President Obama managed to step into a classic Eastern European controversy this week. It was perfectly clear that when he said that Jan Karski, a hero of the resistance to Nazi Germany, did time in a "Polish death camp," he made a mistake. Somewhere, a speechwriter misplaced an adjective — such things happen — and the president quickly owned up to it. All this is clear to any honest person, but alas, there are very few honest people in politics, especially when you're talking about the past, and especially here in Eastern Europe.
The nature of the hysterics in Poland is very revealing. Here's Prime Minister Donald Tusk's freakout: "we always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II.” Outrage, pain, self-pity... this is all practically boilerplate. But even I'm taken aback by it — just what "bad intentions" does Tusk imagine the President harbors toward Poland? what kind of insult was he slinging by awarding America's highest possible civilian honor to a Polish war hero?
It took a few days to blow over, and it seems everyone's delicate sensibilities are soothed. “The events of the past few days and the U.S. president’s reply may, in my opinion, mark a very important moment in the struggle for historical truth,” Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said. Swell, but the thing is, there was never a question about "historical truth." It was a mistake.
If all this gassing is about any "historical truth," it has to be the craven political culture of early 21st century Europe, and the thin-skinned malice so many here still cling to. No one doubts what a terrible, bloody, and cruel century just passed, but the obsessive need to control a simple, self-affirming story is sad. Anything that complicates a black and white parable of pure-hearted Polish (or Hungarian, Latvian, Ukrainian, etc.) suffering at the hands of Nazi or Soviet aggression cannot be tolerated (a critical note: you can also talk about Russian aggression but never, never German aggression). The details vary from country to country — Hungary's unwillingness to acknowledge its complicity in Nazi warmongering, Poland's defensive insistence that it was always perfectly blameless, Ukraine's deeply unpleasant effort to convince the world that famines caused by Stalin's collectivization were worse than the Holocaust.
Understanding history requires you hold multiple ideas in your head at once. And if you refuse to do that, you're not talking about "historical truth" at all, just plain political gamesmanship.
Among the loudest outraged defenders of Polish honor was Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, husband of neocon hack Anne Applebaum, and former resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He had the decency to — eventually — accept Obama's apology in a tweet: "Thank you, President Obama. Truth, honor and the legacy of Karski satisfied. Please feel free to send us your staffers for re-education."
First, I'm touched he admits that Obama — that socialist — is really our president and didn't ask to see a birth certificate. Second, he knows where he can stuff his Polish "re-education" camps.
Is it worse to bury the past and try to forget it, or to keep selectively stirring it up for cheap tactical purposes? Who knows, but it sure is depressing that the idea of making peace with the past in an honest and well-intentioned way never seems to be an option.
The nature of the hysterics in Poland is very revealing. Here's Prime Minister Donald Tusk's freakout: "we always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II.” Outrage, pain, self-pity... this is all practically boilerplate. But even I'm taken aback by it — just what "bad intentions" does Tusk imagine the President harbors toward Poland? what kind of insult was he slinging by awarding America's highest possible civilian honor to a Polish war hero?
It took a few days to blow over, and it seems everyone's delicate sensibilities are soothed. “The events of the past few days and the U.S. president’s reply may, in my opinion, mark a very important moment in the struggle for historical truth,” Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said. Swell, but the thing is, there was never a question about "historical truth." It was a mistake.
If all this gassing is about any "historical truth," it has to be the craven political culture of early 21st century Europe, and the thin-skinned malice so many here still cling to. No one doubts what a terrible, bloody, and cruel century just passed, but the obsessive need to control a simple, self-affirming story is sad. Anything that complicates a black and white parable of pure-hearted Polish (or Hungarian, Latvian, Ukrainian, etc.) suffering at the hands of Nazi or Soviet aggression cannot be tolerated (a critical note: you can also talk about Russian aggression but never, never German aggression). The details vary from country to country — Hungary's unwillingness to acknowledge its complicity in Nazi warmongering, Poland's defensive insistence that it was always perfectly blameless, Ukraine's deeply unpleasant effort to convince the world that famines caused by Stalin's collectivization were worse than the Holocaust.
Understanding history requires you hold multiple ideas in your head at once. And if you refuse to do that, you're not talking about "historical truth" at all, just plain political gamesmanship.
Among the loudest outraged defenders of Polish honor was Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, husband of neocon hack Anne Applebaum, and former resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He had the decency to — eventually — accept Obama's apology in a tweet: "Thank you, President Obama. Truth, honor and the legacy of Karski satisfied. Please feel free to send us your staffers for re-education."
First, I'm touched he admits that Obama — that socialist — is really our president and didn't ask to see a birth certificate. Second, he knows where he can stuff his Polish "re-education" camps.
Is it worse to bury the past and try to forget it, or to keep selectively stirring it up for cheap tactical purposes? Who knows, but it sure is depressing that the idea of making peace with the past in an honest and well-intentioned way never seems to be an option.
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