying that there had indeed been a “Polish Holocaust” of the Jews. • In 1989, Shamir claimed that anti-Semitism among Poles was so “deeply imbued in their tradition, their mentality,” that they “suck it in with their mother’s milk.”

25. Story idea: Israeli Polish Cyber War What do you think? How would you frame it? A sad case of victims against victims, The oppressed hating the oppressed, Politics exploiting irrationality.

26. Reproductive Independence • “Women’s rights cannot be separated from human rights. Reproductive rights and birth control, including abortion are equivalent to the issue of women’s control over their own bodies (1994 UN conference on population and development).” • This basic right is challenged in many countries recently. The ruling party of Poland, the Justice and Law has announced a legislature to ban all abortions. • Polish Women Protest Proposed Abortion Ban

27. How does the non-West view America? The case of Chinese intellectual: Eric X. Li • Investor and political scientist • Li argues that the universality claim of Western democratic systems is going to be "morally challenged" by China. • According to him, the strength of Chinese political system is Adaptability and Meritocracy (Upward mobility). • Chinsese people optimistic about future http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-37570965

28. How is US viewed by the Freedom House? • Freedom house 2017 report on modern illiberal democracies: “Donald Trump’s United States, potentially the chief bulwark against illiberalism’s rise, has gone AWOL. He gave Kaczynski and the nationalists a pass during his visit to Poland in July. Indeed, the president has been conducting his own campaign against an independent judiciary. He’s called the American criminal justice system a “laughingstock’ and “a joke,” dismissed the legal system as “broken,” insulted judges, called for quick “strong justice” (read the death penalty), and labeled courts as “political.” The impression Trump leaves is that he’d be happy with Vladimir Putin’s law courts, Xi Jinping’s press, and Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. • Lech Walesa, “Obama a dangerous disappointment.”

29. Questions • How similar are the populisms in US and European countries? • Is the US mirroring Europe or vice versa? • What is your own opinion about the reasons for the rise of populism? Story idea • Compare people who support populism in Europe and in US. • Cyber cultural war between Israel and Poland

30. Questions about Poland • Why did Poland retreat from democracy? • Why are they trying to revise history? • What are your story ideas? • How is US related to the changes in Poland?