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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Poland fights totalitarianism by attacking free speech
According to The Scotsman, the communist images of Che Guevera will soon likely be banned in Poland. This is to go along with the bans already in place against Nazi imagery. I'm glad that Che is being compared to Hitler (this can tell you my opinion on that), but I'm saddened that Poland hasn't learned the lessons of the totalitarian regimes they have survived.
The oppression of ideas and speech means the oppression of the people. Even if those ideas are horrible and nasty they should be allowed to enter the market of ideas. The truth is there is no way to prevent them from entering the market of ideas anyway. Just because you get rid of some t-shirts doesn't mean you have wiped out the concepts that they represent.
I myself own two Che t-shirts (this one and this one). I wonder if I would be allowed to wear them in Poland after this becomes law? I wonder if the Polish judicial system appreciates irony.
Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on October 21, 2009 | Permalink
Comments
Unfortunately, many of the post-communist countries are airbrushing their history to make it look as if communism was something invented in Russia and shoved down their throats. In the Polish case this, for example, means pretending Feliks Dzierżyński or Władysław Gomułka never existed.
This t-shirt thing is another example. It's a way of washing this (http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1972/19720707-1.html)
out of existence. "A
seventh-standard girl student concluded her welcome in Spanish with the
words 'We want to be like Ernesto Che Guevara.'" Do you suppose she is still alive?
See
http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2009/05/airbrushing-history.html
Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | 2009-10-21 10:19:03 AM
"Unfortunately, many of the post-communist countries are airbrushing their history to make it look as if communism was something invented in Russia and shoved down their throats."
In 1944, during WWII, the Home Army rose up in Warsaw to liberate the City from the Germans. The Home army did so to create a free capital where the government in exile could take over and create a country free from Communism and Russian influence. While two hundred thousand Poles perished in the uprising, Communist forces waited on the other side of river Vistula for the Germans to crush the resistence. Once crushed, the Germans retreated and Communist forces took over the city.
http://www.warsawuprising.com/
The bottom line is that hundreds of throusands of Poles died fighting the Communists. The vast majority of Poles did not want Communism. They fought and died to prevent Communism. The only person airbrushing history is the author above. Indeed, Poles had Communism "shoved down their throats."
Posted by: John Smith | 2009-10-21 11:25:33 AM
Have you ever heard of Feliks Dzierżyński?
Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | 2009-10-21 12:13:20 PM
There is truth in what both Patrick and John wrote; one does not totally contradict the other except perhaps the numbers claimed.
A part of human nature wants to hide or eradicate that which is unpleasant or hated, which is never successful. This explains the desire to ban "hate speech" and many other things. A wiser approach would be not to try to ban such things but to point out why they are wrong and the harm they cause and have caused. True there will always be a small number of people denying the facts, but the majority will see them for the fools they are.
Posted by: Alain | 2009-10-21 12:18:54 PM
Ah briliant, fight communism with communism. It's idiots with this attitude that created this problem in the first place.
Posted by: Doug Gilchrist | 2009-10-21 4:27:34 PM
Unfortunately, many of the post-communist countries are airbrushing their history to make it look as if communism was something invented in Russia and shoved down their throats.
Have you ever heard of Feliks Dzierżyński?
Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | 2009-10-21 12:13:20 PM
When Dzierżyński was born (1877) Poland as a country didn't exist. And eastern European communism was created in Russia and was shoved down the throats of the Poles, Ukrainians, Romanians, etc. The only "country" where you could make an argument that Russia didn't shove it down their throats was Yugoslavia. The person trying to air-brush history is you.
Posted by: The Stig | 2009-10-21 5:50:17 PM
It’s always amusing, Mr “The Stig”, to see the contortions people will twist themselves into to avoid the simple truth that Dzierżyński was a Pole and Dzierżyński was also a (rather important) Bolshevik. You say that when he was born Poland, as a country, didn’t exist but was part of the Russian Empire. True enough – does that therefore make him a Russian?
Piłsudski (born in the Russian Empire in what is now Lithuania) and Paderewski (born in the Russian Empire in what is now Ukraine) were important in creating free Poland between the wars. So were they not really Poles either because when they were born “Poland as a country didn't exist”?
The simple truth is that all the former communist countries had their own native communists who signed on with that well-known Russian Iosef Bissarion-dze Jughashvili in spread communism in their own countries.
Bolshevism was an international project and attracted people from all over the former Russian Empire. There is no service to real history to pretend that these people did not exist and that Bolshevism was a purely Russian project.
Posted by: Patrick Armstrong | 2009-10-21 7:56:06 PM
"Che Guevara is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom, we will always honor his memory." --- NELSON MANDELA
Posted by: Wyatt | 2009-10-22 2:44:54 AM
Well little Hughey has drank the CIA/United Fruit & Co Kool-aid ...
In Pre-Che Cuba, Americans owned 70 % of the arable land, 1% of the population controlled 46 % of the wealth, and 50 % of the population lived in Bohio shacks. Batista's goons would leave dead bodies hanging in the streets as a warning sign while the SIM (Military Intelligence Service) BRAC (Buro for the Repression of Communist Activities) and Tigres de Mansferrer (Mansferrer Tigers) made up a repressive machinery which tortured and killed thousands.
Batista's dictatorship operated blindly against teenagers, who would be picked-up, tortured through beatings, their eyes plucked out, their finger nails removed with forceps and females would have hot metal instruments introduced into their [email protected] These fascist crimes of Batista cannot be denied by crosses along every highway in Cuba (which I've been to many times).
Many of these men with blood on their hands can still be found living out their last days on Calle Ocho in Little Havana where they support admitted terrorists like Luis Posada Carilles & Orlando Bosch who hijack airliners ala Al Qaeda. Go to Versailles restaurant where I've been and you'll see them.
Che saw to it that war criminals were punished and upheld death sentences handed down by 5 person revolutionary tribunals, this is par for the course in every nation after the collapse of an entrenched tyranny - especially one like Batista's mafia backed state that killed 20,000 fellow Cubans.
Hasta la Victoria Siempre! El Che Vive <3
Posted by: Carlos | 2009-10-22 2:49:17 AM
Carlos, did you see me or anyone else here claim that Cuba was an island paradise before the communists? No it was a dictatorship. I don't know how bad it was compared to other dictatorships, but I will agree that it likely wasn't good.
The point is that neither is Che. He killed thousands of people. Just because a bad person opposed something that was bad does not mean that he was good. After all Stalin was bad, Hitler tried to overthrow Stalin, does not make Hitler good.
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2009-10-22 2:58:50 AM
Don't you love people like Carlos. Batista was bad, so what Che did was alright. Sorry Carlos, Batista being bad does not absolve Che.
Posted by: Charles | 2009-10-22 8:30:34 AM
Truman nuked 250,000 Japanese civilians to win a war and defeat an evil empire ... does that make him a war criminal and murderer?
Posted by: Carlos | 2009-10-22 11:11:05 AM
Che was a butcher who then proceeded to help enslave the people of Cuba. Stop making excuses for him.
Posted by: Charles | 2009-10-22 2:42:10 PM
Some means justify some ends. I'm not sure if what Truman did was moral or not. It is always a good discussion. But as Charles points out, Che murdered and butchered to enslave people (and not just the people of Cuba).
Posted by: Hugh MacIntyre | 2009-10-23 2:34:08 AM
Read Jon Lee Anderson's book if you are truly interested in Che ... not the clownish hack Humberto Fontova.
Posted by: Carlos | 2009-10-23 5:15:20 AM
In response to Patrick Armstrong and others, I don't believe banning the image of Che Guevera is the right thing to do. Poland is wrong in this case. In my opinion, if you want to look like you have poor fashion sense then I strongly recommend wearing Che’s visage. It is completely cliché.
I also don’t think that Stalin’s visage should be banned. Although these laws hurt free speech, I don’t think these laws are meant to limit the free flow of information or speech. These laws are meant to be a signal to the West. The laws say: “Hey! You guys need to take our plight more seriously.” These dudes like Stalin and Che were very bad people and they should not be honored. Sure, initially, Che had some good ideas and did some good things, but eventually he allied himself with one of the most brutal regimes in the world and had a hand in facilitating nuclear war. Che became what he despised.
In any event, I believe these Polish laws are wrong.
That said, the point is that the vast majority of Poles never supported the Communists. Feliks Dzierżyński is just one person. Gomulka is just one person. Every country in the world had its share of Communists, but that doesn’t mean that the vast majority of people didn’t want communism.
Nonetheless, there is nothing to air brush when it comes to communism. In 1944, the government in exile (the true representative of the Polish people) demanded a free Poland with free elections. That never happened because Stalin did not allow it.
Two hundred thousand died during the Warsaw uprising so that Poland could be free from outside influence. Many more died fighting the communists in 1939 when they invaded Poland. In 1990 the communists were crushed in free elections. It wasn’t even close. This point is pretty much beyond dispute.
Dude, what more proof do you need? You are living in a dream world.
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