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You are > Home > Prayers for Poland in the hour of need
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Thursday, April 22, 2010
Prayers for Poland in the hour of need
BY FINBARR SLATTERY
WHILE I was looking at Euronews on Saturday, April 10, breaking news flashed on the screen stating that there was a plane crash in Russia with the Polish President and his wife on board.
A photograph of the president flashed on the screens giving his name, Lech Kaczynski and I recognised the man straight away as being a half twin.
I remembered also that Lech and his half twin, Jaroslaw, were President and Prime Minister of Poland at the same time – a unique distinction for any set of twins to hold anywhere in the world. I’d be surprised if it ever happened before.
Jaroslaw was born 45 minutes ahead of Lech on 18 June 1949. They both went into the film industry together and in November 1962 starred in the Polish film The Two Who Stole The Moon.
On 13 December 1981 Lech was interned for supporting Lech Walesa’s Solidarity trade union. Walesa was a great favourite of mine and I often told students I was lecturing around the time when he was in the news that Walesa was destined for greatness and sure enough he became President of Poland (1990-1995).
He was TIME’s Person of the Year and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1983. On 18 June, 1989 Lech Kaczynski is elected to the Senate to represent Solidarity so there was a strong connection between Lech Walesa and Lech Kaczynski.
On 27 October 1991, Jaroslaw became a member of the Polish parliament. On 13 June 2001, the twins teamed up to found the Law and Justice Party. On 18 November 2002, Lech was elected Mayor of Warsaw and on 23 December 2005, he became president. Less than seven months later, on 14 July 2006 Jaroslaw became prime minister.
What a coincidence – twins who shared their mother’s womb for nine months, occupy the two top positions in Poland at the same time. They held the posts for over a year until Jaroslaw lost office on 21 October 2007.
At the top the twins thought they had full authority but their success in attacking corruption at home, sometimes by questionable methods, led to upsets in the European Union which Poland had joined. This resulted in Jaroslaw being ousted from office and a likely defeat in his quest for a second term for Lech in this year’s presidential election if he was still alive.
All through his life, Lech Kaczynski had wanted to be his own man and being a staunch Catholic in a Catholic nation, generally had the backing of the natives in what he did.
"Lech Kaczynski didn’t follow the modern rules of politics," said Ryszard Bugaj, a close confidant. "He didn’t sell himself – he just said what he thought."
Early on he differed with his hero, Lech Walesa and, sadly, they had a falling out.
"We worked together to build Polish democracy," said Walesa, leader of the Solidarity movement that brought down communism in 1989. "Differences later drove us apart but that is a closed chapter now," he added.
The differences were based on how they viewed Poland’s negotiated transition to democracy in 1989 – for Walesa a transitional process was a necessary evil, but for Kaczynski it was the whole hog or nothing as he felt that failure to make a clean break left Poland soaked in corruption and cronyism.
Now, it seems that the ill-fated journey that wiped out Poland’s governing elite might have been the indirect consequence of years of competition between the president and the Polish Prime Minister.
And to conclude this piece, here is a brief extract from the prepared speech which the Polish President was going to deliver at the 70th anniversary ceremony of the Katyn massacre.
"Polish officers, priests, officials, police officers, border and prison guards were killed without a trial or sentence. They fell victims to an unspeakable war. Their murder was a violation of the rights and conventions of the civilised world. Their dignity as soldiers, Poles and people, was insulted. Pits of death were supposed to hide the bodies of the murdered and the truth about the crime for ever.
His intended concluding words were:
“Let’s pray homage to the murdered and pary upon their bodies. Glory to the Heroes! Hail their memory!” Poland in mourning, as shown on TV, was something very special. Oceans of lighted candles and flowers to be seen on the street. Queues, some kilometres long lined up to walk past the president’s coffin and say a prayer while doing so.
The funeral on Sunday was something very special but not the great occasion expected – volcanic ash kept many leaders away, including Barack Obama who had planned to come. Still it was an occasion never to be forgotten. Cannons fired a 21 gun salute as the bodies of President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, were interred in the crypt in the Wawel Cathedral, the resting place of Polish kings, saints and national heroes. Jaroslaw Flis, a political scientist is Krakow, described the occasion being ‘for the Poles a similar trauma to the JFK assassination in the USA.’
There was a special Polish Mass in the Friary, Killarney at 3pm on Sunday for President Kaczynski and his wife Maria and the 94 others who died ion the April 10th crash. The Mayor of Killarney, Michael Gleeson and his wife Kathleen attended and there was a large attendance of Poles from the area present. The Mass was a lovely occasion with magnificent singing throughout. Fr. Marceli, a Polish Friar, stationed in Killarney was the celebrant.
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