13.02.25. The more something happenschanges...
At the end of January, a trial of 5 people began in Hajnówka, which in March 2022 helped migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border. This means, in fact, the collision and conflict (1) of natural law—determining, as it seems, the essence of humanity, for hundreds of years unwritten, but in the 20th century codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—with (2) the law established ad hoc, locally by current political authorities. In Hajnówka, then, there is to be a judgement over people who have helped another people in their hopeless situation. And all this in a civilized, democratic country. In the 21st century...
The thought of specified events causes us to want to make the title of these events Entries a fragment of the Polish version of the French proverb: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme choice” – “The more something changes, the more it remains unchanged”. Human civilization seems to make highly – it is adequate to mention flights in Space and the possibilities of artificial intelligence. At the same time, however, if you hit the question with a large question, you might think about what is actually different – for example – the origin of the Hajnówka process from the conflict concerning human responsibilities, and shown even in Antigons Sophocles, this is in a drama from 442 BC?
Antigone, I will callback in all the heavens the case, in accordance with human natural, customary law, recognized as divine by the surrounding community, contrary to the prohibition of Kreon, the current ruler of Thebes, buried the body of Polinejek, his brother, who died in the attack on Thebes. What the eternal human thought was more crucial than the current politically justified regulation. Even more crucial is the fact that the brother was guilty, in simple terms, of betraying his city and bringing calamity upon it. And besides to her threatening punishment for breaking the ban. She thus called Antigon into question the thought that a citizen should submit to the authority. She paid with her life. Besides, everyone active in this communicative ended up badly, as you know. What, then, could we hear if this Antigone woman, a 100 years ago, wanted to justify her decision?
With aid in imagining specified a matter, late comes poetic reading Separate mythsJarosław Mikołajewski (Literary Publishing House, Krakow 2024). The author took them into the workshop of stories, which we know from existing papers, explaining in the introduction his thought and how to retell them:
Since I began to learn about Greek myths – in the version of Wanda Markowska, Jan Parandowski, Tadeusz Zieliński – I felt intimidated by their depth and beauty, although after a fewer minutes of reading I had to say that this planet is besides hard for me, rapidly impatient for me, it makes me confused: besides many fathers of the same child, besides many wives of the same husband, besides many incredible adventures. I was lost in it. I felt that he could be simpler, reduced to what I was curious in and moved most.
[...]
And only this year, a 100 years after appearing Mythology Parandowski, I had an idea, or alternatively a language of my own mythology. Focused on individual characters who themselves tell stories about themselves, simultaneously, through episodes I thought of as papers of complicated stories (Separate myths, p. 7).
Among the “separate myths” announced by Mikołajewski, we will besides find a short communicative of Antigone with a conclusion that prompts us to think – no little than – only about mentioned at the beginning of these Entries process established in Hajnówka:
When Kreon forbids burial
My brother, but for grief.
I had an objection. But not 1 who struggles in powerlessness.
I buried Polinejek with my own force, against the King's ban.
And it wasn't a reflection, a reflection. It was like a pass.
A alien from a distant land of a glass of water. Like a reflex.
A look at the falling Icarus. The lotus bloom.
So what if Kreon had me killed?
If I hadn't died by royal order, I would have died
From discord and shame (Separate myths( p. 14).
Now, here's the thing. Migrants scope the Polish-Belarusian border as a consequence of the operation of the clearly and intentionally organized "migration industry". On the another hand, they choose to travel for political reasons or due to the fact that their erstwhile residences are no longer viable due to climate change. frequently the origin is utmost poverty...
They're usually run by individual who makes money off of them. And it's not very new. To find out, it is adequate to look at migration processes characteristic of Galicia, or Central Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The description of how the migration manufacture was organised and how it operated there, is simply a moving presentation of the late deceased Austrian author and translator educated in Poland, among others, Martin Pollack (1944-2025) in the study The Emperor of America.Great Escape from Galicia (wrote Karolina Niedenthal, Czarne Publishing House, Wołowiec 2024).
Indeed, this “great escape” included hundreds of thousands of Jews, Rusins, Slovaks and Poles. It led to North America, so to the United States and Canada, but besides to South America, Brazil or Argentina. It was a life of utmost misery. Most people who could not read or compose and trust on stories about the happy planet that awaited them outside the sea and spread by means of various shipping companies. This situation resulted in those who made money in this situation from recruiting possible migrants and those who profited from their transport under ships. The title of the study came from the fact that the navigators presented to their victims the alleged letter of the expected “César of America” who warmly invited them to his country, promising a prosperous life.
Pollack is making this story, utilizing it in the account of the present time. The reader can so observe presented mechanisms and processes as if they function here and now. At the same time he learns about Central Europe, including Polish places and localities from the Austrian partition. It is easy to discover during this reading that those who, present and at the minute on the Polish-Belarusian border, have experiences akin to those described by Pollack. A century and a half doesn't seem to make any peculiar difference...
On the another hand, it is worth noting how peculiar the biography of the quoted author is. Who was Martin Pollack? For example, we will read in “The Common Week” (2025, No. 5) in the text Wojciech BonowiczGoodbyes.
Someone – the answer is – who could find himself in front of the past of his family, and that means at the same time in the face of history, life and the world, given that his grandpa was a Nazi and his father was a Gestapo and a wanted war criminal. They died on 17 January of that year, as quoted by Bonowicz, he claimed: “A survey of history—of their own, but besides of others, without any prejudice, is the most crucial condition for self-understanding, uncovering their own identity—and gathering another on an equal level. Without history, this cannot be done.”
So it's not about rewriting history, exposing only certain events and blurring memory of others. Of course, it matters that Pollack wrote a book, among another things, Death in the bunker. A Tale of My Father.
Returning one more time to the mention of the trial in Hajnówka, I would like to remind you now recalled in these cases Records texts specified as: EnclosureHanna Krall (Publication Sign fresh Literary, Krakow 2024) and ExclusionArtur Domosławski (Grand Literary Publishing, Warsaw 2017). There are evidences in them of how a man feels as a roommate, as an unwanted alien, whom the locals do not want to admit as a human being, as 1 who, according to the ruling authorities, spreads parasites, as those who are denied global protection requests erstwhile their lives are at stake, as those who are thrown behind walls and fences, and those who lose their loved ones in swamps and mud...
In this context, it is besides hard not to think about the regulations signed by Donald Trump, so about the announced deportations of migrants, as well as about the provisions on the United States Agency for global improvement (USAID), that is, decisions on its withdrawal from humanitarian aid programmes needed from different countries. And it's immediately like a book that deals with investigation on climate change that is already causing, and in the future it's going to increase migration, so work. Gai Vince A 100 nomads. How people's journeys will change the world (c. Andrzej Wojtasik, Wydawnictwo Krytyki Politycznyj, Warszawa 2024; it was mentioned in Records p. About crossing borders of 27.06.2024 and The planet we live in of 19.12.2024).
It is unchangingly astonishing to look solely at the tip of one's own nose, and that, alternatively of discussing what to do with the inevitability of the developments mentioned here, fresh walls are designed at most. alternatively of education, in which the above words of Pollack would be fundamentally important, alternatively of reasoning of a multi-faceted identity, the various “only truths” about the peculiar choice of their own nation and about the victims they have suffered in the past are constantly emphasized. due to the fact that the more things change, the more they turn out to be the same...
