How to Debunk European Right-Wing Populism? – Live Event 1.12.2017
This event is co-organised by the Parliamentary Group of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in the State Parliament Berlin (Abgeordnetenhaus), the Green Party of England and Wales and the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament – I am providing the live stream. Full details of the event here!
Live Stream of the Event
Pose your questions on Twitter using the tag #GreensMeetGruene
Speakers
Silke Gebel
Co-President of the Parliamentary Group of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen in the State Parliament Berlin (Abgeordnetenhaus)
Key note and panel debate involving the audience
– Bonnie Greer, American-British Playwright, Novelist, Critic and Broadcaster; Chancellor of Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, London
– Mike Galsworthy, Founder Scientists4EU
– Simone Peter, Co-Chair of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
Moderation
Terry Reintke, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA Group
I’d better give you some inside info on Poland. It’s tribalistic politics, with outbreaks of democracy. To show you how deep-seated this is, let’s look at the upper echelons of the judiciary and the people surrounding Małgarzata Gersdorf, head of the supreme court. The daughter of Communist Party members, she joined the party and was photographed with the First Secretary as a youth activist. Later, she married Tomasz Giaro, dean of the highly influential law faculty at Warsaw University and a Communist Party member. They have a son, Maciej, who’s now head of the law faculty at Warsaw University. As a lawyer, he worked on some cases where mummy was the judge. Her second husband Bohdan Zdziennicki, Communist party member, became head of the Constitutional Tribunal. Her law firm acted for Polish oligarch Solorz who, after starting off in car crime, changed tack and worked as a spy for the Polish Communist secret police, working in the Polish diaspora in Germany and Austria. To this end he has held 16 passports indifferent names. He now runs a major TV station in Poland, Polsat, which help keep the Polish people in the dark until the advent of the Internet. Our Liberal press is run mainly by Gazeta Wyborcza, whose core journalists all have impeccable Communist pedigrees. One might mention that the leading light Adam Michnik was jailed for several months – which gave him some kudos – but his conditions in jail were excellent and he was allowed to finish higher studies during this time. It has supplied wonderful cover for him for years. His whole family were committed Stalinists and his brother a mass murderer, who’s living in Sweden, having received political asylum.
On the other side of the fence, it’s best summed up by the fact that the bitterest opponents of the Liberals are the children and grandchildren of Poles murdered by the Communists in the immediate postwar period. Leading members of the Liberals support the pension rights of the Communist secret police. The Liberals also ensured that Gen. Jaruzelski got a house in central Warsaw for a pittance, for his service to the nation. Lech Wałęsa, as a proven paid agent of the Communist secret police is obviously anathema.
Could it be that “populism” is just a euphemism for someone’s opinion you don’t approve of?, or is it that the opinions you disapprove of are popular?
Perhaps if you listened to what the populists are saying and addressed their concerns that you may help solve the issue at hand.
Your call if you want to term it that.
But in my view being popular is not the same as populism. Have a read of this.