As Poland’s parliamentary election approaches, a concerning trend has emerged. The far-right party, Konfederacja, with its current polling at 8-12%, is aggressively targeting the young electorate. While they champion economic liberal ideas like ‘economic freedom’ and ‘simple, low taxes,’ they conveniently sidestep the importance of ideological freedom.
There is a well-known saying, popular both in Poland and Hungary, that goes ‘Pole and Hungarian brothers be, good for fight and good for party’. It is humorous, but it is also a symbol of the unique relationship between the two nations, which is a rarity compared to other countries or nations. The saying refers to mutual friendship, similarities and good relations.
Do you also feel that communication is somehow getting faster and easier for us before national election? Statuses, clickbait headlines, short Tik-Tok videos, captions on Instagram photos. If you do not condense the information into three words, do not even bother saying anything. Okay, maybe my age and nostalgia are writing this out of me and it has always been this way, just by analog means. But what I see, even without nostalgia, is the decline of electoral agendas.
According to media reports, the Ukrainian offensive is progressing slower than expected. However, there are many indications that the main phase of the offensive is still ahead of us, and the actions taken so far have only been rehearsals. The attacks are advancing towards the Sea of Azov in order to cut off Russian access to Crimea and divide the occupation zone into two parts.
In the fifth installment of the popular Harry Potter books, Dolores Umbridge, the personification of government meddling in education, forbids professors in Hogwarts from disclosing anything beyond what is strictly pertinent to their lessons. One rebellious schoolkid, however, points out in Umbridge’s class that she cannot reprimand him for misbehaving during the lesson, as it is irrelevant to the subject. He gets detention.
Hungarians are eager to eradicate mosquitoes, but it seems that the government is reluctant to collaborate with its citizens in doing so. Mosquitoes are a big problem everywhere. Not only do they annoy people with their hums and the itchiness of their bites, but also spread a lot of diseases. Therefore, when I visited rural Hungary, I inadvertently served as an open buffet for a cloud of these pests while conversing with someone from a small Hungarian village.
Although history repeats itself, if it is not taught properly, we will not learn from it. Hungarian education distorts the events of the past to accommodate a glorified but inaccurate image of historic Hungary. Instead of teaching historic facts, classes often incorporate folk tales and other romanticized stories. In the lower grades of primary school education, history is taught through stories, which is appropriate.
In a landmark ruling, an administrative court found it illegal to suspend a judge for her ruling. The judge overruled the verdict of the lower court because it included, in its composition, a person appointed at the request of the politicized National Council of the Judiciary. She was charged with questioning the status of the judge, and the president of the court ordered a month-long break in her duties.
The Sejm passed the Act on the establishment of the State Commission for the Study of Russian Influences on the Internal Security of the Republic of Poland in the years 2007-2022. The Commission is proposed to be a public administration body and will be tasked with disclosing alleged cases of widely understood acts of espionage or actions made to the detriment of the Republic of Poland committed by public officials under the influence of Russia.
Transnational repression, as defined by a Freedom House report, describes how authoritarian states reach across national borders to silence dissent and critical voices among diaspora and exile communities. It is essentially an assortment of methods that a state can use to subdue its own citizens living outside of its territory. Freedom House first drew attention to this phenomenon in their 2021 report, “Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach.”
