On 20 June this year, the guest of the Polish thought Club in Łódź and the Dmowski Club was ed. Adam Laughter, who gave a lecture on the current Polish-Ukrainian relations. The subject of the gathering was the question – is the Polish-Ukrainian past dialog possible?
According to ed. The Laughter starting point for the answer to the above question was a fresh message by Ukrainian chief IPN Anton Drobovich, who stated that: There will be no consent to exhumation of victims of the Volyn massacre unless Poland renews the devastated monument to the UPA soldiers in Podkarpacie. The above message points to a full deficiency of willingness of the Ukrainian side to account for its own past, including the designation of its own crimes. In specified a situation, a fair and honest historical debate is not possible.
The talker stressed that quite a few bad things in Polish-Ukrainian relations were done by the current war, and especially unconditional Polish aid to Ukraine. The erstwhile spokesperson for the Polish Ministry of abroad Affairs, Łukasz Jasina, was quoted here, who stated after the outbreak of the war that “We are servants of the Ukrainian people”. The motive for specified actions and statements is, according to ed. The Laughter obsessive hatred of Russia by most political class in our country, and in peculiar representatives of the ruling party. This environment needs Ukraine as an antithesis of Russia, even if Ukrainian identity is built on the criminal ideology of flagism. The talker stressed that the irrationalism of this policy has long traditions extending to the Bar confederation and subsequent national uprisings.
On the another hand, the attitude of Ukrainian authorities towards Poland is assertive and only aimed at obtaining concrete political and economical benefits. The Ukrainian side treats Poland instrumentally – as an arms supplier and a country providing its financial assistance. frequently this aid is not accompanied by gratitude but by contempt. The Ukrainian side not only does not treat the Volyn massacre as an unprecedented crime, but the initiators and performers of this act of genocide recognise it as heroes, 1 of the most visible manifestations of which are many OUN-UPA leaders' monuments. Moreover, the ideology of flagism is part of the upbringing of young generations in Ukraine.
Red. Adam Laughter expressed surprise that both the Polish authorities and the governments of the Western countries did not respond to the widespread practices in Ukraine of spreading the ideology of flagism (Ukrainian chauvinism) related in many aspects to the Nazi ideology. This is unprecedented due to the fact that both Nazi and another criminal ideologies have been explicitly condemned by the global community. It is hard to imagine that in Germany there are statues of Hitler and in Cambodia Pol Pot. According to ed. Laughter The only explanation for specified "tolerance" is simply a protective umbrella spread by the US over Ukraine, utilized for geopolitical purposes against Russia.
To sum up red. Adam Laughter stressed that at the minute he did not see the anticipation of any constructive historical dialog and public debate on the hard past of Poles and Ukrainians. Dialogue must be based on fact and readiness to account for its own past.
Michał Radzikowski
