I listened to Donald Tusk’s speech as a citizen with clearly defined views on the country in which I want to live and raise my child. And I wondered whether Donald Tusk mentioned my needs to any extent, because he did not always do so.
I do not want Poland as it was under Civic Platform before 2015. I want Poland after the pandemic, in 2021, in a completely new reality. I want it to be governed by people with modern views. People able to build the country’s position in Europe and the world, who respect human rights and are committed to climate and environmental issues, modern technologies, and open to the new challenges brought by reality. I want people who will create an environment conducive to developing innovative solutions, people who can efficiently abandon behaviors they have already learned in order to learn new ones without fear.
Will Tusk give me that? Probably not, but in his speech Tusk reminded me of something else: my agency. The agency of the female and male citizens of the Republic of Poland.
What did Tusk say to me? He said it bluntly and directly: let us bid farewell to the people currently governing Poland from the United Right. Because these people are harming Poland through their actions. And this is the matter that must be dealt with first in Poland. To quote Donald Tusk: “When you see evil, fight it and do not ask for additional reasons.”
How are the people of the United Right harming Poland? They are stealing a good future from the younger generations. They do not care about Poland’s ecological well-being in the face of the approaching climate catastrophe. They do not care about the safety of female and male citizens. They turn us against Poland’s neighbors. They insult and hurt Polish women, excluding some citizens of the Republic of Poland because of their sexual orientation. They do not hold the hierarchs of the Catholic Church accountable for crimes involving the concealment and protection of pedophilia. And anyone can add something of their own here.
Donald Tusk told me that the United Right is strong only because of my weakness, that it is a grotesque group of people, not an overpowering force. And I can tell them: you have someone to lose to. Polish women and men are going for victory.
Grażyna Hanaf