Who can say where the road in Europe? Why not fit any longer? The Polish publicist Urszula Ptak speaks in the local train with Strangers about politics – with surprising results.
We all become dumber or fire is the sun really so strong that I can no longer think clearly, which is why I see the future of Europe is black? Well-known Polish-European seats in the EU Parliament, half of Poland is laughing about it, the other is angry. Where are we 15 years after the accession to the EU? This is a question I asked myself one Morning on my terrace somewhere in the South of Poland, while I was reading the headlines. A real carousel of narcissistic politicians, of self-representation and recklessness. In Poland, in Germany, in Austria, in great Britain and in America – where the eye can see. The people realize that they’re better, or you believe that you have not gotten the cake a crumb, or are you just mad because the neighbor is still driving a better car than you? I decided this Morning, to have every evening a headache to read for a week, only the title pages and to check this only once a day, whether the world, I know, still exists. From the terrace everything looked in order. The Grass became yellow brown, and it has not rained since may, properly, there are no Apples on the tree, no wasps and the bees from the neighbor sums are also no longer in front of him. It is still nice and quiet, and the coffee tastes. The heat was unbearable in Berlin, barely. The books were hard to read and the messages are tiring. A longing for boredom, to leisure, to do nothing, to air and freedom was sitting since the beginning of the summer, deep inside of me.
At the same time I started with friends, family, neighbors, and fellow travelers, whom I was in the train compartment happen to run across, to lead political discussions. Who is responsible or, let’s be ambitious, who can tell me where to travel in Europe is all about? Why can’t everything fit? What speaks from the soul? With a lot of calculus thought-out answers from the politicians we know by heart. Just what is the Polish Jan and Maria Müller-Kowalski’s thinking? The answers I received amazingly fast. It looked like people were just waiting for my questions. You wanted to tell me so much that I had to often pull Tricks out of the affair.
Patriotic Vegetables
Policy in Poland is the first topic of conversation with coffee and cake, at a barbecue, at the bus stop when the Bus comes, in the train, in the floral business and in the market of a small town, where I wanted to buy Polish tomatoes. “National” cucumbers, tomatoes and plums that aroused a discussion, the gigantic proportions on the market took. For whom is it better if the strawberries will be offered as a “regional product” or as a Polish fruit? The organic advocates, the only shop locally, terrible nationalists and those who want to buy in the supermarket standardized tomatoes from Holland or Spain, to stronger European?maybe
The question I meant ironically, but they will occupy us soon to be sure of it longer. My grandma embodied an Ideal that we strive for today, net. You came from a world in which the familiarity was almost exactly 30 miles to the end. She ate and lived all her life in regional and organic, without mentioning it, let alone to imagine how “organic” was in order. I’m 40 years later, more than 600 kilometres from the home station, and drink just a Bio-lemonade from guava and peppers, which tastes horrible to the water of pickled peppers. Where the ingredients come from, not on it, but the Limo in Hamburg was established. A real everyday dilemma, the delete me when buying and thirst was not aware of.
People who buy only “regional” tomatoes, are nationalists?
Travel forms
I like to travel by train. In mid-June, I saw on the platform in Szczecin, an older gentlemen with his daughter. The girl, in her early twenties, looked pretty, nice dressed, but seemed a little stressed. I was under the impression that you wished that the train came at last and the father to an activity. Not that she was rude. She had embraced the father, and he is grateful, but a relief when the train arrived, was nevertheless read in her face. The father looked like fallen out of time. As he came directly from the 80s, he was old shorts and a Discounter-plastic bag in Hand. He looked like a farmer from my Childhood. I suspected he would have helped the daughter move, maybe the walls in the new apartment painted.
The two were obviously not only different generations, but also to other worlds. I thought that he was sure, politically, the Polish government party law and justice, so quite conservative, so a classic Polish stereotype: old, male, PiS-trailer seen. To sat across from my Surprise, or as fate would have it, the Lord told me suddenly in the train. I had a book about pedophilia-scandals in the Polish Catholic Church on the lap. I read a bit, breathed, sometimes deeply and looked at me for the relaxation of the countryside. The book aroused interest and a conversation between me and the two sitting next to me, old ladies began. Nobody had understanding of the Church, the ladies declared themselves as Catholic, but had the intention to add to the rhetoric of the Polish bishops, which declared every scandal only as an individual case.
Fire speech for Europe in the Polish regional train
The son-in-law, Mr. with the bag in Hand. The ladies got out, I continued reading. After about an hour he asked me suddenly where I was. I replied that I was from the South of Poland, but for almost 20 years, from Berlin. To answer the question for me is never easy to. The Lord opened to me his heart. He praised the new roads in Poland and marveled at how generous the subsidies for agriculture were: “The first Time you helped us!” He was happy that his daughter is foreign learn languages that German tourists come in and we see that we are as neighbors and not as enemies, and he railed against the government! I could not believe my ears, as I listened to this speech for Europe this regional train from Stettin to Swinemünde, and was a little embarrassed of how wrong I had been with my assessment. The Lord wished me a nice weekend and got out with the crumpled bag at a small station, where no houses were.
On the way back from Szczecin, the Polish young men sat in the train, one of them was wearing a T-Shirt with the Polish eagle and the inscription “death to the enemies of the Fatherland”. They drank beer and drove to Berlin to work. In addition, the Polish nurse languages that they had to instead provide for own grandchildren for the Old in Germany. A conversation between us took place, it was easy. Two hours in the train compartment of the second class, the live show is sometimes more complex and are of more value than many analytical books.
Urszula Ptak, a Polish journalist, writes about history and current policy. 2019 you got the German-Polish Tadeusz Mazowiecki prize for journalists.