"We as citizens will need to be assured that a new government would have faith in democracy, Europeanism and freedom guaranteed by law,” Olga Tokarczuk’s says two weeks before Poland goes to the polls in a potentially pivotal election on 15 October.
"We need assurances that such a government would listen to us and respond to our needs, and not, like the present one, subordinate the majority of citizens to anachronistic ‘traditional values’ adhered to only by a 30% minority,”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Polish opposition seeking to topple the country’s rightwing populist government needs to start spelling out its commitment to progressive causes, the Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk has urged in a rare political interview.
“We as citizens will need to be assured that a new government would have faith in democracy, Europeanism and freedom guaranteed by law,” Tokarczuk told the Guardian two weeks before Poland goes to the polls in a potentially pivotal election on 15 October.
“We need assurances that such a government would listen to us and respond to our needs, and not, like the present one, subordinate the majority of citizens to anachronistic ‘traditional values’ adhered to only by a 30% minority,” added the novelist, who was jointly awarded the Nobel prize in literature with Austrian author Peter Handke in 2018.
The former prime minister, who would most likely need to enter alliances with parties to his right or left to regain power, has recently tried to assuage those fears, expressing his commitment to civil partnerships for same-sex couples and gender-recognition processes for trans people.
“[If] I refer publicly to anything to do with current Polish social or ecological policies, journalists who depend on the present government will immediately respond by stigmatising my words, and the trolls will start up their hate,” she said.
“In the context of the major problems demanding swift solutions with which the world and Poland are struggling, it is shocking that politicians find the time to make malevolent, mean-spirited comments about movies that they haven’t even seen.”
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To me, 30% of voters does not at all seem a “minority”. This is democracy, the majority decides and elects their leaders, it does not matter if not everybody feels at ease with them. Traditional values represent a country’s identity, historical legacy and in the case of Poland, it is what allowed them to survive across multiple foreign invasions and dominations.
The problem is that you can’t have a democracy if you allow antidemocratic ideas to be dominant in the political space. What you get in that case is a tyranny of the majority.
Lmao listen to yourself. 30% of a population is by definition a minority of said population.
And you can preserve cultural tradition just fine without being a reactionary asshole with your governmental policies.
Unless the system has only 2 parties like US, with three or more parties involved having a consensus of 30% makes quite a relevant share.
Yeah uh, there’s a word for that: plurality. It’s a distinct concept from “majority”.
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Democracy is not a tyranny of the majority.
This is not how democracy works, what you described is just a dictatorship of majority (in this case it is literally the minority). Democracy implies that everyone, minority or majority can express opinions and vote freely in ideas that do not harm specific group liberties.
How can an opinion harm specific group liberties? It’s just an opinion against another opinion in the worst case.
yes, who doesnt remember the brave anti LGBT stance Poland took in 1944, so Stalin was like “damn bros, you really hate the gays too, lemme give your country back your independence” I think we even wrote an exam in history class about it…
As much as I agree, I think that this does not have to be exclusive with policies allowing people to live the lives they want, and guaranteeing a safe future which is difficult under my current government. You can uphold family values with abortion legalised. You can transform the energy sector into a greener one without disenfranchising coal miners. All this is being held back by populist agendas of my leading government officials, who do not wish to even uphold the status quo, but to dig in their heels deeper, while telling their voters who are hurt by this that it’s good for them.
Not that simple. Who decides that abortion can be legal and murder can not? Doesn’t murder ban “violate” the freedom of those who are inclined to commit it?
Abortion and murder are two separate and distinct acts.
i remember the Neonazi parties in Germany always claiming that abortion would be murder. Seems to be good company then.
