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Dunin: Sense vs. Nonsense |
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Kinga Dunin
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01.10.2009 |
Maciej Sieńczyk has just published another collection of his delightful comics. The title story, ‘The Boil’un’ (‘Wrządkun’), tells a whimsical tale of a man who could only survive while fully immersed in boiling water. He marries, fathers unremarkable children (just one potters about with his little paw immersed in simmering liquid) and eventually dies having fallen off a ladder. He is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in 2002. The comic consists of the silliest pictures of the ‘Boil’un’ clad in a metal oven-like contraption and the story about his children and about being buried at the Père-Lachaise is also silliness itself.
Ye of little faith may dismiss Sieńczyk’s flights of fancy as nonsensical, but you’d be quite wrong. They are the very epitome of sense, compared to various interviews which aspire to pass themselves off as ‘sensible.’ My contention is perfectly exemplified by Michał Witkowski’s thoughts, which he shares with us in the pages of ‘Zwierciadło.’
Allow me to re-quote this well-known writer’s musings at some length: ‘In my opinion every culture grows out of limitations placed upon one or another freedom, but the leftist storming of the barricades would eventually lead the world back towards its natural unbridled state. Our clothing keeps on shrinking and, as we discard a layer after layer, we put more and more of our flesh on public display. So what do we gain in return? More personal freedom? I beg to differ. A journey to an Arabic country, or to any other land where religion continues to flourish, demonstrates that religious observance remains a source of values and makes sense of human existence. Should I ask a veiled Arabic lady from a bazaar whether she’d be willing to change places with a bald butch lesbo with piercings all over her body, I strongly suspect that the answer would be a ‘no.’ The veil is at the core of her identity and she is not likely to shed it willingly; no matter what the liberal-rights-for-all mouthpieces would have us believe. I am cross with liberal parties which insist on changing the entire world in their own image. Change yourselves, why don’t you; and leave other cultures alone.’
So let’s take a look at Mr Witkowski’s ruminations: Does it make sense that every culture limits personal freedoms? Of course it does. But does it also make sense that leftist culture is the exception pointing the way towards limitless freedom, towards the ‘storming of the last remaining barricades’ and therefore towards dispossessing us all of culture as defined above?
I really am at a loss where Mr Witkowski gets his ideas from. Surely not from his conservative friends, who keep complaining about dreadful limitations put on personal freedoms by the same leftist tendency: Thou shall not indulge in sexual harassment; thou shall not give vent to hate speech; thou shall desist from cruelty to frogs…the list of potential transgressions is lengthy, and they all have to do with brakes being applied to somebody’s personal freedom. The Left draws a line in the sand at some freedoms; exactly as any other liberal – or otherwise – culture: It may make perfect sense to that Arab lady from the bazaar to have another woman stoned to death if she committed adultery, but it would definitively be frowned upon by the liberals and by the Left in general.
But let’s move on to the more intriguing question posed by Mr Witkowski: Would the veiled Arab lady be willing to trade places with the ‘bald lesbo?’ First of all, why is he rounding on that ‘lesbo?’ Is this particular sexual orientation demanded by the Left, like some sort of an obligatory leftist uniform? Has his own homosexuality been forced upon Mr Witkowski by the liberal culture? Or is he trying to say that lesbianism is unknown in Moslem countries? And why does it need to be a ‘lesbo’ - whoever would be tempted to change places with some pesky ‘lesbo’ - perhaps an ordinary ‘lesbian’ would be a more acceptable choice?
Maybe the ‘changing places’ question could be more profitably asked of a death row homosexual who has received his sentence at the hands of one of those friendly, morally sensible Islamic countries that Mr Witkowski is apparently so fond of? The same Mr Witkowski, who publishes ambiguous latex-clad images of himself on the internet? Would he be willing to swap with that chap on death row? Silly question? So could it be that Mr Witkowski is enjoying his preferred lifestyle, living as he does in a liberal culture? If this is the case, shouldn’t he desist from picking on liberal values?…Oh, but he doesn’t want to impose them onto the world at large. Why ever not? Should that ‘bald lesbo’ feel like donning a burqa one day, there would be nothing stopping her; but her veiled counterpart in a Moslem country could not trade places, even if she so wished.
I assume that Mr Witkowski is suffering from the lack of a religious moral compass in his life, but I can assure him that other values, apart from religious, do exist and do give sense to human existence. In defence of his interview, I can only say that he didn’t authorise publication. And that makes perfect sense.
transl. Małgosia Skawińska
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