Like all countries with the real-socialist past, Poland is grappling with many political apparitions. In the twentieth century it became commonplace to say that Poland was governed by two coffins: those of the pre-war authoritarian socialist-leaning Marshall Józef Piłsudski and the leader of the anti-Semitic nationalist Roman Dmowski. Present Polish politics continues to be haunted by ever new spectral embodiments of these two apparitions.
Ghosts of the past, spectres of the future
Two of them seem particularly important nowadays: the ghosts of the past and the spectres of the future. Slavoj Žižek took Poland as his example in order to suggest a possible way of dispelling both daemons. He wrote:
“How to escape this double ghost, the ghosts of the historical past as well as the ghosts engendered by swift capitalist modernization itself? Far from providing the answer, an anecdote about Poland is perhaps at least instructive as to this point, proving that we in Slovenia have a lot to learn from Poland. About a year ago, I heard the rumour that Adam Michnik and General Jaruzelski became personal friends. Sceptical as to this story, I asked Michnik himself about it when I met him at a party in New York – and, to my surprise, he confirmed it. Although – to avoid a misunderstanding – I have no great sympathy for the argumentation of those who endeavour to justify Jaruzelski's imposition of martial law by some ‘patriotic’ reasoning, I found this story extremely touching: this is what I would have called civility as the very basis of civilization, and a friendship like this is what is totally unthinkable in Slovenia, where we remain caught in ridiculous petty personalized struggles”.[1]
