Of being polite and how the appearances might be deceiving.
I went to the grocery store today. There is this really narrow aisle there, and an elderly couple was ahead of me, so I had to walk really slow behind them. From the opposite direction approached a woman. Good-looking, well dressed, holding a phone to her ear. Talking loudly, which in itself isn’t very nice when you’re in a crowded public space. But okay.
She said “excuse me” to the elderly couple. And then when I was passing, and she had to wait a second longer, I heard her muttering to herself: “kurwa”, eyeing me with an annoyed face.
It’s basically the worst word you can say in Polish, there’s no bigger curse word than that.
I passed, she went on and got lost out of my sight, but it left me shocked. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even touch her. I was just passing through the aisle, following that elderly couple. How was that deserving such rudeness? How a person can even be rude like that to a perfect stranger?
And I’m not talking about some drunk in a train station, or a drug addict, or something like that. That, I could understand. But she looked really, well, refined. Trim. Really good black coat, high heels, makeup, smartphone.
How appearances can be deceiving. I’ve met drunks and drug addicts who behaved ten times better.
Is it really that much to ask? To be polite to one another when we meet in public spaces? I know everyone is entitled to have a bad day, but hey, I’ve been feeling like crap since Monday, running a fever of 38 degrees Celsius, and I’m still being polite to others. And it’s not like the woman is incapable of being polite – she said “excuse me” to the elderly couple. How am I different in this case? I don’t know the woman, seen her for the first time in my life. I was doing exactly what that couple did. And yet she felt they deserved a polite “excuse me” and I deserve a “bitch”? And let me assure you, she wasn’t saying THAT to her phone. It was clearly meant for me. Like I was in some way worse than her. Or than that couple, for that matter.
And I know our society teaches us to be polite towards the elders, and I think it’s great, and I always give up my place to them in trams and buses, and all. But I think we shouldn’t stop at being polite to elder people.
I think we should be polite to everyone. Or at least not be rude, which isn’t necessarily the same thing.
Sometimes it’s the little things that frustrate me the most.
Like today. I have a class called “Ecrits professionnels”, which I would translate as “professional writing”. The teacher was explaining how the Curriculum Vitae, or your resume, works, and what should we put in there. (I’ve never said this class makes much sense to me; I didn’t find out a lot of new things during the 1h30 it lasted.) And of course there is a place for marital status in the resume, and she was saying that the only two options that are required to be put there is the status unmarried / married. You can, if you want, write “divorced”, but if you are divorced then you are unmarried, so you don’t need to specify.
And then I asked “what about civil unions”? The teacher said it was the same as with “divorced”. Because a person in a civil union is still unmarried, so you’re not required to put it there. What’s more, you shouldn’t, because it’s better to not give details if you’re not specifically asked for them. And while I understand her reasoning, I refuse the premise.
Because being in a civil union is NOT the same as being unmarried. In France, the PACS has been working for years, and it’s true that it’s possible to make the PACS even between, for example, a grandmother and her grandchild. Because the PACS in France is a very wide term and it’s not reserved for romantically involved couples. (Although study shows that by the end of 2012 more people will enter PACS than marry.) The problem is I wasn’t talking about PACS. I made it clear I meant civil unions in Poland, the thing that doesn’t exist yet, but might in the near future (I hope soon). The proposed bills about civil unions or the agreement of civil union (there are three different projects right now) encompass both heterosexual and homosexual couples, but all of them not only give many privileges that till now have been reserved for married couples only (like a right to decide about partner’s health or joint tax declaration, inheritance etc.), but also set some strict obligations similar to those in marriage (caring for one another, providing jointly for the family etc.). they’re obviously meant for couples romantically involved. It’s a step on a path to full marriage equality.
So how is being in a civil union same as being unmarried? It’s not. In fact it would be less of a lie to say that you’re married, if you’re in a civil union, that to say that you’re unmarried. Unmarried means single, and you’re NOT single. You have this person that you’re legally and emotionally tied to, and saying otherwise is lying, and you’re not allowed to lie in an official document. (Ethically speaking, you shan’t lie at any time, but that’s a completely different question.)
I kinda felt frustrated for that, and what even frustrated me more was that there was no room to argue the point. The teacher said her piece and moved on. And maybe I am overreacting, it was a group of what? eight, maybe ten people in the room, not a big deal, right? But the same kind of thinking is all around us. Like it didn’t matter. Guess what, it does matter. The terminology matters. Symbols matter. Because our language, and I mean in the profound structure, is what shapes our views and opinions, not less than the world shapes our language, it’s a two-way thing. The society is built on communication, the communication is what creates the relations between humans and helps us survive as a species, and the way I know it is because that same teacher taught me that last semester during a class called Theory of Communications.
What we say is important, and our words have real world consequences. They can hurt, they can heal, they can make us fall in love or hate. But on a more profound level, they also influence how we view the world. The reason why I always insist on using the word “czarny” (black) instead of “Murzyn” (Negro) is not because I think it sounds better, but because these words have implications. “Black” is the same category as “white” or “yellow”, it’s only one characteristic, color of the skin. “Negro” has some really degrading connotations in Polish, and I imagine in English too; there are certain idioms and expressions with that word that are rather nasty (like, for example, “daleko za Murzynami”, meaning “far away behind the Negros”, which means in some way retarded, e.g. technologically). It points out a group of people as a whole and not a certain specific trait, and is just offensive. The same goes for using the word “gej” (gay) instead of very medically-sounding “homoseksualista” (homosexual). We change our language accordingly to the course of social change, but we also have to go ahead and change our language to introduce the social change.
And that is why I think it’s important to understand that the moment the civil unions are introduced in Poland (and if they are, they’re gonna stay for a long time, because I don’t believe our conservative, oh-so-Catholic society will allow full marriage equality anytime soon, unfortunately), we’ll have THREE required categories to put in “marital status” field on our resume: unmarried, married, in a civil union.
PS. If you are a Polish speaker I really recommend you read the interview with dr Jerzy Krzyszpień in Replika, number 35 (it should be available as .pdf on this site after the new issue comes out). He discusses the question of language in lgbt context more closely. (Also, the entire magazine is worth reading, if you are interesting in LGBT issues.)
I blame the society.
I was reading this powerful story, written by a soldier who for the first time could tell it without hiding his name and face (thank God DADT ended, good job, America), and comparing it to what happened to me just this weekend. And I’ve come to a conclusion that it’s a terrible society we live in.
Society that forces us to live in fear and shame even though our parents always taught us to be proud of ourselves and be strong, and be who we are. Me and the mentioned soldier have that it common: we’ve had this awesome role model in our life, someone to measure up to. And everything that person ever did was love us no matter what. My mom is my best friend, my biggest support, my lifeline. She’s the best person I met. All my life my main fear was to fail her – not because she would punish me or something. It was ME who didn’t want to cause her any pain, any worry.
And we both were for some reason afraid to tell that person who we were. Why? All my mom ever did was love me. Unconditionally. I screwed up more than once, and she was always forgiving and understanding. And I was still afraid to tell her. I knew in my heart she wouldn’t do anything dramatic, like you hear some people do to their children confessing they’re not straight, like throw out of the house or tell them they have a disease or something. But I was afraid. Why?
I blame the society. This society that shapes us all, and tells me I am wrong to be different, even though I can’t help it and I didn’t choose this. This society that only views the world in black and white and refuses the existence of anything that is gray, or colorful. This society that only ever sets the limits and punishes those who breach the frontier. This society that lives in extrema, and condemns everything that is in between, or God forbids outside of the scale. This society that calls me sick, abnormal, a sinner, an abomination, because I dare to love differently. This society that makes me fear the reaction of the closest person I have when I admit the truth about myself. This society that forces their opinion on me so much that I start to assign it to everyone else, even those I love and who I know love me. This society that makes me presume everyone will be against me, even those who have been there for me my entire life. Who have never let me down. Who have been my greatest support throughout all the crap I’ve experienced.
I blame the society for the pressure. And I never want my close ones – my children, perhaps, in the future? – to feel that pressure. I blame the society and I’m going to do something about this. I’m not going to stand and watch the world go by. I am going to act and I am going to change the world. One person a time, if needs be.
I wish people wouldn’t think Poland is hidden somewhere in the Russian tundra.
Why do I have to live in such a nowhere?
I was talking to @WeAreSBNN on Twitter, asking if they had any t-shirts for people who are neither straight, nor narrow ;) you know, to support the cause. They said they’re planning on making a suitable t-shirt. I said cool, do you ship overseas? Yeah, sure, to all major countries. The list is on their site. And of course it doesn’t include Poland… so I’ll have to ship to a friend in UK or Ireland instead and they will have to ship it to me next. Twice the price.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole campaign, I support it wholeheartedly, I love the guy (or gal?) behind their Twitter account, so nice and kind, and I really get why they don’t ship to Poland – no point if there’s only me wanting it or even knowing about the campaign, right? I get it, really.
I just wish Poland wasn’t such far end of the world. I just wish we were recognized as one of the biggest (both by area and population) country in EU, with strong economy (the only one in EU holding steady without negative GDP during recent world crisis and recession) and awesome culture, worth looking into.
I wish people at least knew where Poland is. The number of times when I had to point it on the map or explain to people where it is and that no, we don’t have grizzly bears walking on streets and we do have TV and Internet and everything (I’m exaggerating only a little), is alarming, really.
I wish we weren’t ignored. But I know it’s not gonna change anytime soon. So I just have to get used to being ignored.
April 10th.
It was Saturday. I stayed in Krakow for the weekend. I was asleep. I usually catch up with sleeping during weekends. I was waking up. I heard a low buzz. SMS. My eyelids seemed heavy when I lifted them to see who’s that. Ireth, of course. I hardly ever get texts from someone lese, at least in comparison. If they come very early or very late, I usually push reading them until later. But not this time. This time I was already waking up, so I opened the message.
“Zabiło nam prezydenta!”, said the message. “It killed our president”. I distinctly remember thinking: What the hell? April Fools was ten days ago. (I hate April Fools. Someone fooled me once into believing that a close friend died. I was just a kid. I don’t like that day since then.) I thought about ignoring it and going back to sleep, but something inside told me to check it out, just to be sure. So I got up and turned on Hotch. (Hotch is the name of my PC. I am that person. I give names to inanimate objects.) I sat in my chair, in nothing but the pajamas, and opened onet.pl. I usually don’t use it, because since few years ago it’s similar more to a cheap tabloid than a real journal or news service. But for the quick search it’s not that bad.
It wasn’t black yet. They changed the colours to black and white later. But it was there. The news. A plane crash in Smoleńsk. President’s dead. Or is he? How many victims? Did the plane burn? How many people were on board? Who was there? Someone we knew? Are there any survivors? Is it really one hundred dead? Or maybe fifty? Or eighty? The information contradicted one another. It was all very chaotic. I don’t remember what was happening, not in the chronological order anyway. I remember commenting it all on Twitter. I remember sending an SMS to pay for a day streaming of TVN24, Polish version of CNN. I remember news presenters in tears, their voices rough, eyes wide with disbelief. I didn’t blame them. I couldn’t believe it myself.
I remember the then speaker of the Sejm (the lower chamber of the Parliament) giving his statement, his voice stiff, angular, husky. The commenters thought he was emotionless. I thought he was just shocked, like we all were. Suddenly all has changed. He had to take a great responsibility on his shoulders and not after long campaign and elections, but right there, right now. He just coped with it a little differently than we’d expect. Doesn’t make him compassionless.
I remember the sirens. I remember the minute of silence, when all the trams and buses and ordinary cars stopped and just stood there.
I remember people whispering on the streets, eyes wide opened, tears. White and red flags with black ribbons. I wore a black ribbon too. All week.
I remember my mom saying over the phone that she has met Mrs. Bochenek on occasions. I remember staring at the victim’s list. Mrs. Jaruga-Nowacka, the woman who had done so much for the feminist and LGTB situation. Former President Kaczorowski. Military people. Members of Parliament. Senators. The Russian interpreter (this touched me a lot, since I want to be an interpreter myself). Officers of BOR, the government’s protection bureau. Even Lech and Maria Kaczynska, though I didn’t vote for him and did not support him. He wasn’t the best president, but didn’t deserve to die. No one deserved to die. Why did they? We may never find out. But one thing I know: I don’t believe in any conspiracy theory. Everything else I’ll accept.
Sunday. The day after the crash. I had a meeting with friends planned for weeks. We didn’t cancel. We went to the cafe called Cieplarnia, it’s on the Bracka Street. We didn’t know… there were some people at the nearest table. We weren’t very quiet. It’s impossible to be sad or quiet if you’re in such jolly company. We didn’t know… A very pale, sad-looking woman, that one of my friends categorized as “some politician”, though she didn’t even know if she was local or national, asked us to turn it down a little. We didn’t want to disturb them, so we left. It wasn’t until then that we realized. The cafe was directly beneath the parliamentary bureau of late Zbigniew Wasserman. One of the Smoleńsk victims.
I remember that we were to have a test with Madame K., our French lecturer. She didn’t do it. She said she understood that nobody felt like studying this weekend. She was really great about that. I think she experienced it almost as much as any of us. After all, she’s lived in Poland for years.
I remember when all different heads of state were promising to get there for the funeral. Somehow, I found it soothing. Just a little. But then, the volcano. You remember that, right? And now, there’s a crack. Why Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, though he came late, was able to get there and Obama or Sarkozy or Merkel weren’t? They were all in US for the summit. So how was it that Saakashvili managed to do it and almost nobody else did? Was it security issues? Or… simply an excuse? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters now. I’m just wondering.
I remember that despite the fact that I thought – and still think – that burying Kaczynkis on Wawel was wrong on many levels, I went there the day of the funeral. It was raining. It was cold. We stood there, at the foot of the Wawel Hill, on a square where the cross is. The cross was erected years ago in commemoration of Katyń victims. Since that day, it’s never going to be only Katyń massacre anymore. It’ll be also the Smoleńsk tragedy. The double meaning will always be there from now on.
We stood there, by the cross, in rain. There was a big screen nearby, so we could watch the ceremony. I don’t remember much of it. It was cold and wet. And sad.
This is what I want to remember. This is what I want to mourn. It was a tragedy that shouldn’t happen. It should have stayed in the safe imagination of writers. (Did I mention I wrote something very similar not long before it happened? It still gives me the chills…) But it did happen. What I don’t understand is how this week of tragedy, a week of national mourning turned into this year… this year of bartering, politicizing every aspect of it, this year of egoism, inflated self-esteem, lost values, fights, partial, partisan tricks, media wars. It was awful. We have enough. We don’t want it anymore. I don’t even want to write about it. ENOUGH! Let us mourn our lost compatriots in peace. And then let us get back to our lives. Let’s start to live our lives, to prepare our future. Let us remember the past and not live it!
Let us move on. Please.
The black Volga.
Have you heard a story about the black Volga? It is said to roam around cities and kidnap little children, especially those who wander alone. My grandma used to scare me by telling me this story when I was a kid. I didn’t know what Volga was, but I assumed it was a car. And of course, it was a luxurious limousine popular during communist times.
The story about black Volga has been around since the early ’60s, I think. My mom told me her mom used to scare her with it too, and my mom was born in ’55. When I was a child, in early to mid ’90s, Volgas became very rare, because suddenly the market has been opened and Western cars started to be imported in great numbers. I’ve never seen a Volga – or I didn’t notice anyway. And I would notice if I saw one, at least in the last five years, ’cause while I don’t exactly love cars, I like them enough to be interested what make or model is this or that car.
My grandma was the one who told me the black Volga story, because she didn’t want me to wander the streets alone (I was always very keen of it), she wanted me to stay with my family or friends when I played outside. But, while I didn’t know back then nothing about Volgas, I knew enough about Mercedes and BMWs.
Because the story returned at full speed in ’90s. Only it was no longer the black Volga, but the black Mercedes or black BMW. They either kidnapped children or young and pretty girls. It’s been also said that it was the Satan himself who drove the car and he asked people about the hour and they would die at that exact hour he asked about… and many more frightening stories.
The funny thing being, my father owned a black BMW. Well, it wasn’t exactly black – the color was called, if I recall, “dark dolphin”, but don’t ask me why. It was very, very dark, almost black, but there was a metallic edge to it. But it could easily pass for black. It was rare to have the car that good back then – even if my father bought it used – and all the children on my yard were envious and scared of it. Even more so, because my dad always wore a black suit and had a beard… also because when he was angry, he yelled a lot. All this made them very anxious of him. My not-quite-cousin-but-almost told me once that he was always scared of my dad. Huh. Who wasn’t? I certainly was!
Anyway, I don’t know why this story came to me today. I thought I’d share. Do you have similar urban legends where you live? Were you ever really scared because of something your parents or other people told you? Share it with me :)
I had to write about Egypt sooner or later.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King was a wise man, even though he didn’t discover anything new by saying that. This is still true and we who had been long oppressed know it very well. I am of the first generation of Poles born into free country. (Even though, technically, I was born in communist era, on April 23rd. We say the communism in Poland ended on June 4th. I missed it by a little over six weeks.) And before the communism, there was World War II. And before that – World War I. And before that – 123 years of partitions of Poland executed by Germany, Russia and Austria. And before that – constant wars, constant threat from our neighbors.
We’re still here.
What I’m trying to say is, freedom is possible, even if it seems unlikely. Believe me, we know. Freedom is also hard to both achieve and perpetuate. We fought for it for centuries. We never gave up, even though everyone said our attempts were useless. Well, maybe they were. But we’re still freaking here. And we are free. And safer than at any given moment in our history.
Nie możemy się dzielić na ludzi, którzy o wolność walczą i którzy na wywalczoną wolność z założonymi rękami oczekują.
(We cannot be divided into people who fight for freedom and who wait for it doing nothing.)
Jerzy Popiełuszko
This is why we’re so proactive about Belarus. We believe in freedom above all. Freedom of oppression, freedom of mind, freedom of speech. Belarus is near, it’s our neighbor. There is a large Polish ethnic minority there. No one should be surprised that we support the opposition’s efforts of overthrowing Lukashenko, often dubbed the last dictator in Europe.
The thing is, there are many other dictators in the world.
And of course we care. We support every democratic attempt. But with distance, grows also our powerlessness. We can’t really do much about Cuba or China. No one can.
The newly unleashed strikes for the democracy and freedom in Arab countries please me and stuns me at the same time. It is something I certainly hoped for, but never expected it to happen so soon. But I guess it was bound to happen. These aren’t, after all, the pro-western rallies. Nor anti-western. People in those countries simply demand what they have a right to have: a truly democratic government that would reform the old and rigid law, so that they wouldn’t be so poor. And man, they are poor.
I haven’t realized the extent of the poverty of an average Arab man until I’ve been to Egypt. This was only few months ago and I could see the people’s frustration about all of that.
View from one of the roofs in the Nubian Village near Aswan.
True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The thing that you immediately grasp when you enter Egypt are the contrasts, the eternal social paradox: rich vs poor. Sadly, the latter makes the largest social class. Everywhere you turn, you see people in jellabiyas smoking sheeshas, sittings on the doorsteps and following you with their eyes, because you’re well-clothed, blonde girl, obviously a tourist, a potential baksheesh donor. Everywhere you hear hoots, you see little cars that almost fall apart, the carts and carriages pulled by skinny, tired horses; the garbage is lying all around, people are always trying to sell you something, there is noise, there is life. But what kind of life is it? I found out that a policeman in Luxor makes 300 egyptian pounds a month, which is equivalent of about $60. A month. And he has a wife and children to provide for. On the other hand, when you’re in Egypt, you might see something like I saw: a poor Bedouin drive-in raided with at least twelve shiny new Harley Davidsons with their owners all in black leather and mirror sun-glasses. The contrast is so obvious that it’s almost terrifying, as if you just stepped into the other world.
A villa on the Nile's riverside, near Aswan.
This is different reality, different culture; but people are people everywhere in the world and I can’t blame them for their desire of a change, of a better, more fulfilled life. In fact, I appraise them for what they’re doing. It might destabilise the region. So what? It’s not like the Middle East wasn’t a barrel of gunpowder before. And maybe, maybe, maybe with a stable, truly democratic government, our international relations will change as well? Will improve? Maybe this is the first step to something bigger, a transformation we all are waiting for. Maybe it’s the little pebble that will move the avalanche.
Mother with her child, Bedouin tourist village near Hurghada.
Or maybe not. Maybe this won’t change a thing in a big scheme. But if the life of an ordinary Egyptian improves only a little bit, it’s worth it. Mubarak was in power for too long. Did you know that in Egypt there is martial law, imposed in 1981 and never lifted? This means that military can take anyone out from the streets, court-martial them and throw them in jail or even kill without so much of a fair trial.
It’s not surprising that a little spark like the riots in Tunisia started the fire like the one we see on Tahrir Square tonight. After Tunisia, Egypt believed that it’s possible for a muslim, for an arab country to be free of oppression. And now, maybe, just maybe, since this already worked on Egypt and Yemen, maybe others will se it too. I see hope there. For the sake of those people – our brothers and sisters, after all. Not every muslim is a terrorist. In fact, most of them are very peaceful people who mind their own business, just like we do. And if they can reach out for democracy, if they can start on the social change, maybe the civil rights for everyone aren’t the impossible dream… even in our times. Maybe I will see peace in the Middle East before I die.
So yes, I support Egypt (and Tunisia and Yemen and any other willing country) in the battle for freedom. It’s a noble cause. And the hell with dictatorship!
I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Photos included in the article are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. You are required to credit Amelia E. Adler as their author upon use.
“Good luck!” – “I don’t thank you!” :)
I was wondering today. Are you superstitious? Normally, I’m not. But there are few things that count as superstitious that I do despite the fact that I don’t believe they have any real meaning. Just to be sure.
For example, in Poland, when somebody wishes you luck, you don’t answer “thank you”. On the contrary, you can’t thank him – it brings bad luck if you do! So people say “nie dziękuję”, which means “I don’t thank you”. The interlocutor knows you meant to thank him or her and you just don’t want to spoil the luck. Everyone acknowledges that and don’t think twice about it.
Another thing I sometimes do is knocking on unpainted wood. Sometimes you tell something bad, like a bad prediction or something you really wish would not happen. In order to keep it from happening – because when you voice it, the Murphy law or any other strange rule of the universe will certainly make it happen – you have to knock on something wooden, and it’s important that the wood not be painted. “Odstukać w niemalowane drewno” is the Polish expression. So sometimes I do that, too. For example, if I say “I bet I won’t pass this exam” I have to knock so that this doesn’t happen.
And the third piece of superstition I usually do is linked with chimney sweeps. In Poland it is believed that if you spot one, it’ll bring you good luck, but you have to do certain things: grasp your button and find three people wearing glasses. I know it seems stupid, but it’s so deeply engraved into our culture that everyone does it (poor chimney sweeps!). Me too, though more out of habit than anything else.
There are more things like that, but it’s getting late and I don’t want this post to be too long. (I’m trying to keep my graphomania in reasonable limits.) What do you think? Are you superstitious? Do you have some things you do, just because it’s better not to mess with fate?
