Liberals : iść do piekło

In her article published in the large Spanish El Pais daily, Pilar Rahola, left-wing politician and journalist accused Poland of participation in the Holocaust. Poles are taken aback.

Joanna Najfeld reports for Radio Polskie 3-21-07

Poland is responsible for mass genocide of two-thirds of the European Jewish population, the current Polish government oppresses the people by making them come clean about their communist past and discrimination of all sorts flourishes in the heart of Europe, claims a radical leftist journalist and politician in a controversial article published in the Spanish El Pais daily. It's ridiculous, judgmental and totally at odds with facts, responds the Polish side.

Paweł Zalewski, head of the Parliamentary Committee for Foreign Affairs, suggests that the El Pais article author, Pilar Rahola might want to take an educational trip to Poland to see how absurd her accusations are:

'All the theses presented in the article are absurd. It's very difficult to discuss with them. The only reaction could be to invite the author of this article to Poland. I think that this lady has never been to our country. Probably visiting it personally she would realize that the actual situation here is totally different that what she described in her text.'

Polish MEP and history professor Wojciech Roszkowski shares Paweł Zalewski's reception of Rahola's claims:

'To quote some of the theses of Ms. Rahola would be enough to showwhat kind of quality of journalism she presents. She wrote that Poland played a key role in these operations that led to the extermination of 2/3 of the whole Jewish population in Europe and I ask her how could Poles exterminate Jews in Europe while they were occupied by the Nazis.'

One of the other issues in Rahola's article was the juxtaposition of the accusations of anti-semitism and the so-called 'homophobia' .

Professor Roszkowski finds this intentional and symptomatic:

'It's very fashionable today to compare the so-called "homophobia" with anti-semitism. I strongly reject these accusations. Homophobia is a term invented by the gay and lesbian community to present this community as an oppressed community. And this is absurd. It's a result of a long series of promotion of the gay and lesbian style of life. It's already twenty years that this manifesto of the gay and lesbian movement was designed: first, to speak as often as possible about this community, to always present them as victims, and to present those who stick to the traditional values and traditional moral standards as oppressors, to present them in one line with the Nazis, with war criminals and so on. It's absolutely unacceptable. '

The article in El Pais also attacked Poland's recent vetting, or 'lustration' law. History Professor Wojciech Roszkowski was stunned at the level of what he evaluates as factual ignorance displayed in that accusation:

'Ms. Rahola presents our new vetting law as a violation of human rights. You know, she doesn't know what she's talking about. She hasn't read the law and she doesn't know at all what vetting is all about. And also, she has no idea whatsoever about what the former communist security apparatus was. So, I would prefer that she simply kept silent on things that she has no idea about whatsoever.'

Pilar Rahola is a former deputy for the Spanish parliament where she represented a radical left-wing party. She has also worked as a reporter and is just a contributor, not a full time employee of El Pais. But it's not the first time that El Pais gives voice to these kinds of radical attacks on Poland, says Professor Roszkowski:

'It has already been many times that El Pais published articles criticizing not only this or that Polish government but Poland as a nation, Poland en bloc. And now Ms. Rahola exceeded all limits of ignorance, bad will and prejudice. My conclusion is that although it's a daily of the largest circulation in Spain, the quality of journalism in this paper and the control of these articles by the editor in chief, puts it in one category with the worst tabloids.'

The El Pais daily defends the publication saying that the paper presents many opinions. It also promises to publish letters questioning Pilar Rahola's beliefs.

source: Radio Polskie 3/21/07