1 00:00:00,180 --> 00:00:11,090 Welcome everybody to this year's Tarkovsky lecture, which is this year part of a larger conference by the knowledge, 2 00:00:11,100 --> 00:00:17,670 which is Poland, Britain, Europe Project of the European Studies Centre on European Nationalism. 3 00:00:18,510 --> 00:00:28,470 Post 1989, Poland in comparative perspective, and we would like to thank the program of modern Poland, 4 00:00:28,500 --> 00:00:33,810 of the Nobel Foundation and the Polish Cultural Institute and the European Studies Centre for their generous support. 5 00:00:35,150 --> 00:00:39,930 And we've already started with one session for those of you who were there. 6 00:00:41,670 --> 00:00:50,430 The title of the subtitle of the lecture is National Exception or Regional Norm, 7 00:00:51,060 --> 00:00:55,110 which of course, deliberately begs the question, which region are we talking about? 8 00:00:55,650 --> 00:00:59,190 Is it Central Europe? Is it East Central Europe? Is it Eastern Europe? Is it Europe? 9 00:00:59,190 --> 00:01:08,819 Is it the West? Is it the world? And no one is better equipped to address that question than our speaker today, Professor Jack Hooke. 10 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:15,240 The exact work, Nic, is quite simply the doyen of specialists on Central and Eastern Europe. 11 00:01:15,240 --> 00:01:21,030 In France, he's been working on the region, I think before, say, for 50 years, 12 00:01:21,630 --> 00:01:28,050 Jacques, since he participated in even more of 1968 in Prague and Paris, 13 00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:38,670 the anniversary of which we're celebrating this year, he wrote a very fine book on the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 14 00:01:39,210 --> 00:01:43,050 now perhaps a slightly minority interest, but then of some importance. 15 00:01:44,310 --> 00:01:49,620 He did a memorable television series called The Other Europe, which produced a book of that title. 16 00:01:50,220 --> 00:02:00,360 He spent a lot of the 1990s working on two major international commissions on former Yugoslavia, Bosnia and then Kosovo. 17 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:10,340 He has written extensively about issues around populism, post communism, nationalism. 18 00:02:11,820 --> 00:02:21,390 His last book is 1989 as a political world event Democracy, Europe and the New International System, 19 00:02:22,050 --> 00:02:27,930 with an introduction by Vaclav Havel, who indeed Jack knew very well and advised. 20 00:02:28,980 --> 00:02:32,790 So no one of those days would be better equipped to address this subject. 21 00:02:32,820 --> 00:02:43,040 Please join me in welcoming Secretary. Thanks. 22 00:02:43,470 --> 00:02:50,420 Thanks very much, Tim. Great. A very kind introduction being called the doyen, 23 00:02:50,420 --> 00:03:05,570 which simply means age and and being reminded of a book which was a thesis concerning the history of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. 24 00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:11,420 Well, my book of laughter and forgetting that is. 25 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:21,380 So, yeah, it's good to be reminded the 68 hours are still around and it is actually interesting to see. 26 00:03:21,740 --> 00:03:32,299 But I will not inflict that on you at this stage. The debates about 68 that are going on in the unless you are interested in the debate in the after 27 00:03:32,300 --> 00:03:42,050 the after the talk 68 is also one reason why Kolakowski came to this country and to this university. 28 00:03:42,380 --> 00:03:52,610 This is what I had the privilege of meeting him in the mid-seventies of a fighter. 29 00:03:52,970 --> 00:03:59,900 He is he was a real Dwyer of the East European Studies in France. 30 00:03:59,900 --> 00:04:06,229 So but he's all around. And he took me as a young student to see Kolakowski. 31 00:04:06,230 --> 00:04:15,049 And we spent a whole afternoon in the garden here in Oxford discussing the two men were discussing, of course, Eastern Europe, French Communist Party, 32 00:04:15,050 --> 00:04:27,770 everything else, and eventually addressed the fundamental question whether the devil could be considered a proof of the existence of God. 33 00:04:28,340 --> 00:04:34,010 And so I remember that brilliant conversation on that subject, 34 00:04:34,370 --> 00:04:39,169 and I'm sure it was related to our previous conversations about communism in Eastern Europe, 35 00:04:39,170 --> 00:04:46,969 but and of course, many other occasions to remember that I share kolakowski one of them. 36 00:04:46,970 --> 00:05:01,400 Another one here was, I think about 15 years ago, a conference about Central Europe, where L'échec was unanimously elected the king of Central Europe. 37 00:05:01,730 --> 00:05:05,960 So I salute I salute the king. 38 00:05:06,620 --> 00:05:20,570 And of course, not sure the king would recognise this kingdom today because it has undergone evolutions that you started discussing. 39 00:05:21,170 --> 00:05:33,770 This afternoon, Richard Kolakowski wrote an essay that you may remember incidentally, his essays. 40 00:05:34,550 --> 00:05:43,520 I mean, he's known for his magnum opus on Marxism, a number of his essays, which I recently reread, a number of them. 41 00:05:43,760 --> 00:05:59,510 And there's one called How to Be a Conservative Liberal Socialist, which was a way of saying, Forget all Labour's, think on your feet, a new afresh. 42 00:05:59,540 --> 00:06:03,980 This is the kind of good advice we would need for for today. 43 00:06:04,790 --> 00:06:13,580 The opening sentence of that of that essay is to move forward to the back. 44 00:06:14,540 --> 00:06:21,740 And you see, he says, he continues, this is an injunction that I heard once on a tram in Warsaw. 45 00:06:22,070 --> 00:06:29,090 I propose to make it the rallying call for a powerful international that will never see the light of day. 46 00:06:29,480 --> 00:06:32,840 So yeah, move forward to the back. 47 00:06:32,840 --> 00:06:35,900 That could have been the title of this lecture actually, 48 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:51,440 because obviously we are trying to understand the regression of democracy in Poland, but in East Central Europe more generally. 49 00:06:51,980 --> 00:07:01,790 And this less than 30 years after the fall of the old regime, 15 years after accession to the EU, 50 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:06,560 Austria in the 1920s, reflecting about what happened to Hungary, 51 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:19,520 use the term Reichstag regression borrowing from psychoanalysis this term the idea that in times of crisis all structures come to the fore. 52 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:29,690 And so the books like is really what I be trying to address. 53 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:38,570 Now. I will focus on the Hungary and Poland, but of course make comparisons with others as well. 54 00:07:38,810 --> 00:07:46,010 It's difficult to avoid the Polish on. Get in tandem because they've actually made it so they've presented themselves together. 55 00:07:46,310 --> 00:08:00,950 Together. They were in Utah in the fall of 2016 and not only celebrating Brexit, but calling for a counter-revolution in Europe. 56 00:08:01,580 --> 00:08:06,649 And that was, for me, a sort of very symbolic moment. 57 00:08:06,650 --> 00:08:16,459 You know, it used to be that dissidents would meet in the mountains on the Czech Polish border to discuss strategies, 58 00:08:16,460 --> 00:08:23,510 how to democratise their societies now to form dissidents. 59 00:08:23,810 --> 00:08:27,320 Because Orban and Kaczynski are former dissidents. 60 00:08:27,500 --> 00:08:33,170 Two former dissidents meet in the to trust, to discuss, to propose, 61 00:08:33,710 --> 00:08:42,140 to call for a counter-revolution in Europe so that that is one reason to put them together. 62 00:08:42,350 --> 00:08:53,089 The second is Poland has been today put singled out in the procedure, as you know, 63 00:08:53,090 --> 00:09:02,030 the EU procedure of invoking Article seven that could suspend the voting rights of a country. 64 00:09:02,270 --> 00:09:12,050 This is unprecedented and of course it will not happen, as we know, because you need unanimity. 65 00:09:12,860 --> 00:09:20,180 But of course it has brought back, so to speak, the Polish question again in two to the four. 66 00:09:20,390 --> 00:09:30,790 So the Polish question returning in the context of an East-West divide in Europe that 67 00:09:30,800 --> 00:09:40,070 has crystallised over the migration crisis and over the what is now called for short, 68 00:09:40,400 --> 00:09:49,940 illiberal, illiberal democracy. So yes, Kolakowski is kingdom is changing. 69 00:09:49,940 --> 00:09:57,440 The other Europe, which was my own take on this, is becoming other again, 70 00:09:57,890 --> 00:10:11,480 but in a very rather different ways from what writers that were engaged in that debate at the time be the Milan Kundera stuff Milosh, 71 00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:15,860 Konrad and many others had in mind. 72 00:10:17,750 --> 00:10:24,590 So that is the polish I mentioned, that is the Central European dimension, and that is and I insist on that. 73 00:10:25,100 --> 00:10:34,760 The trans European dimension there is a danger, especially in in West European journalism, 74 00:10:35,180 --> 00:10:47,160 of simply describing the situation in Central Europe to which a across group illiberal democracy and you already know where they heading. 75 00:10:47,390 --> 00:10:53,480 I think that as in every stereotype, there is, of course, an element of truth. 76 00:10:53,480 --> 00:11:01,090 And I will, of course, develop that. But but I think that that is missing the point, that this is a problem that is trans-European. 77 00:11:01,100 --> 00:11:06,200 We can observe it everywhere. Where does actually Western Europe start is not clear. 78 00:11:06,230 --> 00:11:15,020 Austria clearly is part of the picture. Austria-Hungary is back in business, illiberal, closed, so to speak. 79 00:11:15,290 --> 00:11:23,390 So yes, but it is a trans-European and I don't have to go country by country to single out, to point out. 80 00:11:23,860 --> 00:11:36,889 Indeed, when you see the way or abandon, Kaczynski welcomed Brexit and in fact, 81 00:11:36,890 --> 00:11:45,980 indeed the whole Visegrad group saying this is the main lesson from Brexit, bring repatriate powers to the national governments. 82 00:11:46,220 --> 00:11:51,260 This is the main lesson that we derive from that. 83 00:11:51,500 --> 00:12:02,870 So Brexit first and the election of Donald Trump then providing the context which seen from Central Europe, 84 00:12:04,010 --> 00:12:16,940 you have what was considered the two main bastions of liberal western liberal democracy going a different way. 85 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:29,840 And you just see the response, as Orban put it in his Daily Telegraph interview immediately after the election of Donald Trump with Brexit. 86 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:34,410 Brexit opened the door with the election of Donald Trump. 87 00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:39,620 We have crossed the threshold. The liberal non democracy is over. 88 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:46,620 What it. A What a day. What a day. He was simply over the top, over the moon. 89 00:12:46,650 --> 00:12:51,900 He could not restrain himself. This was for him. 90 00:12:52,320 --> 00:13:00,570 He said in that interview that he suddenly, thanks to Brexit and Trump, he felt liberated from this European concern. 91 00:13:02,010 --> 00:13:05,310 Liberated is not quite do it. Vindicated is the better word. 92 00:13:05,610 --> 00:13:08,879 He felt vindicated in the previous session. 93 00:13:08,880 --> 00:13:12,480 Somebody raised the question of legitimation. Well, there you have it. 94 00:13:12,750 --> 00:13:17,760 Legitimation. This is what they saw in those events. 95 00:13:17,770 --> 00:13:34,230 So, yes, you were pointing fingers at us, seeing as we are a backward, unruly of unworthy of Europe, periphery of the continent, etc., etc. 96 00:13:35,100 --> 00:13:47,340 No, we were the vanguard of the nationalist populist tide that is reshaping the politics in Europe in. 97 00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:57,370 Internationally actually, because it's Trump. But you could add in other other continents, you could add Modi, etc. 98 00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:08,290 I mean, the list is long. That could you know, there's a kind of nationalist international that that has come into being in recent years. 99 00:14:08,470 --> 00:14:21,390 So this reminds me a bit of of a short story by Maxwell in May about a cyclist in the Tour de France who is lagging behind the peloton. 100 00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:28,960 You know, and he's lagging so much that the following year he finds himself head of the race. 101 00:14:29,290 --> 00:14:41,800 So that is that is a little bit how the a central European nationalist, populist, etc., I think could can be seen. 102 00:14:42,070 --> 00:14:45,910 And this is how they seem to say they're very pleased with themselves. 103 00:14:46,450 --> 00:14:58,120 I've just been to Hungary, seem to think a week before the election I spent a week talking to some of the people in the surroundings of Orban. 104 00:14:59,020 --> 00:15:05,800 They are not apologetic. They're very assertive, very determined, very self-confident. 105 00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:10,060 They have the feeling that the tide is going their way, etc., etc. 106 00:15:10,270 --> 00:15:14,649 So this is something to bear in mind when we discussing the situation, 107 00:15:14,650 --> 00:15:29,020 which doesn't mean you have to sort of not see what is actually happening, but simply be aware that the retarded cyclist is now in the peloton. 108 00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:34,210 The peloton actually is moving or they feel the peloton is moving in that direction. 109 00:15:36,700 --> 00:15:42,400 Time is limited and I'm already behind, so to speak. 110 00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:53,770 What I suggest to do is briefly look at some of the main features of populist nationalism in Central Europe. 111 00:15:54,490 --> 00:16:06,910 You could call it varieties of populism, etc. Look at some of the explanatory hypotheses we can formulate and then look at the European dimension. 112 00:16:06,910 --> 00:16:10,030 What does it what are the implications? 113 00:16:10,030 --> 00:16:14,710 What are the consequences for Europe? 114 00:16:17,350 --> 00:16:31,809 It is good to remember when we look at Central Europe today that the Visegrad Group, when it was created and I think the founding moment was, 115 00:16:31,810 --> 00:16:39,220 I think Vaclav Havel speech into Polish same in January 1990 where he basically outlines the situation. 116 00:16:39,430 --> 00:16:41,230 We are coming out of dictatorship. 117 00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:54,460 We have the common we have cooperated among dissidents, Solidarnosc after 77, etc. in making the democratic transformation possible. 118 00:16:55,060 --> 00:16:58,120 And we have a common goal, which is European integration. 119 00:16:58,210 --> 00:17:02,680 He also added a number of other reasons we have to cooperate to fill the geopolitical 120 00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:09,520 void not just left by the communist system that was disintegrating the Soviet bloc, 121 00:17:09,790 --> 00:17:17,919 but left by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was an interesting point that he was thinking also in geopolitical terms. 122 00:17:17,920 --> 00:17:24,370 And I will now come back to that quote We have now complete regression on all three counts. 123 00:17:25,060 --> 00:17:36,670 They are in Democratic regression. It's not overcoming nationalist tendencies of the pre-war period, which was others concern as well. 124 00:17:37,150 --> 00:17:40,840 They are back on that on that track. 125 00:17:41,080 --> 00:17:50,950 And they have now adopted a very critical or often hostile posture towards towards European integration. 126 00:17:50,950 --> 00:17:55,120 So we have the Visegrad Group in complete reversal mode. 127 00:17:55,420 --> 00:18:02,410 So briefly, the varieties of opinion, I don't think I have to dwell too much on the Polish Hungarian variety. 128 00:18:04,630 --> 00:18:15,100 Budapest in also, as Kaczynski called it, because you are from this audience it's familiar is familiar with it a challenge to the rule of law. 129 00:18:15,100 --> 00:18:19,120 The Constitutional Court. In both cases, of course, this is a common strategy. 130 00:18:19,240 --> 00:18:26,530 In fact, Kaczynski copying in accelerated form some of the things that Orban had done. 131 00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:32,890 Yes. Some of the defendant's media in Poland. 132 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:39,190 This is true for the public media. But you still have independent private media in Hungary. 133 00:18:39,310 --> 00:18:47,890 This is no longer so this is no longer. So I do not think I would think I would see an old dissident friend in Budapest. 134 00:18:48,180 --> 00:18:58,410 So a couple of weeks ago a morning, the disappearance of Nick Saban as the ultimate upholder of independent journalism in Hungary, 135 00:18:59,580 --> 00:19:06,660 that sort of sums it up, how far we have gone. 136 00:19:06,930 --> 00:19:14,490 And they have a common features in that in the discourse the revolution betrayed. 137 00:19:14,790 --> 00:19:17,790 That is a familiar one, of course. 138 00:19:18,690 --> 00:19:21,740 1989 was not to be a revolution, etc., etc. 139 00:19:21,750 --> 00:19:35,790 You know that that version, the related element is the network that has been established because the revolution didn't happen. 140 00:19:35,850 --> 00:19:41,040 You have a network that has been established that is related to the old regime, to the old secret police, etc. 141 00:19:41,250 --> 00:19:45,420 And this is they've got the chance to state the economy, etc., etc. 142 00:19:45,570 --> 00:19:50,340 Cloud, of course, in the Polish in the Polish version. 143 00:19:50,430 --> 00:19:58,560 But the Hungarian one is a very, very well, I, I spoke to the rector of the Communist University who went on and on about that. 144 00:19:58,860 --> 00:20:05,009 He says, what we need is a change of guard. I said, What do you mean, got the communists? 145 00:20:05,010 --> 00:20:09,209 You know they are. But I said, But you know, this is 30 years after the death of communism. 146 00:20:09,210 --> 00:20:12,480 You're beating a dead horse. Oh, no, no. 147 00:20:12,630 --> 00:20:20,670 This is this is a priority, you know. So it it doesn't mean the reality is not important. 148 00:20:20,930 --> 00:20:24,600 It is the rhetorical element of element. 149 00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:36,240 And I think in both cases, Orban, he moved to the right to capture the nationalist conservative electorate very deliberately. 150 00:20:36,750 --> 00:20:44,129 And in a way you can say you remember the piece was in Coalition with some Oberon and the League of Polish Families. 151 00:20:44,130 --> 00:20:47,610 And what are they? They've captured that? 152 00:20:47,990 --> 00:20:51,299 Well, they covered the ground. I think that there are some number of similarities. 153 00:20:51,300 --> 00:20:58,050 You can just I don't need to dwell on that. You have you know that very well. 154 00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:10,710 Perhaps what you may be less familiar with is the Czech and Slovak version, because Czechs and Slovaks, they keep a low profile or lower profile. 155 00:21:11,580 --> 00:21:17,160 But if you look at close range, the picture is not very pretty. 156 00:21:17,790 --> 00:21:27,570 And basically you get a milder version as often with the Czechs, you get a milder version of the same trend in in Central Europe. 157 00:21:27,750 --> 00:21:30,780 There is, of course, a discourse about Czech exceptionalism. 158 00:21:30,780 --> 00:21:36,270 I, in this audience would expect me to launch on a big tirade about Polish exceptionalism. 159 00:21:36,420 --> 00:21:43,980 I will not do that because I saw that Norman DAVIES was in the audience there, perhaps not here, 160 00:21:44,490 --> 00:21:48,870 but, you know, you can't you can't be that, you know, this is the hot the heart of Europe. 161 00:21:49,230 --> 00:21:59,280 You cannot you cannot be that. I mean, he is the expert on the subject, and I will not dare in front of him go over that old chestnut. 162 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:10,800 Although maybe I will say a couple of things about in ways in which Poland is different, exceptional, perhaps vis a vis the other Central Europeans, 163 00:22:11,010 --> 00:22:25,200 no varieties of populism, the Hungarian Polish hardline version, the softer Czechoslovak version, the Slovak version. 164 00:22:25,290 --> 00:22:40,860 You have essentially an attack on the rule of law, which has not been as obvious as elsewhere, 165 00:22:41,580 --> 00:22:46,740 but it have come to the fore in the context of the current corruption scandal. 166 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:53,490 As you know, the assassination of this of the journalist and his and his fiancee. 167 00:22:53,880 --> 00:23:04,290 And suddenly the idea of the inefficiency of the police, the judiciary, etc., etc., came came to the fore. 168 00:23:05,700 --> 00:23:14,310 That's one aspect of it. The second and you see how closely the political power is connected both to the police and to the judiciary. 169 00:23:14,730 --> 00:23:23,790 And the second, I think, more more interesting in a way aspect or less surprising is in the discussion about populism, 170 00:23:24,180 --> 00:23:36,630 because after all fits are what is what is fits of Sparty fits US party is called smear when he created it more than ten years ago. 171 00:23:37,860 --> 00:23:44,010 Smear means direction, but he didn't say which direction. So that for me is a definition of a parliament. 172 00:23:44,730 --> 00:23:49,070 Its its me. The direction. This is me. Follow me. 173 00:23:50,120 --> 00:24:00,499 So that is that is the second thing is, is that he went very deliberately for the nationalist electorate. 174 00:24:00,500 --> 00:24:07,580 That was since mid-year. So he provided a sort of soft landing for the boss, which are both nineties, you remember, 175 00:24:08,930 --> 00:24:15,070 which are some of you must remember, you know that the authoritarian regime of Vladimir Nachar. 176 00:24:15,260 --> 00:24:26,450 So he basically provided a soft landing for the major electorate and not so soft when the election campaign comes. 177 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:38,330 And as it did in 2016 and the whole for the six months prior to the election was about the migrant campaign taking European Commission to the court. 178 00:24:38,330 --> 00:24:48,160 I think he was the first East European to take the Commission to the court over the quotas, over the migrant quotas he eventually lost. 179 00:24:48,170 --> 00:24:52,880 But that doesn't matter. It's just the symbolic, the political charge there. 180 00:24:53,420 --> 00:25:00,229 And his statement is, you know, you could I mean, Orban is often quoted Kaczynski, 181 00:25:00,230 --> 00:25:06,230 of course, on on on his fear of epidemics that migrants can bring, etc., etc. 182 00:25:06,500 --> 00:25:15,110 Well, you you should read major out. I will never allow a single Muslim to come into this country anyway. 183 00:25:15,110 --> 00:25:18,350 They would not be happy here because we have no mosques. 184 00:25:19,670 --> 00:25:29,060 If we want mosques, you know this way in Germany, France, Britain, if you can make it from today. 185 00:25:29,540 --> 00:25:32,840 Good luck. That is that is that is feasible. 186 00:25:33,230 --> 00:25:38,480 And he created a coalition with nationalists in Slovakia. 187 00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:43,670 You have a continuum of nationalism. FETO is a milder version home. 188 00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:45,650 I just gave you an example. 189 00:25:46,310 --> 00:25:52,880 Then you have the Slovak National Party, which used to be the equivalent of the whole Nazionale, although it has become it has mellowed somehow. 190 00:25:54,260 --> 00:25:56,720 That happens to two extreme right wing parties. 191 00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:03,800 It's not happening to your beat, incidentally, far right, nationalist, extreme xenophobes, anti-Semitic, everything. 192 00:26:04,520 --> 00:26:11,300 And now, because they see that Orban has occupied the whole nationalist field, including the far right, they they are squeezed. 193 00:26:11,510 --> 00:26:16,040 And they say they're trying to reinvent themselves as a sort of centre, centre, right party. 194 00:26:16,340 --> 00:26:21,590 So this is also very new experiment. I don't know how successful it will be, probably not. 195 00:26:22,250 --> 00:26:29,850 But you have in Slovakia, therefore the continuum fits all Slovak National Party and now you have got Libre, 196 00:26:29,930 --> 00:26:35,480 this openly fascist party that entered Parliament in in the last election. 197 00:26:35,870 --> 00:26:51,229 So yes, nationalism, xenophobic and the corruption issue, the rule of law is a key element, incidentally, that provoked popular demonstrations. 198 00:26:51,230 --> 00:26:56,660 As we have seen, government was brought down. Robert Fitzgerald resigned. 199 00:26:57,050 --> 00:27:05,300 And to fix the problem and you know the problem what is was the role of Italian mafia in Slovakia, 200 00:27:05,450 --> 00:27:09,710 in regional governments in Slovakia, in capturing European funds? 201 00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:15,800 That's what it's about. Prepared to kill people over that. 202 00:27:17,270 --> 00:27:26,570 So to fix the problem of the Italian mafia in Slovakia, Robert Fritz appointed his successor, called Pellegrini. 203 00:27:27,050 --> 00:27:33,200 So we have sort of the picture in good hands. 204 00:27:33,410 --> 00:27:39,830 The situation is in good hands, obviously, with Pellegrini, the Czech. 205 00:27:40,460 --> 00:27:47,390 The Czech always have. I mean, the Czech version of populism comes in three. 206 00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:52,010 The three phases of Czech populism. One could see the three faces of Czech populism. 207 00:27:52,340 --> 00:27:58,280 It could be a title for for an article if the title is already taken for fascism. 208 00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:02,120 So populism has not been the three faces of populism has not been done. 209 00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:13,430 First phase is, is that of Andrej Babis, a Slovak who became prime minister in the Czech Republic, is an entrepreneur. 210 00:28:13,700 --> 00:28:21,400 So this is a different this is different kind of populism. This is what I would call entrepreneurialism, populism, entrepreneur, populist. 211 00:28:21,410 --> 00:28:33,710 That is, you have a successful businessman who starts buying media, he bought newspapers, etc., and then eventually decides to step into politics. 212 00:28:34,340 --> 00:28:37,640 He steps into politics and creates a party called Uno. 213 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:43,490 Uno means yes, but he doesn't say yes to what because again, it is yes to him. 214 00:28:44,630 --> 00:28:47,270 Just like FETO. Snip. So this is. 215 00:28:47,760 --> 00:29:00,989 If you're looking for what is characteristic a strong leader with authoritarian rhetoric the rhetoric of of or of Babish is is I mean, 216 00:29:00,990 --> 00:29:05,790 he's very tough on migration as well. But his main thing is the parliament is a talk shop. 217 00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:10,590 They are useless. They do nothing. I am a doer. 218 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:14,730 We are doers, we do things. Okay, this is one version. 219 00:29:16,860 --> 00:29:20,490 The state should be run like a company. That's a quote. 220 00:29:21,390 --> 00:29:31,860 The state should be run like a company. So there's no distinction between private and public a common good or anything like that. 221 00:29:32,430 --> 00:29:36,989 So you have that the on Brexit. 222 00:29:36,990 --> 00:29:40,840 I heard him at a conference when I was in private. 223 00:29:41,100 --> 00:29:46,229 Well, he said if I were British I would vote for Brexit, for Brexit, but I'm not. 224 00:29:46,230 --> 00:29:49,830 And you know, and he's doing very well with European funds, his firm. 225 00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:57,030 I got offered billions with that and actually it is with all the European funds that he got into trouble. 226 00:29:57,060 --> 00:30:01,730 Not okay. Misuse of a tiny fraction. 227 00:30:02,070 --> 00:30:05,639 One of his subsidiary companies, you know, €2 million. 228 00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:10,770 This is peanuts for him. It's absolutely peanuts. But anyway, he's in trouble because of that. 229 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:17,550 So this is one face entrepreneurialism, populism, the second face of populism. 230 00:30:18,690 --> 00:30:24,960 Milos Zeman Again, I don't have time to go over everything. 231 00:30:25,170 --> 00:30:32,160 I would simply say in the second round of the election, you had two candidates. 232 00:30:33,540 --> 00:30:42,090 This was in January of this year, Milos Zeman and former chairman of the Academy, professor of chemistry. 233 00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:53,850 And, you know, very nice and vaguely pro-European, vaguely liberal, everything, vaguely didn't have much to say, but was a decent man. 234 00:30:55,590 --> 00:31:01,410 The the other one had lots to say, mainly in a brutal and insulting way. 235 00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:15,540 And guess who won? And in the runoff between the first and the second round, the posters in Prague were stopped, migrants stopped. 236 00:31:15,690 --> 00:31:19,079 Roush The rush downhill. 237 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:24,330 Migrants in the Czech Republic spoke. Never mind. But what does your answer to that? 238 00:31:25,110 --> 00:31:28,420 I agree only with the first proposition. Right. 239 00:31:28,710 --> 00:31:32,490 That's that's how courageous the Liberals are in Prague. 240 00:31:34,020 --> 00:31:40,050 And the third face of Czech nationalist populism is Tommy Okamura. 241 00:31:40,060 --> 00:31:48,230 Now, you may, you may be surprised, but the most radical xenophobic language dig the migrants, stop them, send them, 242 00:31:48,450 --> 00:32:01,229 etc. It comes from a guy with no Japanese who is a leader of the extreme right wing Czech Nationalist Party. 243 00:32:01,230 --> 00:32:10,620 So if Pellegrini is going to fix the mafia, why couldn't Okamura fix the migrants in the Czech Republic? 244 00:32:11,250 --> 00:32:18,870 That is. And of course this is the picture and unduly of the Czechs and Slovak simply because they 245 00:32:18,870 --> 00:32:26,430 are less attention paid to it hopes to correct the extreme focus on the Polish Hungarian. 246 00:32:26,970 --> 00:32:34,350 On the Polish Hungarian case. If I had time, I would make the comparison with Slovenes closer to the Czech version. 247 00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,700 Slovenes can succeed even to make populism boring. 248 00:32:38,700 --> 00:32:48,839 You know, they have a political party of the party of the moderate centre which won the election, which was created six months before the election. 249 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:57,390 And it's what so reminded me of, you know, in those who know the good soldier shape of, you know, it's all to, 250 00:32:57,540 --> 00:33:03,630 you know, somehow try to create a party, a party of moderate progress within the limits of the law. 251 00:33:03,870 --> 00:33:08,219 Okay. It talks that's that's that's the story. 252 00:33:08,220 --> 00:33:20,580 And take on the more interesting for this audience Poland centric audience is Croatia because the nearest comparison for Poland is Croatia, 253 00:33:21,180 --> 00:33:24,300 nationalist, conservative, super Catholic. 254 00:33:24,990 --> 00:33:32,610 And they created together now the Three Seas a project you know about that this is a great thing. 255 00:33:32,700 --> 00:33:47,070 And so now we have from the Baltic to the Adriatic, as Churchill said, not the Iron Curtain, but the populist nationalist alliance has been. 256 00:33:47,620 --> 00:33:54,280 Has been form briefly what they have in common. 257 00:33:54,400 --> 00:34:00,190 As I said, rule of law and independent media. 258 00:34:00,670 --> 00:34:03,670 Secondly, the decay of the party system. 259 00:34:04,510 --> 00:34:06,610 I do not have one, but this is a crucial thing. 260 00:34:07,180 --> 00:34:12,280 You know, in the 1990s, the emergence of the party system in all the countries in the Czech Republic, I used to say, 261 00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:17,260 well, you know, you may not like these parties, but you have these two pillars or this created by Vaclav Klaus. 262 00:34:17,470 --> 00:34:22,570 You have the Social Democrats that you will create coalitions with. 263 00:34:22,570 --> 00:34:27,550 The Christians always watch the Greens or whatever. Small, small parties will be available. 264 00:34:27,820 --> 00:34:33,880 That is gone. That is gone. And in the space, in the middle, came, came. 265 00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:43,810 Babish And ten years ago, I wrote you published a book in Prague called The Prematurely Tired Democracy. 266 00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:50,110 And in those days, I was rather talking about the disillusionment with democracy at the time, 267 00:34:50,860 --> 00:34:58,450 and disillusionment I thought was inherent to democracy, first of all. 268 00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:07,629 And secondly, it could mean that people are becoming more critical and more demanding with there is a critique of the democratic system. 269 00:35:07,630 --> 00:35:11,260 It was not simply legitimated by the negation of the communist system. 270 00:35:11,260 --> 00:35:16,990 So there was a new phase and I was sort of trying to see a positive element in the disillusionment. 271 00:35:17,410 --> 00:35:22,960 Now, now we've moved to something. This is no longer disillusionment with democracy, which is a huge if you look at the surveys, 272 00:35:23,290 --> 00:35:27,840 I mean, the trust in government 11% is the average in the Visegrad. 273 00:35:27,850 --> 00:35:36,820 So this is not high. But there you have the authoritarian drift and the call for strong hand government. 274 00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:44,300 You know which countries it is strongest in the whole of Eastern Europe, Czech Republic and Romania and then Slovakia, etc.? 275 00:35:44,830 --> 00:35:55,690 Not Poland. I mean, Poland is that. But and since I am on the Czechs and, and the Slovaks and I want to return to Poland as soon as I can, 276 00:35:55,930 --> 00:36:08,200 but I wanted at least if I had the time, I was simply using the figures that I had with me. 277 00:36:08,650 --> 00:36:11,890 When you look at the surveys, you see a similar trend. 278 00:36:13,090 --> 00:36:19,200 It's a trans-European trend, and then you have a much stronger Central European dimension. 279 00:36:19,210 --> 00:36:25,720 So, you know, dissatisfaction with governments was it it didn't bring the power point I could have inflicted on you. 280 00:36:25,900 --> 00:36:31,059 You know, plenty of data is a huge survey published by Interpol, which I recommend, 281 00:36:31,060 --> 00:36:34,600 which is that which is really trans-European, all European countries on that. 282 00:36:34,900 --> 00:36:40,810 And it goes subject by subject, you know, trust in government, trust in judiciary, media, etc., etc. 283 00:36:42,190 --> 00:36:49,379 For me, the interesting thing is when you come to issues such such as the one I've just mentioned, 284 00:36:49,380 --> 00:37:05,890 the migration of tolerance towards others, you have a rather strange picture because not only is Central Europe, 285 00:37:06,610 --> 00:37:24,940 the the negative posture is stronger, but you have a surprising element when you say to people, immigration has negative consequences for our country. 286 00:37:25,630 --> 00:37:34,870 Two thirds of all say yes, 83% of Hungarians, but 88% of Slovaks, 91% of Czechs bear no migrants there. 287 00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:45,459 I mean, so this is interesting. Islam is perceived as a menace by half of the this is half in the EU. 288 00:37:45,460 --> 00:37:48,580 The EU average is half do think Islam is a menace. 289 00:37:48,760 --> 00:38:02,290 Half of the EU says yes, which is already quite high. It's it's over two thirds in Poland and Hungary and then 78% for Slovaks, 85% for Czechs, etc. 290 00:38:02,410 --> 00:38:08,290 I could go on like that, but what I'm trying to say is that, yes, they produced a milder version politically, 291 00:38:09,580 --> 00:38:22,210 but the underpinning in society is there and sometimes even on some aspects, even stronger than you would suit. 292 00:38:22,750 --> 00:38:28,959 And so the question for political science, 293 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:38,350 after all that is this is the room or at least half of Italy's political science oriented, how to define these regimes? 294 00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:43,330 I think this is this would be an important question for a discussion. 295 00:38:45,460 --> 00:38:50,530 Is it? Authoritarian is must levitsky in a way call it. 296 00:38:50,650 --> 00:38:55,780 In other words, you still have competition, you still have elections. But the level playing field is no longer there. 297 00:38:56,080 --> 00:38:59,330 You no longer have fair competition. 298 00:38:59,350 --> 00:39:05,140 You basically could hardly talk. I mean, increasingly difficult to talk about free and fair elections. 299 00:39:05,950 --> 00:39:12,970 Hybrid regimes. Illiberal democracy is a term that Orban himself has used. 300 00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:23,229 Young von Miller is very critical of the use of that word because he thinks that only 301 00:39:23,230 --> 00:39:29,220 the only true democracy is liberal democracy and therefore one shouldn't use it. 302 00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:38,769 I think this is and I see what he means and I sort of basically agree with him on the on what his intentions are. 303 00:39:38,770 --> 00:39:47,590 But I think it's dodging the issue. I think he's dodging the issue because this is a debate within democracy, and it's a very old debate. 304 00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:55,030 It's not something invented a few years ago by Obama or Kaczynski or something like that. 305 00:39:55,300 --> 00:40:05,470 This is something much older. You can go back to the American style and this distinction of of freedom of the moderns and the ancient, 306 00:40:05,470 --> 00:40:09,730 you know, the freedom of enjoyment, liberal freedoms of enjoyment of liberties. 307 00:40:10,750 --> 00:40:15,790 State is simply to guarantee that freedom or freedom to participate. 308 00:40:16,540 --> 00:40:21,460 The positive freedom as I thought they would have it. So this is an old debate. 309 00:40:21,730 --> 00:40:34,660 It's a debate within democracy. And it makes the debate all the more difficult because both Orban and Kaczynski and others. 310 00:40:34,660 --> 00:40:43,180 Because, of course so and but we should have a similar inclinations, is to say, but we have the popular vote. 311 00:40:43,180 --> 00:40:51,309 We have the popular sovereignty behind us, and we should not accept the constraints of constitutions, 312 00:40:51,310 --> 00:40:58,840 institutions, neutral, non-elected bodies, non-elected bodies such as, I don't know, the central bank of the EU, 313 00:40:59,140 --> 00:41:06,580 etc., etc. There's a whole group of non-elected bodies in European Union fits in that category Brussels, 314 00:41:06,850 --> 00:41:13,660 Brussels, bureaucrats, etc. These non-elected commissioners, they are telling the sovereign people what to do. 315 00:41:13,780 --> 00:41:17,310 So this is no. 316 00:41:17,980 --> 00:41:25,870 Yeah, I think when when Kaczynski talks about legal impossibility, this is what is at stake. 317 00:41:26,350 --> 00:41:30,070 We the will of the people, the democratic will of the people. 318 00:41:30,340 --> 00:41:36,670 We have the majority, but it is constrained by legal constraints and we should resist. 319 00:41:36,910 --> 00:41:44,200 Of course you answer. But the European Union is based on that, on the rule of law, the acceptance of those constraints. 320 00:41:45,490 --> 00:41:49,930 But this is this is what it is about. 321 00:41:49,930 --> 00:41:56,950 And this is why we have the discussion. This is why we have the what more than discussion is now a political confrontation. 322 00:41:57,310 --> 00:42:01,110 But still I still believe it's a debate within democracy. 323 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:05,860 And and and it will have to be fought on the ground. 324 00:42:08,590 --> 00:42:22,840 One element, the illiberal populist onslaught, targets society and particularly civil society. 325 00:42:23,350 --> 00:42:32,229 The Hungarian case is, I think, very interesting because there they went further than elsewhere in trying to constrain, 326 00:42:32,230 --> 00:42:38,560 restrict control the activities of independent civil society organisations. 327 00:42:38,950 --> 00:42:47,520 They have more or less followed put in legislation about foreign agents who have to disclose the foreign funds you get and you are labelled something. 328 00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,950 It's not foreign agent like in Russia, but something similar. 329 00:42:51,310 --> 00:42:55,750 And you have, I think I would call it the salami tactics in the reverse. 330 00:42:55,750 --> 00:42:59,680 You remember salami tactics, how to deal with your opposition. 331 00:42:59,890 --> 00:43:04,510 Well, I see you have something similar going on that first you tackle political opposition. 332 00:43:04,870 --> 00:43:13,150 They are weak. That is fragmented. They're gone. Then you target NGOs, civil society. 333 00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,740 You have various organisations that finance from abroad, sort of, etc., etc. 334 00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:28,149 This is your second line of thought. And now they're moving even into the third phase, which is the sphere of culture, and that includes university. 335 00:43:28,150 --> 00:43:31,600 And the Central European University is of course a perfect target, 336 00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:38,740 but within the broader context of schooling in general theatres, cultural life in general. 337 00:43:39,250 --> 00:43:46,120 Why? Because they consider that the cultural sphere, just like under communism all. 338 00:43:46,900 --> 00:43:52,990 Like much like under communism, it becomes the ultimate sphere where the opposition retreats. 339 00:43:53,470 --> 00:43:57,010 They've been defeated politically. Their NGOs are now being shrunk. 340 00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:00,490 Well. Culture is where they tend to retreat. 341 00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,300 This is where you move on. And this is why I will come to it. 342 00:44:04,540 --> 00:44:11,230 Cultural war matters so much how to account for all for this illiberal drift. 343 00:44:12,490 --> 00:44:21,430 As I said, I will spare you the Polish exceptionalism thesis. 344 00:44:23,770 --> 00:44:31,240 It has merits. I remember the discussions we had about Solidarnosc, you know, was it an exception and an exception? 345 00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:38,080 The only social movement of that size where the working class was part of it? 346 00:44:38,290 --> 00:44:43,690 Or was it the tip of the iceberg? You know, revival of civil society elsewhere in Eastern Europe. 347 00:44:43,720 --> 00:44:48,520 Okay. Discuss. I mean, this would be a perfect essay question for Oxford students. 348 00:44:50,050 --> 00:44:54,280 I will, for the time being, perhaps in the discussion we return to it. 349 00:44:54,520 --> 00:45:07,210 The only aspect of that exception is, as I mentioned, that I think is interesting is reading an essay by a mutual no he Franco Romanian author. 350 00:45:07,540 --> 00:45:13,330 He has an essay where he compares Spain and and Poland. 351 00:45:13,900 --> 00:45:21,940 And, you know, the rural priests are very conservative, very Catholic. 352 00:45:22,390 --> 00:45:26,290 They even both worship worship the black virgin. 353 00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:34,510 So, yeah, you have this parallel and he puts his finger on what makes Poland unique. 354 00:45:35,140 --> 00:45:48,610 In those days, he saw Poland and Spain. I think Spain in the post Franco era has has, so to speak, no longer fits quite the parallel that Chiron made. 355 00:45:49,900 --> 00:46:03,729 But I think that this idea of the special place of religion and the Catholic Church, within the context of what I've been talking about, 356 00:46:03,730 --> 00:46:13,510 the Central European predicament, that is a unique polish, which you don't have that in Hungary, you don't have that in the Czech Republic. 357 00:46:13,510 --> 00:46:19,660 The Czechs on this is the most secularised society in Europe, not just central in Europe, period. 358 00:46:21,010 --> 00:46:26,020 As I said, the only country that would come anywhere near it is Croatia. 359 00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:43,089 That's where the problem may be, but that is unique and that indeed is related then to the to the nationalist 360 00:46:43,090 --> 00:46:50,920 discourse that has been developing in the bar by the ruling party in Poland today. 361 00:46:51,340 --> 00:47:03,940 In the in the hypotheses about the the explanatory hypotheses and I can only sketch them out because time is running on one is is the most 362 00:47:03,940 --> 00:47:12,550 widespread perhaps in the literature for me the least convincing for Central Europe is about the winners and losers of the transition. 363 00:47:13,090 --> 00:47:20,570 And this is and you have the same thing in the literature on populism, the winners and losers of globalisation. 364 00:47:20,890 --> 00:47:34,870 So then you lose your translated into the win. Yes, of course I can I can see that the the the attraction of that of that model. 365 00:47:35,140 --> 00:47:42,640 I can also see that you have somebody like Martin Krol, 366 00:47:43,570 --> 00:47:55,630 who in his how to call it a pamphlet that he wrote very smoothly and basically says, you know, what was a problem? 367 00:47:56,260 --> 00:48:03,309 Well, how basically political liberals jump on the Biden bandwagon of economic liberals simply 368 00:48:03,310 --> 00:48:11,140 became a smokescreen for the introduction of Chicago style market market reforms. 369 00:48:11,330 --> 00:48:21,129 And so you have capitalism introduced under the banner of Solidarnosc and all these dissident intellectuals. 370 00:48:21,130 --> 00:48:31,420 Liberals were infatuated by the guru Mr. Bauer settlement, who was a very doctrinaire and still is actually very doctrinaire, a free marketeer. 371 00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:35,830 So that's that's one take. That is an element of that. 372 00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:39,640 Basically, you could sum it up as the omission of the social question. 373 00:48:40,090 --> 00:48:46,420 You didn't want to think in those terms because you thought it would distract from the higher duty of etc., etc. 374 00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,790 Oh, this comes back with a vengeance. 375 00:48:51,090 --> 00:48:56,730 Somebody else has caught wind of the social question and they do it in their own way. 376 00:48:57,090 --> 00:49:04,410 You know, it is not the five hundreds sorry for children allowances, etc. 377 00:49:04,830 --> 00:49:09,560 They they know how they call it the better Poland. 378 00:49:09,870 --> 00:49:12,910 They. Okay, this is you got it. 379 00:49:12,970 --> 00:49:22,260 They they are culturally very conservative, but socially it's a compassionate, compassionate conservatism. 380 00:49:22,470 --> 00:49:26,400 That could be something they haven't they haven't yet used, but it could. 381 00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:36,930 So so that's one thing. I don't find it terribly convincing because you look at the economic performance of the country, 382 00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:41,850 all of them, including Poland, the only country that didn't have the economic crisis. 383 00:49:42,030 --> 00:49:51,870 Again, if you don't want to talk about Poland, Czech Republic, I mean, global growth, lowest unemployment in Europe, they are below 3%. 384 00:49:51,870 --> 00:49:56,250 They have to import, you know, construction workers from Ukraine, etc., etc. 385 00:49:56,490 --> 00:50:00,120 So this they've never had it so good. The coffers are full. 386 00:50:00,330 --> 00:50:06,510 The debate, pre-election debate in Czech Republic, in the parliamentary debate in the fall round, something like this. 387 00:50:06,810 --> 00:50:09,840 And I think we should increase the teachers by 10%. 388 00:50:09,930 --> 00:50:16,319 What? Only 10%? Oh, this is an outrage. 15% and immediately, etc., the next one, 20%. 389 00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:21,150 So yeah, you can say anything because money is there. 390 00:50:22,860 --> 00:50:31,820 Nobody can object. Yeah, but you know, we are we are a sort of stringent situation, you know, the kind of argument one hears in France, etc. 391 00:50:31,870 --> 00:50:37,559 But this is a government that has performed remarkably well on an average of three 392 00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:44,520 and a half percent growth comes to the electorate and loses two thirds of its vote. 393 00:50:45,630 --> 00:50:48,880 So you cannot explain that in economic terms. 394 00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:57,690 So so you have to go for something else. And I think that some of the other things I have mentioned are more are more pertinent. 395 00:50:59,490 --> 00:51:20,610 Yes. The. I suppose the you could always point to the discrepancies between regions and a lot has been made about the south east and north west. 396 00:51:20,610 --> 00:51:24,180 But I, I know the discussion. 397 00:51:25,260 --> 00:51:33,220 The only thing that I find interesting is that the electoral map of peace and platform overlaps. 398 00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:38,610 I mean, especially the previous not overlap with the maps of the partition of Poland. 399 00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:42,460 And then you look and you say, well, does it actually. 400 00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:48,720 Does it help? Is that another strong element of socio economic? 401 00:51:49,140 --> 00:51:53,370 Could you connect that with the socio economic argument? This would be the bucket Poland or something like that. 402 00:51:53,550 --> 00:51:56,360 Poland able and be you know. You know, you know. 403 00:51:56,370 --> 00:52:07,110 There are a recent article by Irina Crossfield and another colleague of hers shows the thesis is not convincing. 404 00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:16,350 Look, if you compare incomes on both sides of that historical border, they've been narrowed down during the communist period. 405 00:52:16,710 --> 00:52:19,980 And since there are some differences. But this is not significant. 406 00:52:20,190 --> 00:52:32,850 No. What matters is religious practice, religious religiosity, which is stronger in that part of Poland for historical reasons. 407 00:52:33,180 --> 00:52:44,540 And that is that is more that is more interesting, I think, than the than the other argument. 408 00:52:44,550 --> 00:52:56,580 And I guess I would say that if you look at possible explanations, 409 00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:09,840 the second hypothesis about nationalism as a prime challenge to liberalism in 410 00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:20,790 terms of identity politics and search for a legitimate legitimation of power, 411 00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:32,280 that is a much more much stronger argument. Incidentally, this is an argument we had very early on and we dismissed it. 412 00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:44,310 I remember in the beginning of 1991, we were in Krakow at a conference, a team was the prison, etc., 413 00:53:44,910 --> 00:53:54,570 and we were not celebrating, but we were discussing the democratic transition since were looking very promising. 414 00:53:55,260 --> 00:54:03,780 And suddenly, amidst of this very jolly and optimistic crowd came one prophet of doom. 415 00:54:04,140 --> 00:54:05,880 And his name was Adam Michnik. 416 00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:17,970 And he said that Poland is facing the threat, could be facing the threat of three fundamentalism, three fundamentalist threat. 417 00:54:18,270 --> 00:54:35,040 The first was nationalist fundamentalism. And that was, you know, a homogeneous ethnic, hardline nationalist group that could return to the surface. 418 00:54:36,570 --> 00:54:40,880 He said, and I quote, the national interest so defined, yeah, 419 00:54:40,890 --> 00:54:46,830 this is everything should be subordinated defence of national interests and national interests or defined sees 420 00:54:46,830 --> 00:54:53,100 discussion of anti-Semitism in Poland or discussions of pogroms against Roma as harmful to the Polish nation. 421 00:54:53,340 --> 00:54:59,249 Well, perhaps he was on to something. Second, second fundamentalism. 422 00:54:59,250 --> 00:55:02,280 He was warning against religious fundamentalism. 423 00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:07,620 And he says that is the tendency to obliterate the divide between the sacred and the profane, 424 00:55:08,430 --> 00:55:15,780 between moral norms and legal norms, etc., etc., basically warning against kind of Iranian scenario for Poland. 425 00:55:15,930 --> 00:55:29,910 Again, we said, What are you talking about? Thirdly, he warned against the political culture of the Polish opposition. 426 00:55:30,300 --> 00:55:38,460 He said it's used to think in religion, in moral absolutes, then in us, 427 00:55:38,910 --> 00:55:44,760 etc. And this is not a culture that is conducive to the political pluralism that you need for parliamentary democracy. 428 00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:54,300 And he was concluding by said, well, all this means that we are to be facing a threat of populism. 429 00:55:55,470 --> 00:56:03,990 That is a term he used because he said, again, the language of rebellion against communism was the language of the people. 430 00:56:04,150 --> 00:56:11,410 Against them. It was already the populist thing was, so to speak, embedded in that. 431 00:56:11,780 --> 00:56:15,970 So at that time we had dismissed it and we had no discussion. 432 00:56:16,300 --> 00:56:20,760 I remember Tim also gave us kind of a rejoinder. 433 00:56:20,810 --> 00:56:24,820 I had discussion. We didn't think this was it. 434 00:56:25,270 --> 00:56:31,930 But I must give Adam credit that, you know, prophets of doom, eventually, 435 00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:41,920 if you wait long enough, end up being sometimes at least partially in a fashion. 436 00:56:41,920 --> 00:56:46,650 Right. The yeah. 437 00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:52,150 I sectionalism that is the second is the the third element, 438 00:56:52,150 --> 00:57:01,060 perhaps the most important in my opinion, is the what could come under the heading of culture wars. 439 00:57:01,420 --> 00:57:09,490 I said for the social question, the first hypothesis much and cross essay is a reference for this one. 440 00:57:11,110 --> 00:57:23,400 A good cause book. The term the totalitarian temptation by which he means liberal is God. 441 00:57:23,990 --> 00:57:31,030 Where where does this connect to the previous issue? 442 00:57:32,830 --> 00:57:44,889 Bebo. Esteban Bebo, the Hungarian writer in his book about the misery of the small states of Eastern Europe, made the following point. 443 00:57:44,890 --> 00:57:50,620 He was writing during the war and he said, There is a danger. And he was talking about all the countries of the region. 444 00:57:51,070 --> 00:58:01,780 And he said there is a danger for democracy and even a threat of fascism when the cause of freedom comes into conflict with the cause of the nation. 445 00:58:03,070 --> 00:58:07,719 Because in that case, then he develops the cause of individual freedom, 446 00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:13,240 will always lose the tension in Eastern Europe between individual freedoms and the collective freedom. 447 00:58:13,570 --> 00:58:19,510 And because of the nature of nation state building in those countries, these are nations without state. 448 00:58:19,780 --> 00:58:27,690 These are culture of nations that whose existence is by no means ensured, guaranteed. 449 00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:39,430 And therefore that is the crucial question around which the East European predicament of. 450 00:58:40,450 --> 00:58:54,460 And I think that the way the nationalists in Central Europe in the migrant crisis have succeeded in framing the problem in precisely those terms. 451 00:58:56,740 --> 00:59:07,870 Our nation, our national independence, our national being, because we are cultural nations defined by language, culture, religious affiliation, 452 00:59:07,870 --> 00:59:20,590 etc., etc., is being threatened by the invasion which has to be stopped like we did stop previous invasions, you know, the Turks, etc., etc. 453 00:59:20,980 --> 00:59:31,750 So there is this discourse that does the framing of the migrant crisis came together with something broader, 454 00:59:32,110 --> 00:59:40,060 which we can call the culture wars in which the good legutko then puts in a broad framework. 455 00:59:40,180 --> 00:59:55,809 Basically, he says, what this liberal Europe stands for is basically all the societal questions ranging from abortion, 456 00:59:55,810 --> 01:00:06,490 gay marriage, LGBT, etc. You have a whole range of those ending up with multiculturalism. 457 01:00:08,770 --> 01:00:11,679 The foreign minister, the previous woman, the foreign minister, actually, 458 01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:26,170 Kosky had had this talk about these God bless the cyclists and vegetarians who are threatening the family values and Christian Poland, basically. 459 01:00:26,860 --> 01:00:28,330 So this is it. 460 01:00:28,630 --> 01:00:43,660 You have the framing of a liberal, weak, decadent Europe, which is threatening the dissolution of the very core values that matter for us. 461 01:00:44,170 --> 01:00:50,860 And that is the fundamental difference we have with Europe today. 462 01:00:50,980 --> 01:00:57,580 I heard that in Budapest not once, quite all over the place, all the Ottoman establishment, all on that line. 463 01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:03,430 This is a most important issue for them. All the other issues that I mentioned are subordinated to that one. 464 01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:08,720 It is a collective. Is a collective volume that I've seen of essays by Polish authors. 465 01:01:09,020 --> 01:01:15,980 There is actually pretty conservative political thinking, which is worth reading and and reflecting upon. 466 01:01:17,180 --> 01:01:20,300 And you have a whole range of authors. 467 01:01:20,810 --> 01:01:29,390 I saw it in one collection published in Prague, which includes Krasnodar, Ski T, Hot Ski Village, Stein and the whole range, a whole group of them. 468 01:01:30,260 --> 01:01:38,670 The good guy I just mentioned, because he is has published his book now in English and has this is a new totalitarian temptation. 469 01:01:39,980 --> 01:01:50,240 But what what what if you have to look for common denominators about what could be called the blind spots of European liberalism? 470 01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:55,250 First, I would say memory for memory. 471 01:01:55,250 --> 01:02:01,100 Well, the big mistake, mass of jet ski, the thick line, 472 01:02:01,430 --> 01:02:10,010 basically refusal to deal with the communist past in the name of modernising the country and looking to the future. 473 01:02:10,460 --> 01:02:18,830 Secondly, identity. They favour individual rights proliferation. 474 01:02:19,370 --> 01:02:23,030 Liberal Europe favours proliferation of individual rights. 475 01:02:24,260 --> 01:02:29,330 They forget about the collective identity of the nation. 476 01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:39,919 And thirdly, sovereignty instead of the post-modern post-national Kantian delusions about perpetual peace, the end of history. 477 01:02:39,920 --> 01:02:45,350 And I don't know what which is the kind of fig leaf for the European project. 478 01:02:46,250 --> 01:02:52,850 Nation state must remain the key subjects of domestic and foreign policy. 479 01:02:53,060 --> 01:03:02,660 This is a basic, if you want, mantra of the new conservative thinking. 480 01:03:03,230 --> 01:03:08,450 And it comes at a time when the liberal post 89 cycle had been exhausted. 481 01:03:09,110 --> 01:03:15,440 So it's not just that these ideas are brand new and we never heard them before, of course, 482 01:03:15,770 --> 01:03:23,660 but they come in a package formulated at the very moment when the liberal cycle had been exhausted. 483 01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:27,860 You want a democracy, you have it. It's in crisis. You wanted a market economy. 484 01:03:28,100 --> 01:03:39,410 We have it since 2008. We know it is in difficulty, even though Eastern Europe has less so difficult to say less difficult situation than elsewhere. 485 01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:43,100 And you want it returned to Europe. Well, welcome. 486 01:03:43,100 --> 01:03:46,340 You are part of Europe, but Europe itself is in crisis. 487 01:03:46,550 --> 01:03:50,240 Which brings me to the last point, which is precisely Europe and I. 488 01:03:50,630 --> 01:03:54,200 My God. Okay. 489 01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:58,700 I will I will just say it in telegraphic style and then we can develop that in the discussion. 490 01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:10,280 What I intended to say about Europe is, first of all, to remind I don't have to remind this audience, but since no Monday, this is not a yes. 491 01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:15,890 I can I can do my historical take on this. 492 01:04:17,180 --> 01:04:28,069 If you read I remember years ago, Galitsky, when he came to Paris in the early nineties, I invited him to food as also seem often suave. 493 01:04:28,070 --> 01:04:37,250 You had invited him and he opened his talk by saying, How many times have we already returned to Europe? 494 01:04:38,180 --> 01:04:44,450 And then he developed the argument, you know, Yeah, we've been there before, and this is a very old debate. 495 01:04:44,690 --> 01:05:00,920 And the whole 19th century in Poland, of course, is an intellectual debate about the merits and the drawbacks or threats posed by Western modernity. 496 01:05:01,070 --> 01:05:07,070 And this book was actually, put simply, a Polska or a palazzo. 497 01:05:07,170 --> 01:05:19,070 What it is, is about that you reject a certain form of modernisation because it comes together with was Germany's ation was a call to come. 498 01:05:19,880 --> 01:05:31,160 So there is there is a it's good to be reminded that this is a very old debate, very old in the previous sessions. 499 01:05:31,160 --> 01:05:35,750 I think some have already alluded alluded to that. 500 01:05:36,020 --> 01:05:53,809 So that's what on the European side, the whole literature about EU transformative power now reads very, 501 01:05:53,810 --> 01:06:00,590 very strange, how to say it politely well, obsolete or slightly out of touch. 502 01:06:00,620 --> 01:06:03,890 Anyway, interesting. Informative. But you know. 503 01:06:05,350 --> 01:06:11,610 Yeah. The assumption that the EU leverage can transform. 504 01:06:11,620 --> 01:06:18,130 Will it help to transform Central Europe? It works until you get in. 505 01:06:18,520 --> 01:06:21,730 It does. It's no guarantee of irreversibility. 506 01:06:22,030 --> 01:06:33,830 And so that is very important. The whole literature about the idea that you have transition, consolidation, integration, that was the trajectory. 507 01:06:33,860 --> 01:06:37,120 Right. And that. And then what? 508 01:06:37,720 --> 01:06:43,030 Well, then you have regression. It looks like. So, yeah. 509 01:06:43,660 --> 01:06:50,260 Second thing, the European response to Central European regression. 510 01:06:51,310 --> 01:06:58,570 Contrast between Hungary and Poland. Benign neglect to Hungary when Orban came to power in 2010. 511 01:06:59,140 --> 01:07:04,170 But it'll make letters from Mrs. Emily Cross from the commission, you know, 512 01:07:04,180 --> 01:07:09,280 could you please perhaps amend something, you know, in your law, in the media, etc., etc.? 513 01:07:10,330 --> 01:07:15,790 I mean, one of the crossings, I mean, was on the board of 12 companies registered in the Panama Papers. 514 01:07:16,070 --> 01:07:27,820 It's not good. Anyway, this this was the benign neglect enjoyed by Hungary, and you can contrast that with a rapid response to Poland. 515 01:07:28,330 --> 01:07:34,900 The laws were adopted in December, December 15, January 16. 516 01:07:35,650 --> 01:07:42,850 Timmermans, the commissioner, was already asking explanations after explanation, phase two evaluation. 517 01:07:42,970 --> 01:07:50,110 And then eventually you come to measures taken, including the procedure that I already referred to about Article seven. 518 01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:56,140 How do you explain the contrast? Well, you could simply say Hungary was thought to be an isolated case. 519 01:07:56,350 --> 01:08:00,250 Poland changes the picture. Size matters. 520 01:08:00,340 --> 01:08:06,740 So if Poland goes that way, that is means concerned for the whole region, obviously. 521 01:08:06,760 --> 01:08:07,780 That's one explanation. 522 01:08:08,020 --> 01:08:24,400 The main explanation, however, is that Poland had us alive and would be protected in the EU, the British conservatives who are in Brexit mode, 523 01:08:24,940 --> 01:08:35,920 whereas Orban very early on opted for the party, the People's Party, CDU, CSU in particular. 524 01:08:37,930 --> 01:08:42,130 Just one reminder in 2000. 525 01:08:42,700 --> 01:08:50,170 In Austria, you have the shoes. The government. For the first time, an extreme right government comes into extreme right party comes into government. 526 01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:53,890 Outrage, etc. Ostracism of Austria. 527 01:08:54,580 --> 01:09:00,190 So yeah, for one year they are suspended. 528 01:09:00,220 --> 01:09:06,820 They are. They are under scrutiny. There is a commission. The commission eventually says that democracy has not been undermined, etc. 529 01:09:07,390 --> 01:09:16,690 However, who was the first when Austria was totally isolated was the first to give a press conference with Mr. Schuster, 530 01:09:16,900 --> 01:09:25,450 the Austrian prime minister, Viktor Orban. He was that he was not a member of the European Union, but he was that immediately why? 531 01:09:25,690 --> 01:09:34,450 He understood immediately what this was about. This may one day apply to him, and he forged this alliance with the Austrian right. 532 01:09:34,810 --> 01:09:38,710 And then it was a key issue around what? 533 01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:47,230 Around the bench decrees, abrogation of the banished decrees of 1945 about the properties of the Czech, 534 01:09:47,440 --> 01:09:50,980 of the young, of the Germans from Czechoslovakia, 535 01:09:52,000 --> 01:09:58,180 that this should be the abrogation of those decrees should be a precondition for Czech Republic and Slovakia joining the EU. 536 01:09:58,870 --> 01:10:03,549 This was official endorse the head of the CSU at the time. 537 01:10:03,550 --> 01:10:11,110 Mr. Stoiber went to the Phidias conference in Budapest and Orban pledged to do just that. 538 01:10:11,680 --> 01:10:23,620 The alliance was then formed and it dropped when Orban came to power and after 2010 started to doing some of the things I've been talking about. 539 01:10:23,860 --> 01:10:29,830 He led the wonderful protection shield which has lasted, which has been very effective, 540 01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:37,000 and he never misses an opportunity when he gives an interview to remind everybody, I am vice president of the PPE. 541 01:10:37,570 --> 01:10:47,380 And if you look at the video from the Madrid conference of the PPE last year, he's the one who gets big applause, not the Chancellor Merkel. 542 01:10:48,040 --> 01:10:52,290 So this is it. You want to understand why the leverage of the EU? 543 01:10:52,300 --> 01:10:58,120 Well, it's a tricky thing. Why situation is desperate, but not serious. 544 01:10:58,120 --> 01:11:03,720 Well, it's because you have a number of things. 545 01:11:04,310 --> 01:11:09,980 Again on in telegraphic stop public opinion in Poland and in Hungary remains pro-European. 546 01:11:10,640 --> 01:11:14,510 You may wonder why vote for anti-European? 547 01:11:14,960 --> 01:11:21,980 I think because people understand that being remaining part of the EU, supporting the EU, 548 01:11:22,130 --> 01:11:31,760 not wanting any Brexit of any sort is a kind of guarantee against not going beyond certain limits. 549 01:11:32,540 --> 01:11:39,380 I think it's a safety valve. If you cannot control them from inside and from below, try to control them from above. 550 01:11:39,590 --> 01:11:43,970 I think that in Hungary, certainly that is an argument that I have heard. 551 01:11:45,080 --> 01:11:48,150 Third argument, geopolitics. 552 01:11:49,430 --> 01:11:55,760 I think a major limit on this illiberal drift is geopolitical. 553 01:11:56,240 --> 01:12:07,460 And you again, to quote Adam Mechanic in his essay, The Choice of a tradition, you know, from 30 years ago, something like that, 554 01:12:07,820 --> 01:12:17,270 the choice of the tradition in Poland is not pilsudski that ethnically homogeneous Poland to large, more cosmopolitan Poland to concept of the nation. 555 01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:24,170 And and then, of course, is related to who is the main enemy of Russia or Germany. 556 01:12:24,590 --> 01:12:33,740 So he's and he explains why he chooses sort of the pilsudski vision the that that in other words, 557 01:12:34,010 --> 01:12:43,640 the choice of definition of a nation is related to a geopolitical choice as well in that pilsudski demovsky very issue. 558 01:12:44,240 --> 01:12:47,480 The problem with Kaczynski is that he has both. 559 01:12:47,870 --> 01:12:55,280 He takes demovsky version of definition of the nation and he takes pilsudski version of political power. 560 01:12:55,310 --> 01:13:00,620 He wants to be the national it instead of the dilemma. 561 01:13:00,890 --> 01:13:04,850 Is Russia or Germany the main enemy? He says both. 562 01:13:05,270 --> 01:13:13,970 So, you know, we that is not that is not terribly helpful. 563 01:13:14,270 --> 01:13:19,850 But the geopolitical factor, Kaczynski or not, is that. 564 01:13:20,330 --> 01:13:25,280 And I think that would be a constraint on any drift of Central Europe further to kind 565 01:13:25,280 --> 01:13:31,429 of eastern variations they may share with Russia in the talk about decadent Europe, 566 01:13:31,430 --> 01:13:35,540 about about how weak it is and how useless the Liberals are, etc. 567 01:13:35,930 --> 01:13:46,730 At the end of the day, I think that geopolitical concerns are finally, Europe itself is being very politicised in times of crisis. 568 01:13:47,270 --> 01:13:50,840 Europe is undergoing a crisis. 569 01:13:51,470 --> 01:13:57,110 Internal Grexit, North-South divide within the eurozone. 570 01:13:57,410 --> 01:14:04,850 East-West divide on the issues we are talking about an external threat implosion of the neighbourhoods, 571 01:14:05,840 --> 01:14:11,590 Ukraine and Putin, the Islamist in the south now Trump overseas. 572 01:14:12,440 --> 01:14:17,000 This is an entirely new predicament for Europe. 573 01:14:17,300 --> 01:14:24,260 There is an interview by of the French president in a literary journal. 574 01:14:24,260 --> 01:14:32,460 And I conclude with that, where he where he says at the end of the interview, I ask him, why do you remain? 575 01:14:32,480 --> 01:14:36,410 He paints a rather bleak picture. How come you remain an optimist? 576 01:14:36,500 --> 01:14:47,120 So I remain an optimist because I feel the tragic dimension is returning to European politics, the awareness of the tragic dimension. 577 01:14:47,380 --> 01:14:55,520 He says, Yes, we can no longer take for granted what we used to being sort of prosperous, 578 01:14:55,520 --> 01:15:00,470 democratic, under the American umbrella, etc., etc. that no longer holds. 579 01:15:00,620 --> 01:15:08,000 The landscape is changing. I do. We understand that and we take that challenge or we are gone. 580 01:15:08,750 --> 01:15:13,550 And so this is the moment we are we are confronted with a choice. 581 01:15:13,790 --> 01:15:19,730 So it is, as Adam Mechanic says, the Polish choice, a choice of a tradition. 582 01:15:19,970 --> 01:15:26,810 It is a Central European choice. Do you want to be part of the European Court or do you want to be drifting closer to Russia? 583 01:15:27,290 --> 01:15:32,540 But at the end of the day, it's also a European choice, as Mark Wise just put it. 584 01:15:33,380 --> 01:15:49,020 Thank you for that. And. Thank you very much, Jack, for a terrific lecture. 585 01:15:49,090 --> 01:15:56,440 Comprehensive and incisive, amusing, looking at the whole wider context around exactly what we want. 586 01:15:57,130 --> 01:15:59,770 If I may pick up quickly on two things Jack said. 587 01:16:00,550 --> 01:16:11,600 Firstly, listen, Karpovsky, his terrible message loves to tell the story of two young girls racing without approval from God, 588 01:16:11,920 --> 01:16:19,330 and one young girl was clearly winning. But the one who was far behind kept shouting, I'm winning, I'm winning, I'm winning. 589 01:16:19,990 --> 01:16:27,640 And eventually the one in front collapsed in tears. And the one about life and Auburn and Kaczynski and a little bit behind, 590 01:16:27,940 --> 01:16:32,860 because in reality, their societies, what they've done in their countries is far behind. 591 01:16:33,220 --> 01:16:37,630 But they're shouting, I'm winning and winning. And convincing others collapsed in tears. 592 01:16:37,870 --> 01:16:43,600 And of course, the only reason they can do that is and this is a really important point you've made again and again, 593 01:16:44,080 --> 01:16:47,770 that the European Union is not really tolerating them. 594 01:16:48,310 --> 01:16:56,170 It is supporting them. Over 50% of public investment in Hungary and Poland comes from EU funds. 595 01:16:56,340 --> 01:16:59,470 You see, this is the lack of and so on. 596 01:16:59,770 --> 01:17:03,360 And so that I think is a really important point for us to take tomorrow. 597 01:17:03,410 --> 01:17:09,040 The other point I'd like to pick up is short on staying in Poland because you 598 01:17:09,040 --> 01:17:13,270 could read have a different way where arguing on explanation all out of control. 599 01:17:14,320 --> 01:17:21,340 But the liberal gamble is a politics can change concept and that authoritarian 600 01:17:21,340 --> 01:17:27,190 conservative Catholic culture that was there in Spain has been changed by politics, 601 01:17:27,190 --> 01:17:34,780 both domestic and regional. And so the question before us is why has that been possible in Spain and not in Poland? 602 01:17:34,810 --> 01:17:37,570 I hope we can take that forward tomorrow. 603 01:17:37,600 --> 01:17:44,860 Meanwhile, I said at the beginning, the Czech Republic is the dynamic of central leadership and standing in front of Keith OLBERMANN. 604 01:17:45,070 --> 01:17:49,719 He was very old, but he's incredibly young and vigorous more than most of us, 605 01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:56,450 but also has a fantastic range of knowledge and indeed wisdom, which we've benefited from this evening. 606 01:17:56,480 --> 01:17:57,220 Thank you so much.