Julian Kutyła
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08.12.2009 |
Once upon a time, we hoped to build ‘another Japan,’ but the plan ended up hitting the buffers.
Once upon a time, we hoped to build ‘another Japan,’ but the plan ended up hitting the buffers. Soon after, we were on our way to build ‘another Ireland,’ but this ambition also came to nought. You can read all about the whys and the wherefores in the ‘Dziennik’: …Financial crisis…circumstances beyond our control…you understand…Oh yes, we do understand! I’ve long been bemused by the Polish compulsion to remake the country in the image of this or that island. Maybe it is due to our long-held notion of Poland as a solitary outcrop of righteousness in an ocean of godlessness and skulduggery, and this mindset stubbornly persists. Alas, all our efforts at giving our homeland an insular upgrade are invariably scuppered due to ‘circumstances beyond our control.’
And yet not everyone takes the power of these ‘circumstances beyond control’ seriously. Take pesky foreign commentators (plenty of them in the clearly, definitively, anti-Polish Western media, what!), who are all too keen to turn the situation on its head and poke around looking for a ‘Polish Curse;’ because no sooner had Poland set its sights on some island than its economy started going down the plughole. Japan spent a decade bumping along the bottom of the recession in the nineties and mind boggles at what may yet lie in store for the poor Irish who haven’t done anyone any harm. The inhabitants of Greenland, Cape Verde and all destinations lacking a land bridge to a nearby continent must be sounding the alarm by now as they’re waiting with bated breath for the unveiling of the Polish government’s new strategy.
But those fears could be easily addressed, if only our intrepid politicians remembered the ideal island location on which to model their forthcoming economic plan. Any child could tell them about those islands; the islands free of the constraints imposed by ‘circumstances beyond control’ and where miracles are not only possible, but are an everyday event: The Never Never Land. This archipelago displays another crucial characteristic which makes it immune from the ‘Polish Curse’ and should therefore stop anti-Polish mischief making in its tracks: It doesn’t exist.
Transl. Malgosia Skawinski
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