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The spiritual heirs of the Polish Communist Party [91]
According to boletus, in post #72, Rymkiewicz was sued for statements made in the Gazeta Polska newspaper article:
"Memory as the cross - it will not disappear" on August 11, 2010
Perhaps the content of speech he gave was identical to that of the article, or perhaps not. It would greatly serve this thread if we could have an English translation, or a link to one, of the Gazeta Polska article in question.
His speech was then widely reported in Poland in Tv and newspapers. He also said that journalists and editors of GW were educated and brought up to hate Poland and Cross, that they are spiritual heirs of KPP and supproters of luxemburgism and by that adversaries of Polish independence and fifth column of Communists (and by that Russians).
Assuming that the speech's content was indeed the same as the article's then we see that he did indeed make a claims that can be objectively verified. These are that the editors of GW support the political theories of Rosa Luxemburg, that they are actively opposed to Polish independence, and that they are a fifth column of Communists. Communist parties are currently illegal in Poland and so saying that the editors of GW are actual Communists, rather than just "spiritual heirs" of communism, is accusing them of membership in a criminal organization. So too calling them a "fifth column" working to end Polish independence is an accusation of the crime of treason. If these criminal accusations are indeed contained in the article in question then the editors of GW did indeed have a legitimately provable case of defamation against Rymkiewicz, but if the article merely called them haters of Poland, and Christianity, and "spiritual heirs" of Communism, rather than actual Communists, then he was still within the bounds of editorial press freedom that should not be abridged.
The problem is that he did not say that in USA, but in Poland.
Indeed it is not surprising to see that in Poland accusations of hatred against the country are taken very seriously because Poland has had a rough time over the last 200+ years. In the USA, a country free from foreign oppression for the last 200 years, accusations of "hatred against America" are thrown back and forth between ideological opponents quite often and no one takes them very seriously, or sues for defamation, when they are made. Another important difference is that in the USA no political parties are outlawed, but in Poland, if I am not mistaken, both the Communist party as well as the Nazi party are illegal, and I understand why the staff of GW, being a paper of the Left side of the political spectrum, takes umbrage at being called the spiritual heirs of an outlawed party, and I see how this lawsuit may be seen as an attempt by them to level the playing field of ideological rhetoric between themselves and representatives of the political Right in Poland, but this leveling is doomed not to succeed completely, because the Left in Poland has its extreme end outlawed while the Right does not. The Polish Left cannot very well call the Right in Poland the "spiritual heirs" of the outlawed Nazi party because that party was essentially one of anti-Polish German reactionary nationalism. Polish Communism is illegal in Poland but Polish reactionary nationalism is not illegal and this lawsuit will not change this fact, and, as Alligator points out, accusations of fifth column communism are taken quite seriously in Poland because there were, until relatively recently, many Polish members of the Communist party and:
The disscussion about screening procedure (lustracja) in Poland was never really carried out. There were some attempts, but they were either too lenient or to harsh. It left the feeling in public that there is some kind of undercover communist organisation, fifth column, who try to undermine Polish state and independence.
Indeed, if one looks at the first page of this thread the initial posts were not about the proper parameters of freedom of speech, but rather about whether, or not, the editor in chief of GW is a crypto-Communist whose anti-Communist credentials are a ruse. The problem for GW is that, although they won this lawsuit, and the poet published his court ordered mea culpa, it is likely that very few people who believe in a fifth column Communist conspiracy in Poland are likely to be convinced that such a conspiracy does not exist, or that the staff of GW is not part of such a conspiracy, just because a judge forced Rymkiewicz to write that "there is no factual basis" for believing the statements he'd made in the 2010 newspaper article. Conspiracy theorists are not known for trusting judgments handed down by governmental judiciaries. This decision will not change that, and more than likely it will only make such theorists believe that the judge is yet another member of this fifth column, thus furthering the paranoia and animosity on the Polish political scene. It will merely make the critics of one newspaper more circumspect about what they say regarding it, since it has been undoubtedly proven that it has the financial resources to pay lawyers to mount successful lawsuits against those who'd dare impugn its affection for Poland and Christianity.
I heard that there is a pill, the pill of Murti-Bing, and if you take it, you can get rid of Concience-Logic Syndrome. I was wondering if you Des have such a pill.
No Alligator I do not have such a pill, but I do have a borrowed copy of Witkiewicz's
Insatiability and I must point out to you that in the novel this pill was passed out, gratis, by agents of the Chinese Communists, to the people of Poland, in order to make them not care about the impending Chinese Communist take-over of Poland, and so, although I do love reading a reference to this rich and thought provoking work of literature, I must point out to you that people, who believe in a Communist conspiracy to take away Poland's independence, could also reference this pill and claim that your being fine with a successful lawsuit stifling the speech of a poet/journalist, who warns of a Communist conspiracy to take away Poland's independence, proves that you have already ingested said pill. I myself do not think you are on the Murti-Bing, but you must realize that stifling the editorial freedom of a newspaper writer is more akin to the Communist way of regulating the press than is allowing said writer to express his opinion of another newspaper freely.
Say, I am a bar owner. You run your local community paper. One day you assert in your paper that I hate Irish Catholic people.
when you had been spreading your lies about me, I had lost 50% of the business to my competitor, or that I have to move out of the district to avoid harassments
Alright Boletus let's say that Rymkiewicz's statement that "GW hates Poland" did indeed cause the paper to lose money, and, since this purported hatred could not be adequately proven in court, the ordered retraction and fine were just. What is to stop GW, or any other paper, from mounting a lawsuit over a statement like "GW advocates governmental policies that are bad for Poland"? Such an editorial statement could indeed cause GW to lose money, and such an editorial statement may not be deemed truthful by the judge presiding over the lawsuit, and thus it too would have to be retracted, and its maker fined, and you have thereby stifled legitimate political debate in Poland, because it may harm a newspaper's bottom-line, and that is extremely stupid and dangerous for Polish democracy, which, like any other democracy, thrives on the free exchange of ideas.
Finally, since Alligator brought up the Murti-Bing pill I cannot refrain from quoting a bit of Sienkiewicz's preface to
Insatiability for reasons that will be readily apparent. Sienkiewicz is herein speaking about the hostile review of his previous novel,
A Farewell To Autumnby a newspaper critic named Emile Breiter
Thus the average reader may be lead to think (and Mr. Breiter is relying on this in order to harass me and damage my reputation) that I am relating facts taken from my own life, about which he (Mr. Breiter) presumes to have some inside information--namely, that I was once raped by a certain count while under the influence of cocaine, that I was kept by a certain rich Jewess in Ceylon, that I once gave cocaine to a she-bear in the Tatra Mountains, etc.
Witkiewicz goes on to claim that these accusations have hurt his portraiture business because "Mothers are reluctant to have portraits made of their daughters by my firm. . . ." Now one can see that Breiter's accusations against Witkiewicz would be possible to prove, or disprove, in a civil court because they relate specific incidents and not, as in the case of Rymkiewic's accussations of hatred by GW, emotional attitudes, but did Witkiewicz take Breiter to court? No, he refuted Breiter in print and that is what GW should have done in the case of Rymkiewicz. By instead suing him in court GW has set a precedent that may end up limiting editorial press freedom in the Republic of Poland and thus harming the Republic of Poland by limiting the free expression of ideas therein.
