Tragedy or comedy?

The traditional view of the public sphere, including the political activity, is based on some assumptions. They are often not stated explicitly. They are often silently assumed to hold. The analysis of all things political is certainly deeply influenced by them.

One set of frequently used assumptions is borrowed from the political culture of mature democracies, e.g. the British and the American one. Unfortunately, the application of the Anglo-Saxon model and other, mostly western European, models is quite limited in interpreting political action in other countries, even if they are also located in Europe, such as the formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In this part of the world the same words may have very different meanings. There are many reasons for this, of which the devastating wars of the last century and the even more devastating reign of communist terror are the most important ones.

Errors in assessing the political situation in Central and Eastern Europe have been made long time ago. Some falsified the reality consciously and willingly, others have done it because they wanted to see something which was not there. There are probably also other reasons for this deception.

The communist and post-communist regimes have put a lot of effort into creating virtual reality and fooling perception. The line separating the tragedy from comedy can be quite thin or more subtle than many people are aware of. The communists have frequently presented tragedy as comedy and vice versa, comedy was sold as tragedy. The West has been unprepared perceptually for dealing with these tricks.

Chief of military counterintelligence suddenly dismissed in September 2013

On 17 September 2013, at 11:55 PM, I sent an email to the Polish president Bronisław Komorowski. The the subject line read "The attack on Polish family" (Atak na polską rodzinę). I wrote that in early 2012 a simultaneous attack has been carried out against me at the university where I work, against my wife at the artistic school where she is employed, and against my daughter at the elementary school which she attended at the time. The methods of the attack were typical of the communist secret services. The attacks were very carefully prepared, coordinated and timed.

I stated in the letter that the operation against my family has been carried out for years. I also indicated that an intelligence service of a foreign country has possibly been involved.

On 20 September 2013 the chief of the military counterintelligence in Poland was dismissed by the prime minister. No credible explanation for this decision has been presented. Rumours about the supposed reasons for the dismissal were spread in the media. The parliament did not investigate the matter.

Murder in Concentration Camp Poland

Release 10, 30 March 2014

Hannah Arendt wrote that concentration camp is a place where everything is possible.

Contemporary Poland is exactly this kind of place. Here everything is possible. The camp extended over the entire territory of Poland uninterruptedly since the Second World War. At a certain point the transition from the communist camp to a democratic state was simulated. However this was only a transformation of one state of exception into another, albeit a more advanced one. The entire public narrative continues to be completely falsified and the entire public life remains under the meticulous control of the junta functionaries.

This is the camp of social death, because the killing of the prisoner involves the annihilation and hijacking of the entire social sphere of his existence, his career, identity, social image, documentary evidence. Predictably, the killing is preceded by stripping the target of dignity.

Full text at lsborkowski.com/pol/

Narrative in concentration camp Poland. Permanent cognitive deficit

According to the conventional view every action of some political entity is meant to serve some purpose. It is tacitly assumed that a political actor does A to achieve the goal of B.

However the actions of the local junta in Poland indicate that their preferred method is very often not centered on doing A in order to reach B. The real goal is often to excite strong emotions about some contentious issue, artificially creating such an issue if necessary, and then trying to maximize the narrative gain using the emotional manipulation as the main tool. In other words, B is not the goal of the action. While B is stated officially as the goal of the action, the real profit comes from arresting peoples' attention. Choices made by the population subjected to strong emotional pressure are hard to reverse. First comes the pressure for an emotional commitment, then the manipulation is carried out, not the other way round.

By forcefeeding the public with emotional stir junta creates an impression of a vigorous public debate. A long, seemingly endless emotional stalemate is the junta's goal. Cognitive resources of the population are thus wasted on relatively unimportant things, while key areas of the camp's functioning remain beyond the cognitive horizon.

The absolute, total control of the narrative in all its aspects, including the full control of the characters participating in the narrative, is the foundation upon which the entire BTL (below-the-line) dictatorship stands. In the concentration camp paradigm, the only characters allowed to take part in the narrative are the camp's rulers and guards. The prisoners are to remain nameless. They might appear briefly in some episodes but junta does everything to hijack their personal narratives and falsify them to suit the needs of the camp.