Class Divisions

Poland's controversial education minister bears the standard for one side of the cultural divide. [Also in Russian.] by Wojciech Kosc 27 September 2006 WARSAW, Poland | This year, some Polish students decided to celebrate the start of the academic year in an unusual manner – they demanded the resignation of Education Minister Roman Giertych.

On 4 September, Pupils' Initiative, a group representing high school students from across the country, unfurled banners in front of the Education Ministry reading: "Beginning of school – end of Giertych." And while ministry officials responded to the protest by passing out chocolates to the young demonstrators, it will take much more than sweets to pacify the burgeoning opposition to the controversial Giertych.

At nearly seven feet tall, Giertych, 35, towers over his colleagues in Poland's government. And the controversies he has sparked have cast an equally long shadow over his policies.

Without a trace of irony, Giertych says he seeks to achieve the "sanitation" of Poland's education system based on what he calls four pillars: order, patriotism, prestige, and truth.

But his moves to introduce classes on religion and patriotism have angered liberals who accuse him of undermining secular education and promoting nationalism. His open hostility toward homosexuals is viewed by many as extreme, even for this devoutly Roman Catholic country. His opposition to popular preschool programs for 5-year-olds on the grounds that they undermine family bonds has puzzled many. Educators have accused him of watering down standards on college entrance exams.

Even initiatives that appear noncontroversial, like Giertych's plan to install software to block pornography on school computers, have been ridiculed in the media as ineffective and easy to hack.

And on a darker note, some have called him an anti-Semite. Giertych denies that allegation – which stems largely from his former leadership of a youth group some accused of having anti-Semitic leanings – and, since becoming education minister, has tried to make reassuring gestures toward Poland's Jewish community.

The controversies surrounding Giertych, however, are bigger than one man. They are a metaphor for a larger cultural clash that has been brewing in Poland for years but has become increasingly visible since the conservative Law and Justice Party, led by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, won parliamentary elections last September.

Like America's famous red state-blue state divide, Poland's cultural clash pits what sometimes appear to be two separate countries against each other. On one side of the barricades is liberal, urbane, and cosmopolitan Poland with its fashionable Warsaw boutiques, trendy cafes, and chatty secular media. On the other is a deeply traditional, conservative, rural – and sometimes xenophobic – nation, fearful of change and distrustful of outsiders.

And a central front in this battle revolves around education and traditional values.

The conservative worldview, says sociologist Jacek Wodz, tends to "draw on the interwar tradition that considered the Polish nation superior to others."

A FULL-BLOODED FRONTLINE POLITICIAN

It was hardly the kind of statement that inspires confidence the first day on the job.

"Let’s not start with antagonisms," Giertych told reporters at a Warsaw press conference after becoming education minister in May.

Giertych's ascent to the job – and the controversies his tenure has generated – has its roots in the September 2005 legislative election when the Law and Justice Party won a 27 percent plurality of the vote. A month later, Jaroslaw Kaczynski 's twin brother, Lech, won Poland's presidency with 54 percent.

But due to low turnout in both elections, many liberals have questioned the Kaczynskis' mandate. Turnout in the parliamentary elections was just 40 percent, the lowest since the fall of communism. And in the presidential election, less than half of Poland's eligible voters went to the polls.

After a failed attempt at coalition negotiations with the liberal Civic Platform, the second largest party in parliament, Law and Justice ruled for six months as a weak minority government. It then tacked to the fringes, turning to the populist Self-Defense party and Giertych's nationalist League of Polish Families to form a majority. One of the League of Polish Families conditions for joining the cabinet was control of the Education Ministry.

Once the coalition deal was inked, Jaroslaw Kaczynski took over as prime minister in July. Adding to the governmental chaos, Kaczynski kicked Self-Defense out of the government on 22 September and thus lost his majority in the Sejm, Poland's parliament. He is currently scrambling to form a new coalition, as the opposition Civic Platform presses for new elections.

Nevertheless, the advent of the right-wing coalition led by Law and Justice represented the temporary vanquishing of the cosmopolitan vision that had dominated Polish governments of both the left and the right since 1989. Despite keeping them at a safe distance, the Kaczynski twins have relied on tacit support from the ultranationalist – and anti-Semitic – Radio Maryja and the conservative daily newspapers Nasz Dziennik and Fakt.

This new Polish right wing has appealed, albeit often covertly and in cleverly disguised cultural code, to the deepest xenophobic fears of Poland's rural poor who have lost out in the country's otherwise successful economic transformation. But while staking out a conservative position on cultural and moral issues to placate its rural base, Poland's new rulers have not abandoned the free market-based economic liberalism that has been the country's economic creed since the end of communism.

"The Kaczynski brothers’ long-term goal seems to be to lay out a political landscape modeled on that of the United States, where a populist and economically liberal right confronts a camp that is liberal on moral and economic issues," journalist Darius Zalega wrote in the September 2006 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique.

Anticipating the political turbulence Giertych was likely to generate, Kaczynski's government established a separate ministry to handle universities, leaving him in charge of the nation's primary and high schools.

But even that concession did not placate Poland's nervous liberals.

"For the first time since 1989, the Education Ministry is led not by a professional with academic background, but by a full-blooded frontline politician," the liberal daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza protested.

What followed was a steady stream of controversies and scandals.

YES TO TOLERANCE, NO TO PROPAGANDA

For Slawomir Sielatycki, the head of Poland's National Teacher Training Center, publishing a book about how to teach human rights to high school students probably seemed innocent enough.

Indeed, given Poland's grim pre-1989 history, it probably seemed like a pretty good idea. But the publication of Compass: A Manual on Human Rights for Young People, a work endorsed by the Council of Europe, ended up costing him his job.

The reason: it advocated inviting a representative of a gay and lesbian organization to speak to students.

From the start, Giertych has made it clear that he intends to keep Poland's schools free of homosexual influences.

"It is homosexual organizations that demand my resignation because I am making it impossible to spread homosexual propaganda in schools," he said, reacting to the whirlwind of protests against his nomination. "Let me emphasize: as long as I’m in the ministry, there won’t be any meetings with gay activists in schools. Yes to tolerance, no to propaganda. I also think that it is not just my position but also [the position] of an overwhelming majority of parents," he added.

According to recent public opinion polls, about two-thirds of Poles think homosexuals should not be allowed to "go public with their lifestyles" by organizing public demonstrations. Just 22 percent support same-sex marriages and 46 percent are willing to tolerate civil unions.

But while Giertych's anti-homosexual initiatives have some support among Poland's conservative voters, they are less popular with the European Union. In June, the European Parliament passed a resolution naming Poland as one of the countries where "intolerance caused by racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and homophobia has been on the rise." The resolution also called on the European Commission to investigate whether Giertych violated Sielatycki's rights in sacking him.

Equally controversial has been Giertych's efforts to incorporate classes in what he calls "patriotic upbringing" in order to "raise awareness of what it means to be Polish" in the nation's schools. He has also proposed adding religion to the subjects students must pass on their national college entrance exams and proposed that school events begin and end with the national anthem.

"The Ministry of Education under the aegis of Poland's president will supervise the work on new Polish and history textbooks. We will also implement a national program of youth trips to places of historical interest and places of national remembrance," Giertych wrote in a letter to schools at the start of the 2006 academic year.

But while Giertych's crusade against homosexuals and advocacy of student patriotism are controversial, his efforts against pornography in the schools should have been less controversial. But he has become such a divisive figure that even an apparently well-intentioned effort to install porn-blocking software on school computers was ridiculed in the media.

Gazeta Wyborcza recently reported, for example, that the filters block all blogs but not neo-Nazi websites.

AMNESTIES AND CHOCOLATES

Not all of Giertych's initiatives have generated controversy. He has advocated more discipline in schools, more money for textbooks, and higher salaries for teachers, all laudable goals that have been duly praised.

"No money for teachers’ salaries will mean new elections," he said on 3 September, suggesting that the League of Polish Families would leave the government if his demands are not met.

Critics dismissed this as hyperbole, however, noting that forcing new elections would be political suicide for a party currently polling at roughly 2 percent.

Other efforts to win over students' goodwill have fallen flat. In July, Giertych instituted changes in the Matura system, the standardized examinations that Polish students take after high school that serve as one of the main requirements for university admission.

In an effort to open up opportunities for more students, the exam was changed to allow students who failed one subject to still pass the exam – and graduate – if they passed every other subject. Under the old system, students who failed any subject had to retake the exam.

Critics dubbed the move an amnesty for failing students and alleged that it would create a two-tiered system of graduates, those who passed all their exams and would get into the best universities and second-class graduates who would be excluded from the higher education system. In fact, according to media reports, numerous students who failed one subject this year have opted to retake the exam in 2007 instead of graduating.

According to Krystyna Szumilas, a lawmaker from the opposition Civic Platform who is that party's main expert on education, Giertych's priorities are misplaced.

"He should diminish the bureaucracy that teachers wanting to improve their credential must struggle with," she said. "There should be more extracurricular activities at schools. Teachers should receive help in dealing with the challenges of modern schooling. They need to learn about crisis management and attend more psychology courses," she added.

Despite all the controversy, there have been signs that Giertych is capable of learning on the job and behaving in a less confrontational manner.

When the Pupils' Initiative first appeared on the scene in May, the Education Ministry called for an investigation, alleging that the organization had links to violent anarchist groups.

But by September, ministry officials were offering the activists chocolates.

Wojciech Kosc is a TOL correspondent in Poland.

This article is also available in Russian.