Latest archive

Biden has fulfilled his historic mandate—being ’Not Trump’–and has done a fair job under incredibly difficult circumstances. But his moment has passed.

If Putin wanted Ukraine, he needed to invade the 1985 version. The Ukraine of 2022 is somewhere else entirely.

The Belarusian nation is at the start of a long and arduous journey towards democracy, which will require mobilisation, awareness and civic activity from most of Belarusian society. Only then will it be possible to depose the country’s authoritarian leader, build a democratic state and introduce political and economic reforms.

Prison, wrote the Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky, is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time. A similar case could be made for social isolation during in the Covid-19 era, albeit in relative terms. So much has already been said about this isolation in the context of hygiene, the economy and politics, but it is now time to develop an adequate language at the human level.

“Doctors will be under pressure from two sides: pro-life and pro-choice proponents. It is a hugely uncomfortable position for the doctors, and puts patients at risk,” says Professor Ewa Łętowska.

Throughout Polish history, the weaker the state, the stronger the Catholic Church. Poland has been a sovereign state since 1989. It will surely laicize itself in the following decades.

According to right-wing vloggers, as many as 500,000 people gathered on 30 August in Berlin to protest under the slogan “call off the pandemic”. A similar event was planned in Warsaw, with participants organising everything via Internet.

“Law and Justice’s approval ratings have fallen significantly in recent months, possibly in part due to the pandemic, responses to which require a politics based on solidarity, cohesion and trust. And yet, Jarosław Kaczyński continues to the same tools that brought him to power.”

Coronavirus has provoked a new political agenda and new emotions. Donald Trump lost the presidential election, but thanks to existing trends, including the prevalent emotion of anger, he can continue to undermine American democracy. In the coming months, anger will work as it did in the cases of Black Lives Matter and women’s rights protests: it takes one spark to fuel a fire.

Die Energielücke nach dem Kohleausstieg soll durch die Kernkraft ausgefüllt werden. Das ist kein Sprung in die Zukunft, sondern ein erneuter Schritt in eine Energieabhängigkeit. Dieses Mal in die der amerikanischen Technologielieferenten, sagt Urszula Zielińska von der Partei der Grünen.

„Wir sollten ein Subjekt und kein lästiges Problem sein. Wir wollen nicht ein zweites Mal menschlicher Abfall sein, wie es bei der Wirtschaftstransformation von Leszek Balcerowicz der Fall war. Für die Bergleute war es eine Tragödie, die wir nicht so schnell vergessen werden“, sagt der Gewerkschaftler aus dem Bergwerk Bogdanka.

Recht und Gerechtigkeit [Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS] und ihre Koalitionspartner entwerfen oft völlig fiktive Bedrohungen – wie z. B. Flüchtlinge oder LGBT, wobei sie die realen Gefahren ignorieren. Dies wird nicht nur an der Klimapolitik, sondern auch am Coronavirus deutlich.

Alle aus der Geschichte bekannten großen Energietransformationen führten neben technologischen auch zu politischen Veränderungen. Angesichts der gegenwärtigen gigantischen Herausforderung der Dekarbonisierung dürfen wir nicht vergessen, dass diese ebenfalls die Chance auf eine politische Neuaufstellung birgt.

Die moderne Museologie kann angesichts der wachsenden Umweltkrise Ausstellungen zu einem Instrument der sozialen Mobilisierung entwickeln. Die jüngste Exposition im Museum für Moderne Kunst [poln. Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej, MSN] in Warschau ist jedoch ein Negativbeispiel und zeigt, wie man es nicht machen sollte.

Für Polen hat der gerechte Übergang [im Energiesektor, Anm. d. Übers.] höchste Priorität, denn über uns schwebt nicht nur die Gefahr von Bergarbeiterstreiks, sondern vor allem das Gespenst der Waldenburger „Armenschächte“. [1]

Bei der Energiewende wird die Überzeugung vertreten, dass wir in Deutschland 100 Prozent aus Wind und Sonne liefern können. Viele Menschen glauben daran, aber es ist ein irrationales Projekt, sagt Daniel Wetzel.

“Last week, I believe, a further step was taken on the road to full-out authoritarianism.”

I have always been uncomfortable with Tony Judt’s famous observation that while Western European nations have too little history, Eastern Europeans have too much. Judt held that while Western Europe’s…

We would like to cordially invite you to the 3rd edition of international conference “Cracking Borders, Rising Walls” organized jointly by Kultura Liberalna, Allianz Cultural Foundation and Foundation for…

“This is the most corrupt administration in American history. By any measure. The president continues to operate a global company and received payments from people around the world. It is obviously…

Emilia Kaczmarek: Are you happy with the amount of money you have on your disposal? Philip Zimbardo: More than happy. I was born in 1933, during the Great Depression. I grew up in family of second generation…

“The idea that Trump’s presidency will implode or that he himself will come to a conclusion that this job is too demanding is a fantasy. He is either going to survive his term or we will see a political…

“There’s a famous line in English which says that «patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel». A lot of it is just flag waving which really disguises the desire of uncompetitive industries and groups to…

“We need to recognize the importance of nations but insist nations are constructed. That means we have a choice about how we are going to continue with this process of construction”, claims the current…

We meet Peter Singer in a Warsaw bookstore. The biography of Singer’s grandfather, “Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna”, has just been translated into Polish. Although the…

“Kultura Liberalna” and “Programme on Modern Poland”, founded by the Oxford Noble Foundation, warmly invite you to the exceptional international conference devoted to dealing with a difficult past in Poland after 1989.

Actually it is quite likely I interviewed a man who was trying to kill me a few weeks earlier. And when I met him, I realized that despite the bad actions he may have committed, he was not a bad man. He believes in something that may not be true, and he may be misguided, but he is not evil. – Olly Lambert in conversation with Grzegorz Brzozowski.