Janczys: Poles are not afraid of any work

I am pushing a button. With a quiet buzz, the computer switches on. On the monitor, there appears Windows logo and, after a while, current news from the country and the world. Poland and Lithuania are absorbed in their own business, as always.

On Polish sites, Natalia Siwiec, Miss Euro 2012, again shows her breasts. This time the media obsess over the fact that she wore an extravagant dress during Playboy’s party. Euro 2012 has long been over, and the taste of losing it became a bit less sour, maybe thanks to Siwiec’s “grace”. Well, that’s the truth: masses of Polish football fans, looking at the celebrity’s breasts, managed to get a grip on themselves and sing “Nothing wrong has happened!” (“Polacy nic się nie stało!”)

Indeed, how anything bad could have happened, if we have such a miracle— Siwiec?

“Enough of that”— I’m thinking, and I’m clicking, and again, tons of mean comments about LOT appear on the screen. I am not much surprised. The apple of Polish airlines’ eye, brand new Dreamliner, just imported to the country for an amazing sum of money, has simply mucked up. Weird, but I’m starting to feel an irrational pride. Pride for Poland! It turns out that not only Lithuanians, but also Poles can do something. We can start really well, but we end up as usually. That is, most often, in sh*t. Scam rules here and there, also on the highest levels. Here a Dreamliner doesn’t fly, there a newly elected government is planning to ruin an idea of their predecessors about building a nuclear power plant in Ignalina.

Conservatists, when in 2009 grabbed the power in Lithuania, sent to a glory box the idea of socio-democrats and their allies about creating a huge “LEO LT”, which was to take up constructing the power plant in Ignalina. “LEO LT” died, slaughtered by the conservatists, so now socio-democrats revenge. Neither of the sides is able to end the conflict and, more or less, focus on their common goal— the development of Lithuania. It is sure, though, that similarly to losing hundreds millions of litas during the “LEO LT” affair, the state will lose money now, too. Again, hundreds millions of litas will be paid by Lithuanians— that is, all of us.

Lithuanian president, Dalia Grybauskaitė, adds fuel to the flames. Not so long ago, with her words and actions, she actively encouraged the (now former) Prime Minister Kubilius to push the plan of building a nuclear power plant through.

Today she personally checks if candidates for Ministers know a foreign language. Those who cannot speak any foreign language are sent away by Ms President. I am amused by the thought that Ms President herself, apart from English, remembers well— from the old times she spent on a university in Leningrad— the Russian language. And on such a level that, as I see it, she could have the highest seats in the administration of the Russian Federation with no language examination at all. Don’t take offence, but studying at a Russian university must have some effects, right?

And I am haunted by a thought that, since majority of Poles in Lithuania knows Lithuanian, Russian and the more clever ones also English, it means that with such a load of knowledge almost every Pole in Lithuania would be a better Minister than some native Lithuanians who know only the Lithuanian language…

Source: http://pl.delfi.lt/opinie/opinie/janczys-polacy-zadnej-pracy-sie-nie-boja.d?id=60108135

Tłumaczenie Emilia Zawieracz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Emilia Zawieracz the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.