In the span of two weeks, Poland has witnessed the heat of political scandal. A priest with the most political and religious power in Poland was secretly recorded trash-talking the current president and his wife at one of his university lectures, and then having the tapes publicly broadcast all over the media (story here). Then a simple-minded leader of a political party gets kicked out for corruption. Now, the country is officially in mourning (the Rolling Stones were even asked to postpone their concert, they refused) after a bus on a pilgrimage to Rome crashed near Grenoble, killing 26.
My Polish grandmother, politically-minded, an ardent newspaper-reader, is shocked as to why I’m not more enraged/excited by all this scandal. I don’t have it in my heart to tell her that I simply don’t care. Emotionally care, that is.
My lack of ability to produce any sort of emotion when listening to Polish politics is, in my opinion, a product of being in a state of mobility. Events happening within a given locality one temporarily inhabits are interesting, like watching a film or hearing a piece of gossip about a friend-of-a-friend, yet rarely are pieces which make one feel rage, sadness, fear, shock, or any other emotion usually common among the politically-engaged. Why? Simply because when in a state of mobility, it is easier not to take ownership of the events happening around you. It’s easy to say that what will happen is an issue for the Polish people, not for me. When the longevity of one’s residence becomes unpredictable, so does the impact of a local political event.
Scandal is looked at as more of an amusing joke and not as something which can seriously mar the Polish political ground. News is just information but not something to get heated up about. The emotions which accompany events are reserved for permanent citizens, not for the mobile.
I realize that political apathy is something common among all citizens, not only the most mobile of us. Mobility, though, provides individuals with yet another excuse not to take part in politics, actively or passively.
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