Taboo and treason
- Paweł Konzal
- Feb 3, 2024
- 3 min read
In many EU countries, including Poland, calls to discuss EU membership and the "balance of costs and benefits" (with emphasis on the former) are on the rise. Proponents of Polexit say that "there can be no taboos," and that "if EU supporters feel confident of their reasons, they should not be afraid of debate." Seemingly right-sounding colloquialisms about the need for openness to a discussion mask an anti-democratic and anti-Polish revolution.
As the Americans say: you can't sit on two toilets at the same time. Every debate, perennial dispute, etc., entails an opportunity cost. If we discuss A, we will not have the time and energy to discuss B. All resources are - by their nature - finite. Time, however, is the only resource that is not under our control. We can choose how we spend it, but we cannot stop its flow, buy or produce more of it.
The first question, then, concerns the value and desirability of discussing EU membership. Is this the most important topic with the greatest development potential for Poland? Is 5 or 10 years spent on an internal dispute about the EU more important than using that time to discuss, think and work to improve the lives of Polish women and men? The opportunity cost is something that enthusiasts of this debate do not mention.
The UK has lost a decade to debates about its membership, the form of exit from the EU and the shape of relations with the EU after Brexit. We are only witnessing the end of the beginning of this process for the UK. Can Poland afford to lose more than a decade in such manner and would it be worth the effort?
One might as well propose a debate on the return of the Recovered Territories* to Germany and the accession of eastern Poland to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)**. A topic that can be described as an asinine idea at best and clearly contrary to Poland's interests and raison d'etat. But since there are no taboos and opponents of the return of the Recovered Territories feel confident, why not discuss it? And so instead of thinking about improving health care and education, strengthening Poland and the EU to better confront Russian revisionism, we could lose a decade by burning ourselves in sterile disputes.
Similar smoke-screen themes diverting public attention can be multiplied (movie Wag the Dog comes to mind). While the absurdity of the CIS membership debate is obvious to every Pole, the discussion of EU membership - also as a result of the long-standing activities of Russian trolls in the Polish public space - may appear to some as being more rational. Both topics are, however, different shades of the same madness of returning to the state before the post-1989 democratic transition. After all, the consideration of leaving the EU is de facto a discussion about returning to being east of the European Union, and therefore east of Europe. No one wishing Poland well would support such a waste of time and resources.
Nor is it true that there are not and should not be taboo subjects. A decade of debates about the annexation of the Recovered Territories to Germany would have built the impression, at least in a part of the population that would have grown up in the atmosphere of this debate, that the return of the lands is one of the normal, acceptable options lying before Poland. Well, no. There are choices that are so incompatible with Poland's raison d'etat that it is a treason to include them in the main political and social discourse. Solutions whose end result is inevitably the loss of the state's independence should not be introduced into the imaginarium of respectable and potentially electable directions for the country.
One is surprised by the lack of resistance to the overthrow of taboos in conservative circles, where an understanding of its role - including the protection of what is most precious in the established values - should be obvious. Revolutionary behaviour - such as introducing the topic of Polexit into public debate - should be treated in these circles as spreading a virus that threatens Polish sovereignty. An act that requires protection from and treatment of, not a debate with.
* Recovered Territories - also known as the Western Borderlands - are the former eastern territories of Germany that became part of Poland after World War II. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recovered_Territories
** Commonwealth of Independent States - a regional intergovernmental organization in Eurasia, formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Independent_States
