Polska NOW!

01/2014

PolskaNOW Creative Poland/Modern business/Sustainable development/Education

Magazine of the Polish Promotional Emblem Foundation

Polska Now – in Europe and in the World This year is a time of important anniversaries for Poland.

These anniversaries are endowed with even more significance considering Polish identity and history, especially the most recent, which is a key for understanding the contemporary hopes and fears of our society. It has been twentyfive years since the fall of communism and the first partially free election. The year 1989 is the beginning of Poland’s extremely successful march towards the modern, free and open Europe. In May ten years will have passed since the moment when Poland became a member of the European Union, which had its impact not just on defining the future of our country, but the image of the Union itself, open to new member states. This year we will also celebrate the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 2 and the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising – events which are inextricably linked with the Polish commitment to freedom.

We want Europe and the world to perceive Poland the same way we perceive them – that is as a nation focused on modernity, on humanistic values, but understanding and respecting its historical identity and roots. We are aware that everything that is going on in the Polish economy, culture and public life translates into building the Brand of Poland.

Therefore, we want our successes and projects to be promoted as broadly as possible.

The Polska Now magazine, which Polish edition is published once a quarter, allows understanding what is this great task of shaping the Brand of Poland. In the magazine there are articles and commentaries of experts from the world of culture, business, sport and science. Polska Now shows how we perceive our country in the European and global spectrum and how we want the future to be.

For the first time we provide our readers with an English version of our magazine. It brings the most interesting and important publications, selected from the previous issues of Polska Now. We hope that the next editions will be published annually and that they will be your window to a modern, ambitious Poland.

After all, this Polish ambition and optimism are so much needed in contemporary Europe.

Enjoy your reading!

Krzysztof Przybył Editor-in-Chief President of the Foundation for the Polish Promotional Emblem ”Teraz Polska”

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Polska Now – in Europe and in the World. Krzysztof Przybył

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Bronisław Maria Komorowski – President of Poland

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Teraz Polska – The New Engine of Europe. Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of the Republic of Poland in the years 1995-2005, on the image and role of contemporary Poland, on the ideas of the leftwing, bipartisan agreement and the Teraz Polska award. Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

14 We Can Catch up with Europe. Lech Wałęsa, President of the Republic of Poland in the years 19901995, on new values for new times and the united Europe, overcoming divisions and Solidarity. Interviewed conducted by Adam Mikołajczyk and Kamil Broszko.

18 Employers – the strength and energy of the Polish economy. Interview with Andrzej Malinowski, President of the Employers of Poland.

20 Teraz Polska ... More and More! Witold M. Orłowski 24 Family-Oriented, Resourceful Poland. Professor Andrzej Blikle on the associating culture, family-run companies and the attributes of a good manager. Interview conducted by Adam Mikołajczyk.

28 Respect Your Innovator. Professor Michał Kleiber on changes in the education system necessary for it to teach a love for science. Interview conducted by Adam Mikołajrzyk.

34 To Awake Hope. Professor Henryk Skarżyński. This is how the cochlear implants programme began, and then the great programme of advanced otosurgery and audiology followed.

36 I Wouldn’t Be Able to Live Without Sport. Robert Korzeniowski on the career of an athlete and a businessmen, the situation of Polish competitive and amateur sports. Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

40 This Is Truly the Time of Women. Ewa Kopacz, the Marshal of the Sejm, on everyday patriotism, creating conditions for development by the government and the new roles of women. Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

44 The World Envies Our Emotions. Jurek Owsiak on the circumstances of setting up and the further operation of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

46 I Am Trying to Be an Individual, Not Just a Statistical Number. Rafał Olbiński on choosing the path of life, the different aspects of fame, the impact of the new media on the creative process. Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko 52 I Am Optimistic as a Rule. Urszula Dudziak on Poland and Poles. Interview conducted by Krzysztof Przybył and Adam Mikołajczyk.

57 Lusławice for the Young – the European Krzysztof Penderecki Centre for Music. In a small village in the south of Poland something extraordinary emerged that amazes and attracts the whole world.

60 Centre of Science – Centre of Attention. For over two years now it has been in the lead among places you just have to visit when in Warsaw, although it doesn’t aspire to the title of the most important tourist attraction in the capital of Poland.

62 Mazury, the Wonder of Nature. Jacek Poniedziałek 64 We Need to Build the Necessary Minimum of Community Spirit. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Prime Minister (1927 - 2013), in a conversation with Kamil Broszko. Interview conducted on 25.09.2013.

Polska NOW Editor in Chief: Krzysztof Przybył Managing Editor: Adam Mikołajczyk Editors: Kamil Broszko, Marzena Tataj Cover design: Rafał Olbiński Address: ul. Górskiego 1, 00-033 Warszawa, tel. 222012690, e-mail: a.mikolajczyk@terazpolska.pl, www.terazpolska.pl

Publisher: Best Place Foundation – The European Place Marketing Institute commissioned by The Polish Promotional Emblem Foundation www.bestplaceinstitute.org Graphic design and layout: Tamburyn www.tamburyn.eu Photos: archive of The President’s Office, Witold Orłowski, Michał Kleiber, Henryk Skarżyński, Chancellery of the Sejm, Jurek Owsiak, Robert Korzeniowski, Urszula Dudziak, European Krzysztof Penderecki Centre for Music, The Copernicus Science Centre.

Print: Miller Druk Sp. z o.o. www.m-druk.pl

Today, modern patriotism is predominantly work patriotism for the benefit of modernisation of our Fatherland, using our own experience, as well as the experience of integrating Europe.

Today it is a patriotism open to the modern world.

Bronisław Komorowski President of the Republic of Poland Speech on the occasion of the May 3rd National Holiday

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Politics

Polska

– The New Engine of Europe

Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of the Republic of Poland in the years 1995-2005, on the image and role of contemporary Poland, on the ideas of the left-wing, bipartisan agreement and the Teraz Polska award.

Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

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The Image of Poland Kamil Broszko: Mr. President, how has the image of Poland changed during the last 20 years?

Aleksander Kwaśniewski: It has changed immensely. Poland has become a well-known country. For many years we used to be in the “grey zone” of communist states, and our presence in European or global awareness began in 1980, from Solidarity, Lech Wałęsa, and later on martial law, General Jaruzelski. Even today I am sometimes asked about our historical leaders in the most unexpected places. The Polish dispute of that time was full of great emotions that interested people from all over the world. Since 1989 Poland is respected for the peaceful path we have taken, for the Round Table, for the great shift in our home policy, for economic transformations and that we were able to successfully apply for our accession to the European Union and NATO. Therefore, Poland has become a country which is well-known, respected, appreciated for its political role during the last 20 years, and during the recent crisis additionally respected for the fact that while all other countries have a negative or zero economic growth, in Poland it is positive. The expression “polnische Wirtschaft”, scornfully used in Germany for years, referring to an inefficient, messy economy, today sounds absolutely different. The Polish economy is dynamic; it is not afraid of any obstacles, it is able to overcome them. So generally speaking, the image of Poland during the recent 20 years has changed radically for the better. Today we must think what to do in order to maintain this image; what to do so as to improve it even more, because what we were able to do we have done and now the bar is set even higher as far as what is required of Poland.

Obviously, there is still the stereotype of a poor and primitive Poland, a Poland that steals cars, but also a very religious one – on its knees, in pilgrimage. The stereotype does not allow accepting certain information; it is stronger than the truth, than facts we are able to provide. On the other hand, direct contacts of tourists, young people and students with Poland are much more favourable for us. It turns out that Poland is a civilised and friendly country, with a quite well-developed tourist infrastructure, with great cuisine, not to mention beverages, as they are broadly known and appreciated. We have to take advantage of different occasions, e.g. Euro 2012. It was a real test whether we could join the group of nations able to organise great events. Whether we could organise efficient transport, accommodation, security, provisions, atmosphere, etc. Passing this test has had a great positive impact on how Poland and Poles are perceived. We have entered a relatively small group of countries capable of organising huge events.

Generally speaking, it takes years to build a good image, but it takes such a short time to destroy it.

KB: For the last 20 years you have always been very close to the most important political decisions. It seems that the responsibility for building the country’s image rests also with politicians. Therefore, do we owe the good image of Poland to politicians of the last 2 decades, and if so, could they have tried harder, by undertaking other activities?

AK: Yes to both questions. We do owe the current image to politicians, although not exclusively to them. And definitely more could have been done in this field. We could have taken some systematic steps in terms of promotion. At present promotional efforts in Poland are too dispersed, with different state institutions engaged in them. There is no one promotion plan, so well mastered by, for example Asians: the Chinese, the Thai and Malaysians. Smaller European countries also have very efficient promotion models, e.g. Croatia. It is lacking somewhat with us.

Many organisations have been engaged in promotion: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Polish Foreign Investment Agency, also Teraz Polska, etc. But there isn’t a single place which would have both the concept and the money necessary for promotion. The postulate is still standing. Poland needs one institution which would be responsible for effective promotion of the country. Without it there are still slip-ups, such as the one I have been notified about recently, that at the big fair in Berlin the Polish stand is actually the weakest, there is a lack of information, publications or even Polish fruit, candy, chocolate bars. We should attract Germans who attend the fair, considering the fact that a vast part of Polish turnover depends on Germans.

KB: How does effective promotion operate in Croatia or in the Asian states you have mentioned?

AK: The state structures of these countries have agencies which are engaged in promotion, have the necessary funds, cooperate with state and private agencies, as well as social organisations. These are multidimensional activities, taking advantage of the media, political and sports events, domestic and foreign exhibitions. One institution coordinates the whole package of promotional opportunities. The message must be focused and legible. If there are a lot of messages from different sources, all we have is information noise. Take for example the slogan “Poland – New Engine of Europe”. If we decide it is Poland’s promotional slogan, it must appear everywhere, it must accompany economic, political, cultural and sports events.

I am not sure, though, whether it is possible at all. One of the extraordinary strengths of Poles, but also one of our greatest weaknesses, is the fact that we are a country of great individualists. We are able to work hard and achieve a lot. On the other hand, we are not able to work in a team and hence our problems with achieving mutual goals. Our individualism, or its negative aspect, is visible in the appearance of many streets in Polish cities - they are like a dream of a sick city planner. But this is just our nature and I don’t know if we can change it.

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Politics Slogan for Poland KB: Your slogan “Poland – New Engine of Europe” is really interesting. Could you elaborate on that?

AK: This is my suggestion. We are at the point where Poland already has its accomplishments, so the slogan “Let’s Discover Poland” makes no sense as it was discovered a long time ago.

The slogan “Respect Poland” would be the proof of our complexes. Today, in the time of crisis, a country with economic growth, political stability and energy, convinced that the European project makes sense, can be called a new motor propelling Europe.

Of course, the slogan must have its foundations in our policies.

We can demonstrate that we are on a rising curve.

KB: This Polish engine in Europe, should it be an engine of industrial production, agriculture, the engine of innovation?

AK: Everything together. Political and economic strength, strategic location, in other words Poland as a place for many companies, for production, all the more that one of the elements of this new order in Europe will be reindustrialisation. Europe has understood that it is impossible to develop safely if we focus solely on the development of services or the financial sector. It is necessary to have some foundations provided by production, the hi-tech sector, modernity, etc. That is why the crisis is not so painful for Germany, where industry has a large share in the national economy, whereas the British, who have been focusing on playing the role of the world’s financial centre for years now, have a real recession. The role of culture is also great in this project, because Poland, considering its achievements, can be one of European centres of culture without any problems. We have wonderful music, arts, theatre, good films, literature and Noble prize winners. Of course, first we have to complete, e.g. the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw or the Museum of the History of Polish Jews – at a standard that would evoke true admiration among people from all over the world. Promotion is not just one piano, it is a whole symphonic orchestra. You have to play each instrument here.

KB: Referring to all round development – we are also a cog in the wheel of international economy and according to some this determines our prospects.

AK: Poland should develop everything that is being done today and what can be developed and become competitive in the future. The only field which can radically change our economic landscape is shale gas. If it turns out we have a lot of it, that it can be ecologically extracted, that Poland is self-sufficient and that the deposits will allow us to export it, this would change the concept we have had so far, because we have been given a new commodity which can put us in a position of a country with money for the next 50 years. And then we will probably be 8

able to revolutionise certain areas of our economy. But today we should develop everything we have, increasing the share of innovation. We have to make sensible outlays on research and development, reaching the standards of countries where these outlays are the largest, and it must happen during the nearest years because it is a decisive moment for Poland. It is important that we are not just a contractor, but also the author of complete solutions which in certain niches will be crucial for all of Europe.

KB: We have certain human potential, but the most gifted programmers, young scientists, leave the country right after they master their skills.

AK: Indeed, it is not a coincidence that so many young people from Poland win IT competitions. The largest international concerns unanimously claim that Poles are excellent as far as software is concerned. That is why so many companies have located their outsourcing centres in Poland. Why aren’t we able to use it more efficiently for our benefit? It is partly due to our weakness in terms of teamwork, partly because of insufficient expenses on development, which would offer some prospects to such people so that they could move up and make good money on it. Without this development, we sentence ourselves to the role of a performer – if we don’t make use of people with the best ideas, we will have to buy solutions which perhaps have been developed by Poles for German, British, American, and soon even Chinese companies. We have to overcome the awareness that it is all right the way it is. Obviously, it’s not bad, but we have to look ahead. Outlays on development must be simply increased at each level - companies and the state.

KB: And how to obtain funds for increasing outlays?

AK: Recently I had a discussion with Professor Hausner on ways to develop Polish innovation. There were various suggestions, one of them consisting in the introduction of an obligation to allocate a part of profits to research and development. Companies could conduct their own research from these funds. If they don’t perform research they would have to transfer them to a national fund. Foreign companies which do not have research centres in Poland would also have to leave a share of their profits in our fund.

KB: And now a question which is even more difficult. How to convince busy politicians to take the trouble and pass laws which would allow implementing excellent ideas?

AK: I organise discussion sessions during which I persuade politicians to support pro-innovation projects. It is essential that the government is also persuaded to support them. I count on Minister Boni, who is a man who thinks openly and courageously. The government still has three years and a modern development project should come into being during this time. Ideally, such a project should emerge from a bipartisan agreement in order to be implemented during subsequent terms of office. No

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big project can succeed if it is not implemented over a longer period of time. It also requires trust in the institution of the state, which does not flourish on changing laws and manipulations of politicians, who constantly criticise or change their minds.

Bipartisan agreement KB: Doesn’t’ it seem too optimistic to believe in bipartisan agreement, considering the current political situation?

AK: It would be really bad if the commonly shared feelings became facts, i.e. if we were so deep in conflicts and offending each other that there is no turning back. I do hope that it is possible to take a step back, and I think that the President has an important role to play here. He owes his position to the nation.

He comes from a certain party, but formally he is not attached to it anymore and he is the one who should take many initiatives in order to build agreement. There is no substantial conflict in the field of pro-innovation policy, promotion of Poland or support for the economy. If we lose the ability to agree, it will be in deep trouble. Politicians in other countries also dispute, they often use equally strong words, but when the chips are down they are able to build together. That is what has been happening for years with Americans, although right now they are also divided in a way they have never been before. In Germany, two main parties fight each other, but if it is necessary, they build a coalition.

There has always been a dispute in politics, but it has never been so clearly visible, it has never been transmitted in such great amounts every day, it has never been “live” the entire time. Politicians should respect each other more in their relations, if they expect the respect of others. You just cannot expect electors to use the language of the Versailles, when you yourself use the language of the street. Its gravest consequence is the inability to make decisions. We need to exclude a couple of issues from the area of conflict: strategic elements of foreign policy, innovation policy issues, etc. I think these actions require an initiative, most of all on the part of the President, as well as the prudence of party leaders. We have suffered a tragedy which usually does not happen in democracies – I am referring to Smoleńsk – and it caused an extraordinary crack in the society. I am afraid we will not be able to cement this crack for decades. But in spite of everything I still don’t lose hope for bipartisan cooperation.

KB: Some people support the idea of establishing a new group of international experts examining disasters.

AK: Obviously, expert are necessary so that all those who do not accept arguments could obtain some final information addressing all their doubt. Nevertheless, those who are convinced about the attack will behave like the supporters of the theory about the attack on Sikorski. After decades they 10

will demand exhumation, which in this case would be indecent demand and – worse still – fulfilled. Polish divisions have different symbols. Today it is Smoleńsk, before it was communism vs. anti-communism, and earlier National Democracy vs. Piłsudski’s supporters, and still before that romanticists vs. positivists, and still before that supporters of the Constitution of May 3rd vs. supporters of Targowica, etc. We bear a stigma of disputes. But we must look ahead.

Left-wing and Ideology KB: Reality is more and more complex and the discourse of the left is increasingly becoming more multithreaded. Doesn’t it systematically weaken it, politically speaking?

AK: The left has been diversified since its very beginning. It was born in the period of the technical revolution in mid-19th century and then it preached most of all ideas of revolution, the working class, trade unions, etc. Later on two movements were competing in Europe: communist and social democratic. In the social democratic movement of the West there are also various factions. The French left-wing has never been uniform, but whenever it unified it always succeeded. Mitterand managed to do it and he was winning because he was able to unify communists, ecologists, Trotskyists and all the others. The left-wing is diversified by its very nature. Sometimes it is not able to cooperate, and obviously I am referring to the left-wing in democratic states. It is hard to provide the example of the Bolshevik party, where Stalin would eliminate people and where there was no pluralism at all. But in the West, political pluralism is a permanent element of the local culture. Therefore, it is essential whether left-wing parties are able to cooperate with each other and whether their cooperation is successful. Hollande was supported by the Green Party, as well as by a radical left-winger Jean-Luc Mélechon, who had obtained 10% of votes there.

Therefore, one may say that a unified left is a principal force. In Poland a true problem when establishing left-wing circles were difficulties resulting from history and the dilemma of how to evaluate communists and post-communists, are they left-wing or not? Some anti-communists with leftist beliefs decided that was best not to admit them, but to dilute, blur them in such structures as the Democratic Union, the Freedom Union, or today the partially leftish faction of Civic Platform, simultaneously denying that it is possible to create any left-wing circles around the Democratic Left Alliance or post-communists. The historical background, although it has been already 20 years, is still very important for the determination of the left-wing identity.

At present we observe a new phenomenon, which has only been defining itself – Palikot’s Movement. On one hand it is left, or even leftist, in its views, and on the other this party has

Politics existed for only a bit more than a year, so it has not managed to build its complete identity yet. An additional obstacle for the self-determination of the group is the nature of its leader, his impulsiveness, moving from one idea to another. Summing up – the diversification of the left-wing is only natural.

KB: Is it possible for the left-wing in Europe to strengthen on the wave of the crisis and social discontent?

AK: Today changes of governments result from the crisis, and not from the renaissance of left-wing ideology. Hollande won after 17 years of right-wing governments, but in Spain, a year ago, after 8 years of Zapatero’s government, there was a shift towards the right-wing. Governments are not able to deal with the crisis, despite their earnest efforts; the level of frustration is increasing and extreme parties are benefiting.

This is a truly new tendency. Governments lose, and the best prepared opposition are those who win. In France there are socialists. I suspect the same will happen in Germany and social democrats will win. Irrespective of your ideology, be it conservative or left-wing economy, currently Ms. Merkel and Mr. Hollande, as well as others, understand that now we are going through a phase of saving and disciplining budgets. Its effect is the fiscal pact. Today everyone in Europe is required to respect it. That is why I believe that we are actually dealing with a political pendulum in Europe rather than a left-wing Spring of Nations, as Leszek Miller has hopefully stated.

KB: Does that mean that there is less and less room for ideology in Europe?

AK: Not really. The dispute continues, but it is transferred onto a platform of morality, ethics and worldview. This can be seen in America. Obama was the first American president to say that he agrees to the possibility of solemnising gay marriages. Therefore, there will be a great controversy between American conservatives and the left-wing. I think similar controversies will appear in Europe. Conservatives will defend the current situation, values, and they will be opposed by people deriving from more liberal, anti-discriminatory and equality values. Certain beliefs have turned out to be ideological stereotypes, namely that the right-wing is better at serving the economy and generating funds, and the left-wing is more prone to spending; that the right-wing is associated with discipline, whereas the left-wing with extravagance or deficit. Of course, in the concept of a welfare state, which was such a great achievement of Scandinavian states, the range of social welfare was enormous and obviously costly. On the other hand, if we take a look at the case of Chancellor Kohl, a Christian Democrat, who spent colossal amounts of money on the unification of Germany and caused a dramatic deficit in public finances, that deficit had to be treated by Social Democrat Schroeder, who introduced the programme Hartz 1, Hartz 2, 12

Hartz 3, who increased the number of working hours and decreased the range of employees’ rights. Although he was a Social Democrat and most probably he did not like it, it was necessary at that time. Governing is about the here and now, the practice, the reality you have to make decisions about.

Ideology is important so that you don’t forget what it was all about at the beginning of our journey, when we were coming to power, but generally speaking ideology is in the background.

KB: Realpolitik?

AK: Realpolitik is something a politician must do every day, and great projects are something he or she should do.

KB: Which of the left-wing proposals from the field of the economic policy can be currently useful and attractive for electors?

AK: The basic slogans of the left-wing do not change a lot. The left-wing has always defended the equality of opportunities, it has always been against discriminating people, it has defended minorities, it has supported weaker individuals, groups and regions. The left-wing has been for the emancipation – of women, but also of young people from poor communities, whom it has assisted in their careers. It is clear that there is no need to look for new values or mottos.

However, the question is now how to fully implement them in the new conditions. Today, talking about the working class has a completely different meaning than 30, 40 years ago, when we had great plants and the role of a trade union was enormous. The working class no longer lives in large concentrations, it no longer works in large companies, but obviously the working class is still there. Today, the left-wing still claims the dignity of a working man, but today we talk about “junk” job contracts, insurance, working conditions, equality at work and in professional opportunities for women and men. The canon of left-wing values we fight for in a new way is extremely important and up-to-date.

KB: And when the contemporary hypothetical left-wing takes over, should it claim funds for achieving social goals in companies, corporations and banks?

AK: Taxes are an instrument which is always in the hands of the state. Irrespective of the political orientation of a specific group in power. What else does the state have apart from the possibility of imposing taxes? The taxation systems must be able to fulfil the goals of the government while not bleeding the economy at the same time, and not cause capital to flee abroad. I believe that in the conditions of a chronic budget deficit increasing taxes is justified.

KB: Increasing taxes on corporations or on citizens?

AK: When imposing a tax on a corporation, we should ask

ourselves a question whether the increase of the costs of their activities will not weaken the economic dynamics. Nevertheless, imposing taxes on banks is – in my opinion – a question worth considering. Controlling transfers of international corporations is also a justified idea in the current conditions.

And so is the concept which stirred a lot of observers, but did not prevent Hollande from winning the election, that is the tax on the richest at the level of 75% - too high in my view.

But perhaps it would be legitimate to introduce a 10% solidarity tax transferred to a specific fund, aimed at, for example, establishing new jobs or for other important goals. It is only crucial that such funds should not get dispersed, should not be consumed by the army, administration, etc.

KB: Equalisation of social opportunities?

AK: Exactly. It makes sense.

Teraz Polska Award KB: Teraz Polska celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

Your great commitment in this project is always emphasised in the foundation with gratitude.

AK: I am happy to be remembered this way. Since the start I thought the idea of Teraz Polska was very important, especially in the period of transformations, in order to show to as many as possible that we have a developing economy, that we have good products, that we guarantee high standards – there is something we can show and can be proud of. Teraz Polska sounds proud, and at the same time Teraz Polska is a sign of affiliation to a certain prestigious club, also on the international scale. In my opinion the strength of the emblem Teraz Polska, the strength of the competition, has been so great since the very beginning because it has demonstrated not just theoretical opportunities, but practical, actual achievements of people and companies, as well as products which could compete in the world. I got involved in it without any doubt and I participated in all editions of the award and the gala Teraz Polska. I participated in the preparatory works and it is a pity that my successors approached this project with less zeal.

KB: Perhaps politicians are not longer engaged because a greater commitment means a greater risk of losing support?

AK: But there should be no such concerns here. Competitions should be organised in a transparent way, with clear-cut criteria. They should be evaluated by the media, which could review all the decisions. I think politicians should understand that they fulfil their fundamental task when they get involved in such a competition as Teraz Polska. Promotion of Polish achievements which serve the common good - the economy, society, region, this is a task of a politician, from higher levels

to the level of local governments and regions.

KB: Nevertheless, politicians fear that their publicised presence in the group of businessmen and dealing with money could lead to a drop of their popularity.

AK: Obtaining funds during sponsored events and similar actions must be condemned. But if we are talking about promoting a region, the Polish economy, there are activities which must be accepted. Obviously, even a decent politician should consider the so-called occupational risk; when you are in a political ring, once in a while you have to receive a blow. We act in combined worlds: in politics, economy, media, the world of electors, consumers, etc. Living in such a complex world, one needs to be guided by common sense and satisfy certain ethical standards; if you don’t forget about these two issues, it is possible to undertake all sorts of activities.

KB: The Teraz Polska award was born 20 years ago.

Shouldn’t change its name to “Europe Now” (Teraz Europa)?

AK: No, it should be called Teraz Polska because its sense resides in the promotion of Poland and Polish products. In my opinion it would be very difficult to find a better name.

The name hits the bull’s eye as it shows Poland, it attracts attention to what has been achieved and what can be demonstrated and sold. The name is excellent.

KB: Within the activities of the Teraz Polska foundation, about two weeks ago a conference devoted to economic patriotism was held. Is it still justified to talk about patriotism in the times when stronger European integration is expected?

AK: Irrespective of the implementation of the concept of European integration, nation states will still exist for decades to come. And as long as we don’t live in a completely common European space, patriotism understood as supporting our own economy is justified. It would be good if it could be connected with a reaction of consumers, i.e. choosing a product Made in Poland. Obviously, the market has its own rights and very often other factors than patriotism decide which product to buy. When I buy feta cheese, I look for original Greek cheese. Why? It is my modest contribution to supporting the poor Greek economy which has completely neglected competition for the past years. A list of attractive Greek products consists of only a few items. Going back to economic patriotism – in the formula proposed by Teraz Polska, it is obviously very sensible. It is not just shouting that whatever is Polish, is good, but it is all about finding and presenting from amongst Polish products the world’s best in terms of their design, durability, quality, usability and price.

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Politics

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We Can Catch

up with Europe Adam Mikołajczyk: Mr. President, what are your reflections on the role of Poland and Poles in this difficult changing world of the 21st century?

Lech Wałęsa: After long years of transformations we have become a legitimate member of the united Europe and a role model for many countries. We have achieved incredible success. Nevertheless, we must not rest on our laurels. We have to build cooperation on the foundation of universal values. We need new structures and new solutions, appropriate for the new times. We are entering a new epoch. This will not happen without reform of the democratic system and establishing new capitalism mechanisms.

Poland, as an important player in the European Union, has the opportunities and resources to develop these new structures and values.

Kamil Broszko: What are the greatest chances for Poland in the perspective of the nearest 10-20 years and what are the greatest threats it faces?

LW: We are facing a great opportunity to catch up with Europe. At present we are one of very few countries that has our own cure for the crisis. We have to deal with the problems of the Euro zone so that the deadlock we have right now will never happen again. Another challenge we have to face today is finding ways to help the countries affected by the crisis the best we can. Poland is and will remain in this tendency of thinking about Europe. Not so long ago it seemed we were living in good times and as an extraordinary generation which had overcome political divisions in the world we have before us only the opportunity to develop and built our prosperity. But the greatest internal problem of Poland is increasing divisions. Unfortunately, many politicians favour maintaining the status quo as the ever-deepening divisions are a guarantee of their political existence.

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Photo: K. Kuczyk

Lech Wałęsa, President of the Republic of Poland in the years 1990-1995, on new values for new times, the role of Poland in the world and the united Europe, overcoming divisions and Solidarity.

Interviewed conducted by Adam Mikołajczyk and Kamil Broszko

Politics KB: Does the world know and understand our internal problems as well as our political and ideological divisions?

Do they affect our image abroad?

LW: I am not convinced that the world is able to understand our internal problems. It is hard to explain the situation in Poland after the disaster in Smoleńsk to anyone from the outside. It seemed that experiencing this tragedy together and our deep sadness would make the divided society unite. Today, there too few people who remember about it. It is difficult to explain to a foreigner how it happened that some politicians are able to accuse the government so ruthlessly and unjustly of some imaginary crimes.

Fortunately, it has little impact on our international image.

KB: Is Poland perceived in the west as Eastern Europe, Central Europe, or simply as Europe?

LW: Everything depends on who you are talking to. We see ourselves as Europe and we promote such an image of our country. We are a country that lies between the east and the west and our location can only help us.

AM: What are the ways to strengthen the position of Poland in Europe and to promote it?

LW: We are very fortunate that the crisis hasn’t been too hard on us. We can and should be proud of it. We should speak more freely about our cure for crisis. I regret that during our presidency in the European Union we devoted so little time to fighting the crisis.

AM: Practically all public opinion pools carried out during the last years point at you as the best recognised Pole in the world (together with the blessed John Paul II and Fryderyk Chopin). Why aren’t you therefore the real face of Polish promotion in the world, of Polish public diplomacy?

LW: This question should not be addressed to me. I try to do as much as I can. I constantly travel, deliver lectures, meet whoever I can to promote Poland as best as possible.

The fact that I don’t participate in public diplomacy …. Well, this is democracy. Now is the time for others. I can and try to give advice, but I cannot make political decisions.

KB: Poland is perceived as a Catholic country abroad.

Have your, Mr. President, ever thought that you have contributed to it?

LW: I was brought up in the Catholic faith. I have never flaunted my faith. Nevertheless, I do believe that Providence watches over everything that is going on in the world. My faith has given me the strength to fight, but as a politician I have never hidden behind the Church.

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AM: Several years ago a world famous expert in nation branding, Walli Olins, determined the essence of the modern identity of Poland to be Creative Tension. Is it an accurate diagnosis?

LW: It is true that Polish people seem to always want to go against the flow. Therefore, in my opinion the phrase “creative tension” is very accurate. When we established Solidarity, very few people believed in its success. We challenged the Soviet bloc – a huge powerful monster. We had only several dozen workers on our side. But soon the Solidarity membership rose to 10 million. The Solidarity brand should be our main export. However, it would be necessary to sort out legal issues connected with this symbol – and this is a topic for another conversation.

AM: What do you feel when you hear the word “Solidarity” today?

LW: Today it is a beautiful and historic word, although, as I have said, it can still be used for the benefit of Poland.

When I hear the word “Solidarity”, most of all I recollect the year 1980 and our great victory in August. Today, I am sorry that under the flag of Solidarity people practice politics, pursue their own ambitions and interests, and that its activists have largely become extensions of political parties. Solidarity was supposed to unite. Today, unfortunately, it divides rather than unites.

AM: In connection with the events of 11 November 2012 in Poland there was a discussion on patriotism. Mr. President, what does modern patriotism mean to you, how should it be manifested?

LW: A great example of how patriotism should be manifested was Euro 2012. Each time I visited our beautiful stadiums, I felt pride and disbelief. During the championship we showed the patriotism of our times, a cheerful patriotism, open, looking ahead and enjoying the moment, enjoying the Polish success. We showed patriotism without any division into better and worse patriots. It was absolutely fantastic. But today we live in the epoch of information and globalisation. We have to change our thinking from the level “state – country” to the level “state – Europe”. Obviously, local patriotism is still very important, but we have to develop some common values and learn to enjoy the fact that we are a great European family.

Economy

Employers

- strength and energy of Polish economy

- The beginning of market economy was a journey into the unknown. What counted was passion, a desire to “take one’s matters into one’s own hands”, to earn money and create economic links with the world. All this was supported with good law – the legendary “Wilczek’s Act” opening countless opportunities. But perhaps only the most perceptive analysts and born optimists could predict that within twenty five years employers would become a real social force; a partner in economic, social and political relations. The entrepreneurship and energy of our employers - unfortunately, over the years more and more constrained by the bureaucratic habits of many politicians and officials - have built today’s Polish economy: relatively modern, increasingly expansive and seeking new markets, more boldly competing with the world.

It is thanks to all Polish companies - small family businesses, medium enterprises and European or global giants – that our country is now counted among the leaders of the region. And while the twenty five years of politicians’ activity and its results are now coming in for sound - and largely deserved - criticism, one can say that entrepreneurs have passed their exam with flying colours.

The Organization founded in 1989 to defend entrepreneurs’ rights has also been seeking the most optimal routes of economic development with them. What were and what are now the objectives of the Organization?

Andrzej Malinowski,

Interview with President of the Employers of Poland

The Employers of Poland have been present on our economic and social scene for twenty five years.

That is as long as political transformation in Poland has lasted. What has been the greatest achievement of Polish entrepreneurs in this period?

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- Polish entrepreneurs have built the strong fundaments of our economy by themselves. Our task was to provide comprehensive help – to represent their common interests in the public forum, force policymakers to adopt solutions favourable for the development of business, initiate public debates, present our own ideas for the development of entrepreneurship and transpose the best foreign models onto Polish ground. That was the mission of the Confederation of Polish Employers, the predecessor of the Employers of Poland. In the early years of the transition it constituted the only force representing entrepreneurs’ interests and building the ethos of Polish employers. We have created the basis for social dialogue. Today, the voice of our organization is important - indispensable! – in the public debate on social and economic dilem-

mas of our state. No crucial problems of Poland can be solved without the participation of employers. Therefore, I can say with a clear conscience and with pride that the activity of the Employers of Poland has been an integral and positive element of the twenty five years of the transformation.

What have been the most important achievements of the Employers of Poland in the last twenty five years?

- Although there are many, I will mention just the three most important ones. First - dialogue. Dialogue that is genuine, honest, sometimes emotional but always aiming at solving specific problems and resolving disputes, understood as a dialogue of equal partners and not dictates of either party.

We consider it an unquestionable success that we have led such dialogue to institutionalization. Secondly - impact on the legislation. The Economic Freedom Act, flexible working time, deregulation of the economy, the anti-crisis acts - all that has been largely our work. We have also played a part in making all employees equal against the law. Employees, indeed!

Thanks to our intervention the Constitutional Court challenged provisions that had given the unions excessive powers - making union members privileged over other employees.

Thirdly - the ability to look to the future. In the past twenty five years we have initiated the most important debates on the desired scenarios of economic and social development.

Before Poland joined the EU we had been asking what the Polish employer in the European Union should be like. As we wanted to make the decision-makers aware of how great the challenges facing the energy sector are, last year we talked about the Polish power sector. Today, only too aware of the need to radically rethink the relationship between science and economy, we are organizing an Economic Congress Science for business - business for science. We are doing it because we fear that without revolutionary changes in the triad economy - education – science, the paths of universities and businesses may dramatically diverge. I would also like to draw your attention to the international aspect of our activity. Employers of Poland are the only business organization in our country that represents Polish entrepreneurs in the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and participates in the works of B20.

It is an international business forum giving recommendations to the world’s richest countries - the G20.

Do you think that after twenty five years of freedom in Poland the business environment in the country is so good that the Employers of Poland can considered it satisfactory?

- It is my dream that we become redundant one day. Unfortunately, there is still a lot to do. On the one hand, one just needs to look at the hundreds of suggestions we get for nominations to the Raspberries – an annual anti-award given by the entrepreneurs to those who harm Polish economy the most. On the other hand, it is symptomatic that from one year to another we represent the interests of a growing group of companies. At the end of 2013 we represented seven and a half thousand companies, employing in total four million workers. Currently, we have ten thousand members, employing in total approximately five million people. Our members can see their organization moving with the times. The world is changing, the economy is changing. Global processes cannot be stopped. Let me give you an example from the Labour Code. For several years, we have been trying to draw attention to the problems associated with the provisions which may have been good a few decades ago but are outdated and inadequate to the needs of modern businesses. That is why we strive to make them more flexible and to finally adapt them to the global market economy. Proposed changes will ensure greater competitiveness of enterprises and increase their willingness to hire. And yet we all want as many Poles as possible to have jobs. Besides, some of our demands have already received the Parliament’s approval - I mean introducing flexible working time.

What will the next twenty five years of the Employers of Poland look like?

- We still have things to do. After twenty five years of transition Poland and Poles need a new reflection on the country’s development program. One needs a fresh look, bold vision and innovative ideas. Creating them is the responsibility of all entrepreneurs and of our organization. It is necessary not only to change a number of provisions which hamper economic initiative in a senseless way but also to change the philosophy of the state. It should become less bureaucratic, more open, friendly and showing respect to its citizens. An American political scientist George Friedman wrote the book “The next 100 years”, which prophesies that Poland will be one of the major powers of the twenty-first century. It is the ambition of the Employers of Poland to take all possible measures to enable this prophecy to come true.

www.pracodawcyrp.pl Polska NOW #2014

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Teraz Polska ...

More and More! advanced services in our country. Colourful imported goods were pushing out coarse domestic products out of shops, and newly established businesses were focusing mainly on trading in novelties imported from abroad. It could have seemed that Polish products would never be able to compete with foreign ones, not in Poland, and definitely not abroad.

Was it possible to imagine at the beginning of the transformations that in 20 years’ time the Polish export would exceed 200 billion dollars? Probably not, because then our export was 16 times lower, and – to make things worse – it was focused on raw materials and simple half-products. Was it possible to imagine that Poles would start to love again many products manufactured in Poland and that they would consider them better than the foreign ones? There was nothing to suggest it then.

Difficult beginnings Witold M. Orłowski, a Polish professor of economics, Director of the Warsaw University of Technology Business School, a Member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Council and the Chief Economic Adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Poland.

Witold M. Orłowski The history of the promotional emblem Teraz Polska is to some extent a reflection of 20 years of history of Polish economy development. The emblem appeared when Polish companies were ineffective and badly run, Polish engineering solutions were withering, and Polish products couldn’t compete with imports. The problem was not just the museum-like equipment, design definitely not moving with the times, archaic work organisation and obsolete management methods, but most of all it resided in people’s heads. The long agony of the communist economy, and a dramatic clash with the free market that followed, resulted in the fact that Poles stopped believing that it was possible to manufacture top quality products and provide 20

When in 1991 the idea arose of creating a Polish promotional emblem and the magical words Teraz Polska appeared at the beginning of 1992, our economy was really absolutely different than it is today. It had been undergoing difficult transformations for many months, which were to lead to the establishment of a modern market economy. However, this task turned out to be more difficult and painful than initially believed.

An honest evaluation of what happened at the beginning of 1990s requires recalling the events of the previous decade. Ever since the debt crisis in 1980 central planning remained only an empty slogan – no one was able to plan anything anymore. We entered the 1990s as a financial bankrupt, unable to pay for the past 10 years even the interest from our foreign debt. Cut off from foreign credits, our economy was incapable of generating funds for the most essential import. At the same time, the economic bureaucracy was completely disorganised and unable to cope with the difficult situation, and timid attempts of partial reforms brought no effects. The Polish zloty, if it ever had any real value in the history of the communist economy in Poland, at the end of the 1980s became a sort of uncovered voucher. And simultaneously the Polish private sector was still limited to

some market niches created by the extreme ineffectiveness of state companies. When the true free market finally appeared, it turned out that quite a number of small private companies set up in the 1980s could not handle true competition and collapsed.

But nothing was able to match the knockout suffered by state companies in the first round of the fight with the free market. When as a result of liberalisation activities in January 1990 the borders opened, PLN became exchangeable, prices were deregulated, and the queues of customers for goods were liquidated, the country was flooded with commodities brought by train from West Berlin. In 1990 Polish consumers were hopelessly poor, and the imported products, although cheaper than in the 1980s, were still very expensive. In spite of that the Polish industry faced the spectre of death – it was largely unable to produce goods which customers would want to buy. In addition, when in 1991 the sales market created by the artificially maintained trade with the states of

the Council for Mutual Economic Aid disappeared, it really seemed that Polish products would be soon only be found in museums and the phrase “Made in Poland” would be as dead as Egyptian hieroglyphs.

It was then, when Polish production was striving for its survival, the idea of the Promotional Emblem Teraz Polska appeared. First, the tried-and-true allies, appreciated for generations, entered the fight for the rebirth of the Polish brand – the winners of the first editions of the competition were, e.g.

Wedel wafer layer cake, frying pans from Olkusz, Prince Polo wafers, “export” Żywiec beer (for years the object of desire of Poles, who – as the name itself suggests – were able to buy it only via “internal export”, meaning in currency shops).

Nevertheless, it soon turned out that more good had been going on in the Polish economy than it could have be expected, judging by shelves crammed with imported goods.

Besides traditional products, soon new ones appeared, clear-

Polska NOW #2014

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ly able to sustain competition. Take the helicopter “Sokół”, the first herald of the Polish aviation industry renaissance, awarded in the second edition, or – interestingly enough – the washing powder Pollena 2000, worth noticing not so much due to its washing properties, but rather the advertising campaign that accompanied it. Probably for the first time the Polish origin of a product was not carefully hidden away, but instead it was treated as a feather in the cap, using the heroes of Sienkiewicz’s “The Deluge” in the commercial.

Success of the transformation After the first shock, which definitely could be described as the time of constructive destruction, the economy started to accelerate, reaching a spectacular success as early as in the mid-1990s. At first with some hesitation, but then with more certainty, we started to suspect that Poles are a nation of businessmen. After we reached an agreement concerning the problem of the old foreign debt, a rapid stream of foreign capitals starting flowing to Poland. The stream soon turned into a multi-billion river of foreign investments.

Modernisation processes rapidly accelerated. Nearly everything improved radically: our efficiency, modernity, production structure, competitiveness and level of openness. At the beginning of the 1990s we mainly exported traditional products, raw materials and the cheapest industrial products sold under a foreign brand, while at the end of the decade the largest Polish exporter was the automotive industry, and modern plants belonging to global concerns became one of the main driving forces of our economy. If at the beginning of the decade the country was completely on the outskirts of globalisation, over time we stepped on the path of more and more successful integration and growing competitiveness.

Even though it was not the end of our problems, and the beginning of the 21st century was to see a period of recession and a painful second wave of company restructuring, it was becoming clear that the path taken at the beginning of the 1990s was leading towards modernisation, reducing the technological gap and gradually building our prosperity.

This process was reflected in the hall of fame of the Teraz Polska competition. New products and new producers were emerging, both those deriving from Poland as well as established from the ground up by foreign investors. Next to traditional industrial products, such as fuels and oils from Orlen or Lotos, construction equipment from Stalowa Wola or lathes by Rafamet, new Polish export and production specialties started to increasingly emerge: household appliances by Zelmer, Amica and Wrozamer, Kler and Swarzędz furniture, Fakro and Stolbud windows as well as Altas construction products.

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Success … and further problems The path of development, which during the last years has made Poland the most dynamic country in the continent, would not have been possible had it not been for our accession to the European Union. Poland joined the European Union in May 2004, symbolically finishing the over 50-year-long division of the continent into the “better” Europe - developing faster and securing high living standards for its citizens – and the “worse” Europe – lying east from the Iron Curtain. Our accession to the European Union was also the crowning and completion of the transformation process. More than ten years of reforms brought about an efficiently operating market economy in our country; an economy which was capable of rapid development not only in the years 2004-2008, when the world enjoyed its period of prosperity, but also capable of effectively facing the challenges posed by the global financial crisis. A faster development rate compared to West Europe made GDP per capita rise from 43%, the level observed in the states of the “old” Union in 2003, to 50% in 2008 and 60% at present. We still have a long way to go to reach the economic core of the world, which probably will last a couple dozen years, but its direction seems to be set. It does require further changes and further reforms, though, which could make Poland a more innovative country, whose development is more based on knowledge, new technologies and services with a high added value.

And such products are starting to appear among the winners of the Teraz Polska competition. Traditional alcohols and foods (like, e.g. “oscypek” cheese) – but sold with a much higher margin, are more often accompanied by advanced IT systems, new financial services, original technologies and telecommunications services.

Although many problems are still waiting to be solved, the last 20 years is definitely a period when Poland experienced enormous positive economic transformations. We have laid foundations on which rapid development in the decades to come will be possible. The Polish economy has been modernized, strengthened, stabilised and prepared to function in the conditions of globalisation. The typical company has changed from a low efficient state-owned company, afraid of foreign competition and insecure about its strengths, into a well run dynamic business from the private sector, ready for export expansion or development on the domestic market. A company whose brand is becoming better and better known and which evokes greater and greater respect.

There is no true economic development without our native businessmen, without our own brands, without our own business idea. And fortunately, such brands and such products have started to appear over time. And the promotional emblem Teraz Polska has contributed to it a great deal.

Economy

Andrzej Blikle, Polish computer scientist, a professor of mathematical sciences, Chairman of the Supervisory board of the confectionery company “A.Blikle Sp. z o.o.”, president of the Family Business Initiative

Photo: Maciej Chojnowski

Family-Oriented, Resourceful Poland Professor Andrzej Blikle on the associating culture, family-run companies and the attributes of a good manager.

Interview conducted by Adam Mikołajczyk.

Adam Mikołajczyk: Are you able to count how many organisations and institutions you hold various functions in? Where does this commitment to social purposes come from?

Blikle II and my father Jerzy Blikle III. I, Blikle IV, started in a similar way – as a founding member of the Polish Information Processing Society, where for 12 years I was a member of the management board and for 4 years I held the position of its chairman. I am committed to social purposes, so when Poland was finally free, I decided that the civil society should organise itself and this way obtain the right to comment on issues concerning society.

AM: But in Poland we have a problem with working in a group …

Andrzej Blikle: Indeed, I cooperate with quite a number of organisations – there are 29 of them. It is a family tradition. My great grandfather Antoni Kazimierz Blikle (he set up the company in 1869) was one of the founding members of the Confectioners Guild, which “gained its independence” from the Bakers Guild. My great grandfather was even appointed the chairman of the guild, just like later on my grandfather Antoni Wiesław 24

AB: It is true. We, Poles, are able to unite quickly and spontaneously for the sake of great ideas, but positivist work from scratch is more difficult for us.

AM: In the USA there is a downright cult of associating, and most of all in various extraprofessional organisations. In Poland we are not observing this phenomenon.

AB: Historically speaking, we are an old democracy, but generationally, quite young. Furthermore, the people of my generation usually don’t have the best associations with organizations. They are viewed with the times of the People’s Republic of Poland in mind. However, this tendency has been reversing and the number of various organisations is increasing. In our association Family Business Initiative there are more and more active members.

AM: What is the Family Business Initiative and why was it established?

AB: It is an association which was established in 2008. At the time a group of representatives of family businesses got together in the School of Business WSB-NLU in Nowy Sącz with Krzysztof Pawłowski, Ph.D. There was also a conference on family businesses, organised by Jacek Lipiec, Ph.D. (working for the Warsaw School of Economics today). It was then that we decided that it would be a good idea to exchange our experience relating to managing and working in a family business (irrespective of its trade). In our statutory purposes we focused most of all on the integration of the environment and supporting the development of family businesses, which is extremely important, because there are 1.5 million family businesses in Poland – united, we could be a significant power. Other statutory purposes are also important to us, such as the rule of law, the market economy and ethics in business. Our association is open to everyone who wishes to support our activity, not getting into detail about the definition of a family business.

Among our members there are also people who deal with this issue from a strictly scientific point of view. There are twin organisations, such as the Institute for Family Business and the Foundation for Family Businesses, which were established as a side effect of our project “Family Businesses”, implemented together with the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development.

It is Poland’s first training programme directed to family businesses, targeted at learning together and exchanging experience between their owners and managers. The project applies the latest methodology of working with family businesses, cooperation with experts in the field of management and building strategies, knowledge and experience of representatives of the most active enterprises in Poland. And all this to make family businesses more competitive on the Polish and foreign market. Succession is the most important challenge faced by a family business, which as such should be handed down from generation to generation. But in order to do so, it is necessary to prepare the successors, which turns out to be a hard task. In the European Union only 30% of family businesses have a succession strategy ready. In my opinion it should be built-in the moment when your children are born, by preparing them from their early childhood, e.g. showing them the positive aspects of running a family business. It is a mistake if only problems of the company are discussed at home. The children hear only that a client didn’t pay, that a client returned the goods, that employees come to work late. They are exposed to such information for 20 years, so no wonder that they don’t want to share their parents’ experience. Another aspect is the ability to build a properly balanced relation between your company and your family. Your company must not dominate your family life and your home must not dominate your business. It is important to be able to maintain an intergenerational dialogue, but we also have to build relations among employees who are family members and also those who are not our relatives.

AM: Looking at the history of the Blikle company – you didn’t decide to join the family company right from the start.

AB: That’s true. I was involved with mathematics and scientific work, which lasted 30 years and it was a very happy period of my life. I started my studies in 1956, in a time which did not

Polska NOW #2014

25 Photo: Maciej Chojnowski

panies in Poland and they have their branches here, e.g. Egon Zehnder or Mary Kay Cosmetics. For me the challenge is to take advantage of the abilities of people – there is still a lot to be done here as there are huge reserves of unused potential of employees in Polish companies. The aspect of motivating employees is important, not by assuming the archaic carrot and stick approach, because it is a method from the turn of the 19th century. The trainings broadly offered in Poland and financed from EU funds won’t help a lot, either. If training is completely free of charge or almost free of charge, it is usually not selected properly and carefully. Actually, such training is very often something like “happy hours” for employees and it has no influence on the level of their knowledge and motivation.

AM: What do you think, why haven’t we lived to see a Polish export brand, a flagship product that Poland could be associated with?

Photo: Maciej Chojnowski

favour running your own business. My father had advised me to choose a profession with broader perspectives. At the same time, he wanted to prepare me for work in our family business, so following his advice I passed the journeyman exam, and then the master craftsman exam, as these documents gave me the right to work as a confectioner and to run a confectionery company. But my son, Łukasz Blikle V, was at once selected by my father, and his grandfather, as his successor. Therefore, my father employed our cousin, Maria Szukałowicz, in our company, who after his death could run the company until it was to be taken over by Łukasz. And that is how Łukasz was the first to introduce the concept of marketing to our company, and I got involved with comprehensive quality management.

AM: What attributes should a good manager have?

AB: I agree with Emmanuel Gobillot, the author of the book “Leadership by Integration”, that the most important task of a manager is providing the team with energy and using the knowledge of each team member. I also sympathise with the opinion of the former head of SAS airlines who saved them from bankruptcy. He said that a manager is employed not for his knowledge, but for his ability to use the knowledge that already exists in the company.

AM: On your website you write a lot about management paradigms of companies in the 21st century, especially those referring to quality. What challenges connected with management wait for Polish companies?

AB: In the group of Polish corporations there are none which would apply all these principles fully. But there are such com26

AB: But we do have true export aces, which are often better known abroad than in Poland. Take the Fakro company, a manufacturer of roof windows since 1985, holder of 25% of the global market share. It is not a brand like Nokia, used by every child and adult; it is not a brand which is shown on TV and on billboards, because it is a different type of product – purchased by developers and construction companies. Another example is Konspol, manufacturer of poultry products, which every day processes 100 thousand chickens. What’s more, Konspol has just developed the world’s first patent for the production of smoked poultry without pork fat, which opens the markets of the Middle East, where for cultural reasons products which contain any addition of pork are never consumed. Another example of a Polish export ace is Solaris buses. During its nearly 20 years of existence the company has marketed a new original product – a municipal bus. There are also examples from the Aviation Valley in Podkarpackie Province, where components for Boeing aircraft are produced.

AM: It is a pity that we in Poland know so little about successes of Polish companies. Is it because we don’t like boasting or are unable to do it?

AB: Unfortunately, it is the fault of the media, which feed on scandals, misfortune, disasters, because it sells well. There used to be “Dobry Magazyn” (Good Magazine) published by Roman Kluska’s company Prodoks, where as a rule only positive issues and successes were written about. Unfortunately, this project is no longer continued.

AM: I think that the magazine Polska Teraz is to a certain extent a continuator of this idea – of presenting Polish successes in each walk of life. Thank you for the interview.

Economy

Respect Your Innovator Professor Michał Kleiber on changes in the education system necessary for it to teach a love for science, on the lack of a Polish innovation policy and on “the valleys of death”.

Interview conducted by Adam Mikołajrzyk

Adam Mikołajczyk: Is the education system in Poland adapted to the requirements of the 21st century, to the globalised world and to knowledge-based economy?

Prof. Michał Kleiber: I believe our education system, in a broad sense, definitely requires systematic improvements, due to the fact that it is not sufficiently adjusted to the challenges of today’s modern world. These results from the 28

simple fact that education systems have their inertia and to a great extent are based on historical experience and old staff. In many countries, particularly in Poland, the profession of a teacher is not very attractive. Therefore, the inflow of young specialists is insufficient and older people …. Well, it would hard to demand from them any revolutionary views.

Undoubtedly, a lot should be done in the education system.

Michał Kleiber,

a professor, a specialist in the field of engineering and computer science, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, former Minister of Science and Higher Education.

education for people of all ages. It is difficult to comment on each of the levels referred to above, but I am able to say that this system is full of paradoxes. Let me just give you the first example: most people have to pay for nurseries of their children, whereas university courses are free of charge.

However, the general problem is that our school does not teach three absolutely basic values which determine the success of an individual and the whole society. First of all, the passion for learning, or the love for science, to be even more explicit. This is the quality which to some is quite natural, while to others it is not, but - generally speaking - its certain level needs to be developed in everyone. Boredom, omnipresent in many school or university classes, discourages from studying, whereas students should be constantly encouraged to learn. A teacher who is not able to talk about important issues from his/her field with passion contributes to the fact that a person who graduates from each level of education is deprived of passion for exploring the world and acquiring knowledge. School should awaken the need to learn, to reach for a book, to search the Internet in a wise way. And today the rational use of digital content, broadening our horizons, is a skill which is not taught at any stage of primary school, secondary school or university in Poland.

When I refer to the education system, I mean the system which extends over the whole life of each of us – after all, nowadays we have to continually learn. Starting from the nursery, through kindergarten, to all stages of primary school, middle school, secondary school, university – and this is not the end of it. Further, there is a system of post-graduate studies, doctorates and – something that deserves special attention in the Polish environment – a system of continuous

Another key element, practically absent from the Polish education system, is encouraging students to be creative, genuine and autonomous in their thinking, to choose their own paths, to speak their own language. Here originality is killed rather than developed. The most prominent example could be the examination keys for completing secondary education, which do not allow the use of any other words than the ones used in a specific handbook. My experience tells me that in many countries awarding the originality of thinking constitutes the basic criterion for motivating students. In other countries it is possible to take a different route to solve a problem, and even though the problem is not solved correctly 100%, perhaps worse than other students, if the student has demonstrated the ability to break the mould, he/ she will be awarded. In Poland nobody attaches any importance to it. This is a problem because the today’s world demands that we must be creative every step we take. Creativity is indispensable in modern society. Life is complex; it puts us in unexpected situations. You cannot be truly resourceful in the future if you are not creative at the school level.

And finally, the third quality I believe to be absolutely fundamental and probably the greatest problem in Polish schools is: the willingness and ability to work in a team, which is seemingly in conflict with creativity. We don’t have any methods of equipping young people with the belief that Polska NOW #2014

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Economy it is necessary to talk, to compromise, to work out solutions together, in short – to generate cooperation synergy. Regrettably, it is a great problem, which has a negative impact on what today we call the social capital, which is in a nutshell, the willingness and ability to cooperate. In my opinion insufficient social capital in Poland is the greatest obstacle to our development. For various reasons Poles have not been convinced about the power of joint effort, most likely because of historical conditioning. Although we are able to cope with numerous problems individually, we often lose in a team.

In Poland we don’t have a formula of continuous education that would be attractive in terms of its content and organisation, and financially available at the same time.

Young people who graduate from secondary school or university must be ready to keep educating themselves for many years. They must be prepared for situations requiring them to change their occupation, probably more than once. The absence of a formal framework, any guarantees and faith in opportunities for retraining is a great development restraint. According to American experts, six out of ten university and colleges graduates will be working in professions which do not even exist today. This means that somebody will have to train them in this respect – today our system is not prepared for this task at all.

With some deal of optimism we could estimate that only ca. 5% of all employees in our country undergo systematic training within the course of their work. This rate in the countries we aspire to (e.g. Scandinavian states), is 10 times higher. There 50 % of all employees are subject to a constant system of continual education. In Poland we are not even familiar with the notion of corporate university.

It means that corporations, large companies, administer systems of planned trainings for their employees. And it is not about a 5 day typing course but a whole system of courses planned for many years for each employee, in order to broaden their horizons and allow them to adjust to new demands. Obviously, there are companies, mainly with foreign capital, which introduce this method. I myself know a large American company located in Poland where all employees receive full reimbursement of all costs of their extramural studies of any major. A lathe turner can study philosophy and even is granted special leave for this purpose.

The company knows that this investment will pay off. It would be good if such practices would become increasingly more popular in Poland.

AM: What would have to happen in Poland so that we could be able to invent and produce a very innovative product that could conquer the world?

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MK: In my opinion we should focus on the creation of a global hit. Considering our Polish opportunities, also financial ones, it is a difficult task, although it could happen fortuitously, of course. It is good to dream, but I believe that the key to success is good information and reaching for niches in the value chain so as to find a proper place for oneself. Today the world is governed by the so-called open innovation model, according to which the final product or service is the effect of cooperation of many different people, teams, countries and institutions. Very frequently these people don’t even know each other, but they are able to cooperate thanks to new means of communications and their expertise. Our thinking should be focused on searching for attractive niches and gaining experience on global markets, as well as on the necessary investment capital, and only then should we venture on any independent projects. Sometimes it happens here, but it is a fact that so far this symbolic Polish smart phone or “Polish Mercedes” is still but a dream. Some day, I hope, we will get there, but today we should try to find our place in the world with what we have – and we do have quite a lot!

There are many areas we could try ourselves in. We tend to forget that we are a country that virtually sits on coal, which opens truly great opportunities to develop innovations in terms of ecological low emission technologies, although coal-based. Recently I have been actively participating in European debates, arguing that everywhere the words low carbon used in European documents should be replaced with low emission, which is extremely important in this context. If we manage to convince the European Union that coal – together with renewable energy sources – can constitute the foundation of low emission economy, it will be our great success. It is a great chance for Poland. We just have to believe that coal is our treasure, not our curse.

I once said that innovation is a synergy of good regulations, resourcefulness, the education system and science as well as – something I consider to be the most important as in fact it determines the issues mentioned above – a common culture of respect for people’s innovation and creativity. Regrettably, we don’t respect innovators. And we do have people who have accomplished a lot, also on the international scale. Only very few have heard about them.

We should promote such people, invite them to the best TV shows and ask how to succeed despite various adversities and problems. These are people who should be the heroes of our media as they are true role models. Unfortunately, this is not happening. It is a huge cultural problem, which to a certain extent results from long-standing envy or low social capital, but also from the tabloidization of media,

which tend to cut corners. It is possible to talk about science and innovation in an interesting way. It just takes a little effort. A journalist needs to read a bit, find out what graphene is, what gallium nitride is, and this cannot be done ad hoc, which is often the case with typical programmes offered to us by the media.

Innovation is as good as the weakest element in the whole system is. If we neglect one of them, e.g. if education is poor, we will never succeed, even though the other elements might be all right. If we don’t promote, support and rejoice over our successes, we will not manage. It is extremely symptomatic and very difficult. We need to constantly improve a number of factors which influence innovation. The role of the state consists in providing coordination of this system. But in Poland it is impossible to control it as actually each element is supervised by a different institution. In formal terms, innovation is in the scope of competence of the Minister of Economy, who for many years due to various problems has had very little time for it. A certain role in the system is ascribed by – and quite rightly so – the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

The greatest funds for innovation are in the hands of the Ministry of Regional Development. Computerisation, which now tends to be referred to as digitisation, is managed by yet another ministry. One of the most important sectors where innovation is so important today is the pharmaceutical industry, represented by still another department.

Another field where innovation could obtain great funds is the defence industry – another ministry. And at the governmental level I don’t see anyone who would coordinate these activities, and it has been like that for years now (in fact since the beginning of the transformation period). Poland should finally have a deputy prime minister appointed not for purely political reasons, but someone who would be a specialist in the field of modern development, including the innovation management system.

AM: You have mentioned Polish graphene. Scientists assess that it will take 10 years to commercialise the concept of producing cheap graphene. Why does it have to take so long? Is it a question of the absence of an appropriate innovation commercialisation system?

MK: I believe graphene will be applied in practice in the world sooner. But I am afraid that we will not benefit much from it. A good and instructive example in this respect was the Polish blue laser. It has been more than 10 years since Polish scientists made discoveries broadly recognised in the world, but which we managed to commercialise only to a very limited extent. Today, other nations, such as the Japa32

nese or Americans, make money on the blue laser, which is commonly used in, e.g. electronic appliances.

In order to be successful at the stage of an idea, a concept, an invention, one needs money, usually around PLN 1050m. But in order to commercialise such an achievement, an amount that is 10 times greater is needed. Therefore, what we deal with here is something that innovation theory calls “the valley of death”. At first, concepts are financed because they are at the precompetitive stage. They can be financially supported by the state, with no fear that we might be accused of breaching the principles of competition. And it functions moderately well in Poland, considering all the restrictions. Then there is the phase when the invention is promising and there is a preliminary concept of its practical application. However, the whole project is not convincing enough for companies to be willing to pay. And this is “the valley of death”. At this stage, filling “the valley of death”, using the jargon of innovation theoreticians, is the fundamental challenge for the state policy. In countries famous for their innovation, this problem has been solved. In Poland – not really. The example of the blue laser is also a good illustration here. Today, perhaps companies would like to finance it, but it is too late, somebody else has taken the profits.

Let us hope that we will not see the same situation with graphene. Today, we have a strong position in terms of the technology to produce it. Potential applications are immense.

However, in the Polish conditions it is very hard to assess the risk of further implementation works. In the USA you could go to any bank around the corner, apply for a technology credit and get its cost appraisal in 10 days. And what can a Polish bank do, even if it has the money? We don’t have any history of commercialising scientific achievements; there are no specialists able to estimate such projects. It is extremely difficult to estimate their market risk. However, if the bank received 100 such projects, the situation would be quite different. It would suffice if only five of them were crowned with success. All investment costs would be returned then.

What is the conclusion? Obviously, our financial institutions must be flooded with applications for credits for innovative projects. We must consequently build knowledge-based economy, by fulfilling the conditions referred to above.

To Awake Hope 22 years ago, on 16 July 1992, Professor Henryk Skarżyński performed Poland’s first surgical procedure consisting in the introduction of a cochlear implant in a deaf adult patient, and a day later a 5-year-old child received such an implant. This is how the cochlear implants programme began, and then the great programme of advanced otosurgery and audiology followed.

This achievement made a great impression on the world of science.

Is it the proverbial milestone?

No, not just proverbial. 22 years ago I faced a great challenge.

I knew that if I succeeded it would be a true milestone in the development of otosurgery, otology, audiology as well as otolaryngology and rehabilitation. Admittedly, something beyond my control could have happened, like with every surgery. There could have been difficult conditions in the patient’s ear which would make it impossible to finish the procedure, but I knew I had to do it.

I realised that only success would give us the opportunity to develop further. So, on the one hand there was a lot of fear and anxiety, but on the other – great hope! Hope that if we succeeded, if everything went the way we had planned it step by step, we would open new possibilities. Time showed us that everything not only went well, but even exceeded our expectations.

We evoked great expectations not only in the media, but most all among a vast group of people with hearing impairments, who suddenly found out that something could be done to hear the 34

world. This interest made me think about what was next. Could I assume the responsibility for such a complex programme? Could this responsibility rest on one person only? I had to analyse my strengths and weaknesses. I realised that many things just don’t depend on us, even if we want it very much. I started receiving the first telephone calls from families of patients on the next day. Letters started arriving. I realised then what a great problem we had touched upon and that we had awaken the hopes of such a large group of people with hearing problems. Thanks to the fact that these first operations had been successful we could start the programme of cochlear implants and the great programme of modern otosurgery and audiology.

You were the first in the world in the year 2002 to perform the operation of introducing the cochlear implant in an adult patient with a partial hearing loss, and then in the first child in the world applying a pioneering method you created. So 10 years after the first pioneering operation you conducted the next one.

We did the second pioneering operation in Poland much earlier, because it was in 1998. We implanted Poland’s first and the world’s fourth implant to the brainstem. Several years after the first cochlear implant operation, we became somewhat accustomed with surgical procedures of such type and although each patient is different, and every patient’s development after the operation is individual and interesting, there is no routine whatsoever, I wanted to do more and achieve more.

We were still looking for new solutions and ways how to do and achieve more. I knew that new devices, devices implanted to the brainstem, had appeared. We associated them usually with severe injuries, cerebral contusions. When it turned out that we could successfully stimulate the brainstem, which is a very sensitive part of the central nervous system, it became our next challenge. Together with our colleagues from Austria and Germany in 2008 we developed and launched a programme of treating hearing loss with implants introduced to the brainstem. Our first patient is the best rehabilitated patient in the world. It is a person who can freely participate in conversations in Polish and German, she has also learned some Italian right after surgical implant to her brainstem. This example shows how far we can safely tamper with the central structures of the

nervous system. The effect of this joint international project is also the world’s first bilateral introduction of an implant in the brainstem. The patient after this procedure recorded his next album and performed at a song festival. This shows how much can be achieved by effectively stimulating something which seemed to be impossible to stimulate, because in the brainstem there runs are all the neuronal pathways important for human life and the risk is very high. It was another milestone.

But it is true. In 2002 I achieved a great breakthrough in the development of otosurgery and audiology. By 2002 operations involving cochlear implant had been performed exclusively in case of deep hearing impairment or total deafness. A considerable part of patients with so-called partial hearing loss were still out of the range of successful treatment. I wanted to change that. It concerned and concerns people who can naturally hear low tones, understand several per cent of casual speech, but whose ear is deaf in the range of medium and high frequencies.

It has been 12 years since this method was first implemented.

In adult patients our results are the best on the international arena. In children the results are still the only ones published where preserved good hearing at low frequencies has been completed electrically. It is the world’s largest group of over 1700 patients who have undergone the operation. Each day is a success of our patients. Today, performing so many operations on an international scale for improving people’s hearing, we apply the latest solutions and reconstruction materials. Only last year we received more than ten Polish and foreign awards, medals and distinctions for developing this new procedure and for our hearing results. It has been an extraordinary challenge.

A couple of days before the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the first cochlear implant you showed the world once again that you are a distinguished otosurgeon who is not afraid of new challenges and advanced technologies. On 26 June 2012 you performed the first in Poland and the fourth in the world CODACS implant operation. This implant is a kind of a little big technology miracle?

CODACS is a true novelty in the world of hearing implants. It is a combination of two previous systems – an implant placed in the middle ear, which strengthens sounds in a natural manner, and the cochlear implant, which provides artificial electrical hearing. This system has been developed for patients who cannot benefit fully from a conventional hearing aid, who suffer from hypoacusis which does not allow them to use an implant in the middle ear, and at the same time who don’t qualify for the cochlear implant. This combination opens new opportunities for the said group of patients, who are not able to function normally now, who do not understand casual speech, whose contacts and communication with others are limited. The first

patient who received this implant could freely understand only a couple per cent of words directed towards her, so she was practically deaf. This made her isolate herself, she did not communicate with others, and as she said herself, she was a burden for everybody. After this operation she heard the world at 100%, and the procedure changed her life entirely.

What do you consider to be your greatest success?

This is a difficult question, because I appreciate many of my various accomplishments. I have been lucky enough to work with the right people, I have implemented many ideas. I have performed surgical procedures for the first time in Poland or in the world. I have opened new facilities, such as, e.g. Europe’s second Diagnostic-Treatment-Rehabilitation Center for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired “Cochlear Center”. I have implemented the idea of setting up and organising the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing as well as building the International Center of Hearing and Speech. My success is very often the success of various teams. My clinical activity includes more than a hundred various new surgical procedures. These are not just spectacular individual cases. Every day we perform the largest number of various hearing improving surgeries in the world.

My great scientific and clinical success is developing the concept of and performing for the first time in the world a successful series of surgical procedures restoring hearing in adult patients and children suffering from partial deafness.

Undoubtedly, an organisational success on the global scale is also the newly-established World Hearing Center. This centre is a chance for building Poland’s strong position on the scientific and medical map of the world. If we combine it with the promotion of screening programmes in and beyond Europe aimed at the early detection of sense organs defects, it will strengthen the prestige of our country on the international arena.

Professor Henryk Skarżyński – world famous otosurgeon and specialist in otorhinolaryngology, audiology and phoniatrics. He was the first Polish physician to implant: cochlear implants (1992), implants to the brainstem (1998), to the middle ear (2003). He was the first to implant the cochlear implant in a patient with partial deafness an adult (2002), a child (2004), and he was the head of the team which performed a bilateral implantation of implants to the brainstorm for the first time in the world (2008). Author of numerous pioneering surgical, scientific and organisational solutions. He is a member of numerous scientific societies in Poland and abroad, e.g. the first Polish corresponding member of the American Otological Society, and a laureate of numerous awards, such as awards of the President, Prime Minister, Minister of Health as well as Science and Foreign Affairs. He was honoured with national orders by the King of Belgium, the President of Georgia and the President of Ukraine. Honoured with the title of “Distinguished Pole” by the Foundation of the Promotional Emblem Teraz Polska. Doctor honoris causa of two Polish universities and an honorary professor of an American Brigham Young University.

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People reer. But I never stopped being involved in sports. I worked on the introduction of a sports channel to the programme offer of TVP SA for five years. Then I worked for UEFA in the promotion and sales of the Corporate Hospitality Club Prestige programme business packages during Euro 2012. For a year now I have been associated with the broker company Mentor SA (belonging to a group of leading insurance agencies on the Polish market), where I am responsible for insurance on the sports market. It is not just about providing competitors themselves with third party liability and accident insurance, but about broadly understood insurance programmes targeted at sports clubs and federations or their sponsors. It is a dynamically growing business. Furthermore, I am publicly active as a person engaged in the activities of the charitable Foundation of Ronald McDonald, the Polish Sports Foundation and the Foundation for Active Rehabilitation. The scope of our activities is very broad, but we always act for the benefit of the health or development of young talents, with sports on our minds. I wouldn’t be able to live without sport, so I am in close contact with it, although after finishing my professional sports career this contact is somewhat different.

I Wouldn’t Be Able to Live Without Sport Robert Korzeniowski

on the career of an athlete and a businessmen, the situation of Polish competitive and amateur sports.

Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

Kamil Broszko: What is Robert Korzeniowski doing today?

Robert Korzeniowski: I have been involved in sports for nearly 30 years now. I started in a judo club, fascinated by Bruce Lee and the movie “Enter the Dragon”, and only the renovation of the training hall, which the Security Service used as a pretext for closing the club, made me become interested in athletics and racewalking. I thought it would be just a passing thing, but it lasted 21 years until 2004, when after reaping all the possible laurels I decided to end my professional ca36

KB: You have managed to achieve what only very few athletes have succeeded in. You were a distinguished competitor, you obtained the best results, and now you are a successful businessman. How do you do that?

RK: There are athletes who when finishing their career in one sport try their hand at the next one. I am referring here to Adam Małysz, whom I earnestly admired during his whole career as a ski jumper and whom I am supporting even more so now. When Adam left ski jumping, he was not ready to say good bye to sports, so he found another challenge – rally racing, where he has already started to win his first trophies.

I also didn’t assume after finishing my sports career that it would be the time of cutting coupons; I didn’t aspire to signing advertising or image contracts at all costs. I was oriented towards hard work. When I got an offer from TVP, I accepted it on the condition that I wouldn’t be just a face of TVP, but an active participant of new media projects in the field of sports.

I wanted to launch a thematic channel TVP Sport. I say all the time that when your sport career is finished, you have to be bold enough to end it and not continue it at all costs, accepting any jobs in any sports clubs or associations. If you win Olympic medals, laurels in competitions for old-timers will not satisfy you. Of course, you could do it and there is nothing wrong in it, but it just wasn’t for me and it was in conflict with my determination to face new challenges. That’s who I am – I like setting new goals and pursuing them. Hence my work on the project of launching a sports channel on public television, hence my activities devoted to the development of the Corporate Hospitality Club Prestige programme for business, which

Robert Korzeniowski,

former Polish racewalker. Won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics (in 1996, 2000 and 2004) and three at world championships (in 1997, 2001 and 2003).

Photo: Damian Kramski/ Agencja Gazeta Polska NOW #2014

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People gave me a chance to take a closer look at selling and marketing techniques, as well as the process of developing new products and services on the sports market. I am very glad that I participated in the preparations for Euro 2012, which was such an important event for the promotion of our country and for Polish sport fans, hungry for the feeling of pride and sport success. It was obvious that my role would be finished after the end of Euro 2012; that is why I accepted the offer of Mentor SA to start to build a market of sports insurances.

KB: You have been observing the situation of Polish sports for decades now. There are visible changes – we have genuine sports facilities, but we are still unable to win in them.

RK: The most important problem we deal with in Poland is sports management. There are institutions established for this purpose, such as the Polish Olympic Committee, responsible for the preparation and participation of our country in the Olympic Games, or the Ministry of Sport and Tourism, which is a sort of medium between the government and the world of sports. We also have sports associations. But these are incompatible worlds that have undergone different stages of system evolution. Today we are not able to obtain reliable data from the Polish sports market which would allow us to describe the condition of individual sports in a qualitative and quantitative approach. We haven’t developed a good evaluation system.

There are no professional studies providing, for example, the number of children practicing a particular sport, the number of coaches, the tasks assumed by them and the extent to which they are accomplished, as well as financial outlays for individual sports in a cross-cutting approach. Sports associations wish to operate like business entities, they administer considerable budgets, but they don’t have any internal procedures implemented which are indispensable in the world of business. Sport needs IT models necessary in modern management, the transfer of knowledge from centres of business and science to sports associations and clubs. Our sport still turns to business for money instead of demonstrating its own assets and developing an offer concerning its cooperation with business, beneficial for both parties.

A separate matter is the membership of competitive athletes in sports associations. In Poland there are ten times fewer registered competitors than in other European countries.

It is a real infamous phenomenon. Let me give you some examples. In Poland 200,000 people play tennis, but the tennis association has only 2,000 members. It is assessed that half a million runners regularly participate in various competitions, whereas there are only 7,000 members registered in the Polish Athletics Association. And now some more comparisons: in Poland 3,000 judokas are registered in the association, and in France – 600,000. We have 2,000 badminton players, and 38

there are 180,000 there. You might have the impression that sports associations are busy with themselves instead of promoting sports among the society and obtaining competitors.

Associations should count their members and immediately prepare an attractive offer for people. After all, according to the law they are responsible for the development of a specific sport, whereas all they are interested in is the national team and its immediate backup. They can’t see that real life is going on right beside them – we have been observing a real boom in mass participation in all sorts of amateur sports events, such as road running, cross-country skiing and triathlons. Associations seem not to notice it at all, or at the most they just ignore it.

KB: Which sport is in a clearly better situation and could serve as a good example to follow?

RK: Unfortunately, there is no such sport. Although I wouldn’t want to say that nobody cares about the current situation of sports. It is a process which has only just begun and we have to wait at least a year to see the first changes. Positive signals are visible in triathlon, handball and badminton.

Something seems to have stirred in athletics … At present the best situation is observed in the Polish Football Association, as more than a half of 500,000 footballers are registered in the association, which is an absolute success in the scale of the entire country. The Polish Football Association could serve as an example to follow for other associations, how to build relations with business and how to achieve good financial results.

KB: It is a pity that football, with such great funds, is not able to achieve success, so much awaited by football fans, whereas other sports, with competitors achieving great international successes, have to wrestle with financial problems so much that even Olympians do not have their preparations financed.

RK: There are a lot of companies which do not want to invest in football, but they are interested in other sports.

They just need to get a good business offer. There must be bilateral benefits. Let me give you the example of the French athletic association, with 270,000 registered members. Its budget is EUR 16m, with only EUR 4m coming from state subsidy. The remaining EUR 12m is generated by the association on the market. The Polish Athletics Association, on the other hand, has 7,000 members. It gets a tiny subsidy from its sponsors, so the remaining part of its budget must come from the state. In order to develop an attractive offer for business, it is necessary to have a larger number of members, who will use the services and products of the business which supports the association.

KB: Who should we look up to in order to learn how to manage sport?

RK: We cannot copy French or German solutions, but we must develop our own. A discussion with all actors on the sports market is necessary. The real problem is the lack of access to reliable and up-to-date data. For example, today we can only use the data from the Head Statistical Office from 2011, but for one thing the information is outdated, and for another – it is so general that it won’t provide accurate answers to any questions.

KB: Let’s assume you are appointed the Minister of Sport in 2015. What position will sport for the youngest have in the hierarchy of important issues? What changes need to be introduced?

RK: First of all, I am not looking forward to any governmental appointments … definitely one should not discuss just children’s sport or teenagers or competitive sport. Only an integral approach to the process of a person’s sport development starting from the earliest age to the end of a competitor’s career, can give a chance to truly understand the problem. An athlete should have an opportunity to develop in social and professional terms. At each stage his/her career might end

(lack of satisfactory results, health condition, personal problems) and then, at each stage of his/her life, an athlete should be provided with alternative offers – in sport (as a coach, instructor) or beyond it. Interdepartmental cooperation is necessary. Physical education of children and teenagers is the responsibility of the Ministry of National Education, and the Ministry of Sport and Tourism only supports it occasionally, organising such actions as e.g. “No Physical Education Exemptions”. Similarly, the department of uniformed services could cooperate with sport, financing careers of competitors and obtaining highly qualified specialists for physical training of police officers and soldiers in return.

It is necessary to implement a national programme supporting sport, with the cooperation of the government, local governments and the business environment. The British achieved a great organisational and sport success during the last games held in London, but their budget was so big that we could not even dream about it, and they had targeted programmes of preparations for at least eight years, and not just four – from one game to another. Let’s hope that the works of the Polish Sport Round Table initiated by the Council of Patrons of the Polish Olympic Committee will yield the expected results.

Polska NOW #2014 Photo: Mateusz Skwarczek/ Agencja Gazeta

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This Is Truly the Time of Women Ewa Kopacz, the Marshal of the Sejm, on everyday patriotism, creating conditions for development by the government and the new roles of women.

Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko Kamil Broszko: Mrs. Marshal, to start with I would like to ask you about modern patriotism. How do you understand it and is it necessary?

Ewa Kopacz: I have had an opportunity to read about modern patriotism in the Polska Now magazine – I know this theme is close to you. Personally, I prefer the phrase “everyday patriotism”. We, Poles, great patriots, are always ready for great upsurges. Churchill even said that Poles were capable of lofty acts, but not really hard arduous work for our motherland. I do not agree with this opinion. We, Poles, are able to work hard, we are also creative. We implement real patriotism every day: at work, at an office, at a doctor’s office or abroad – by bearing testimony to our country as best as we can. This is the spirit I raised my child in and this is how patriotism is understood by my family. It’s not about speaking beautifully about great causes, but we must be able to do something beautiful for our motherland and then to talk about it honestly. And here a question arises to what extent are we responsible in our patriotism. Personally, even if I have some objections or comments on how certain things function, I try to word them only internally. I never speak ill of the country when I go abroad. Abroad, first and foremost I am a citizen of Poland. I talk about what we have achieved and our successes. To sum up, the phrase “everyday patriotism” is more appealing to me than “modern patriotism”, although these two notions are not exclusive, especially if we consider young people and their great commitment to new technologies and communication channels.

KB: You have touched upon an issue relating to the young generation. Is it the role of the state to stimulate young people and to create favourable conditions for them?

EK: I consider Poles, including representatives of the young generation, very sensible and wise people. Even if not everyone obtains a university degree, they still have something more valuable – worldly wisdom and instinct. They manage their lives well, offering the best they have to their relatives and themselves. I believe the main attitude of the state towards the young should be expressed in the principle: do not disturb. Young people have great instinct and are able to pursue their goals step by step. Sometimes they are able to loudly shout their demands.

Ambition among young Poles is a great, invaluable thing. It is a quality which is moulded in young people by their families and Polish homes: ambition which allows reaching extraordinary goals. Today young people need to make their own decisions very early, sometimes taking great risks. Is there a place and role for the state here? Undoubtedly so. The state should provide opportunities and chances for natural, unaffected development, so that young people could decide for themselves. So that they could reach for whatever suits them, whatever helps them, whatever enables them to implement their ideas for life.

KB: The role of women in the society has been growing systematically and it is manifested in more and more forms, lately in the context of economic breakthroughs and crises, at a time of searching for new paths in many domains and fields of human activity.

EK: Perhaps some men will not appreciate it, but I will say it anyway: it is truly the time of women. Women who in their determination and consequence are able to be more resistant to the adversities of their everyday lives. Women who solve problems efficiently and are extremely consistent in whatever they do. I have always said that women should be equally noticed and appreciated in, for example, business, politics and higher education. They are able to communicate, win their listener’s attention and they are empathic. It is not difficult to deliver a speech. The true challenge is to have a discussion with a large group of people strongly convinced about the legitimacy of their arguments. Most of all you need to be able to listen, and women can do it. When they speak, they are always thoroughly and earnestly prepared. When we listen to statements made by politicians, it turns out that women first talk about facts and Polska NOW #2014

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People figures, and only then about political circumstances. In men’s statements, on the other hand, we hear about great politics.

And even though there are facts or data later on, sometimes they are selected in a very biased way. I think women will be functioning in politics more and more strongly and efficiently.

Over 20% of deputies are women. If the so-called gender quota act came into force, it would be possible to balance the number of women and men in Sejm.

KB: Apart from increasing the influence of women in general, we also have individual cases of female leaders. How do they reach their positions?

EK: They have to constantly believe that they will be able to perform various, even the most demanding functions as efficiently as men. Women must not be ascribed to their roles on principles, like they used to be. You are a Polish woman – you will be a mother, your role is most of all to care for your family, to raise children, and then perhaps go to work. The state has taken over a part of their duties, it has shown that there are various opportunities: a child can go to a day care or a nursery school, and a woman does not have to give up her ambitions. The state has demonstrated something else, that daddy could give up his career plans for a while, too. Since it is our child, if we love our children just the same, why don’t we work and give up our plans together. Faith can move mountains. If we, women, believe that we are able to perform any function, obviously depending on our professional background and skills, it will happen.

KB: Very often women who implement great projects turn out to be more resistant than men. After all, they have been fighting with daily adversities for generations and all in all are probably more than men face.

EK: Of course, women are hardened by the multitude of everyday troubles. That is why it is easier for them to solve any problem. Women are more independent and task-oriented, they look for good and reasonable solutions. The time for women in politics is knocking at our door. Let us take a look at Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, first she was at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, now the mayor of the largest city of Poland - and this is her second term of office. She has had to manage numerous protests, like for example, the protest of merchants who had to be displaced. One woman had to face many and she had it all her own way, it was her decision.

I also recall the issue of the vaccine. At that time I was under great pressure from different groups, I also had to face my own internal dilemmas as I was responsible for Polish patients.

I was unparliamentary, I demanded evidence and documents.

I could not agree to have vaccines administered without proper research, to have them purchased by the state and to take full responsibility for all side effects. I could not buy vaccines not knowing what was in them and concluding a confidential 42

agreement. And such were the suppliers’ terms. I remember that each day was extremely difficult due to media reports and the spiralling fear. We had to examine each case. I was making very difficult decisions and I took risks, also in the context of my activities. Perhaps over time it will be revealed that somebody was trying to make the business of a lifetime on changing the WHO definition of epidemic and the recommendations to use vaccines. I could not agree to that. As far as the numbers of flu cases and morbidity rate due to flue are concerned, we did much better than countries where the vaccine had been used.

Over time there also occurred some suspicions concerning its side effects, connected with narcolepsy and women’s early miscarriages.

But strength and resistance are necessary not just in critical situations, but also on a daily basis. Take Sejm, for example.

Men in parliament manifest their great fantasy. What we can see on TV during transmissions from the debates is but a short part of the whole work. Most of it takes place at presidential tables, during convents or committee meetings. Sometimes it happens that deputies declare something in my office and then they go to television and say something completely opposite.

Later on I encourage them, “Gentlemen, admit that you agreed with Kopacz; I know it may be a disgrace for you, but if you take the leap of faith once, it will be all behind you.”

KB: I think the punch line that women will be more visible is rather attractive for quite a lot of men.

EK: Yes, it will be mobilising for men. I have never been a feminist, but considering my life experience I can safely say: don’t you ever show your partner, your husband, or any person close to you of the opposite sex that you – as a woman – are better than him. Men believe their role is extremely important.

Moreover, they solve problems in an interesting way – they get together, tackle some general issues, discuss, having a couple of beers at the same time, and then they arrange another meeting of a similar nature. Women have a more task-oriented approach, they meet up and want to solve a problem as quickly as possible; they argue, dispute, but at the end of the day they have a couple of constructive ideas. I received a delegation of disabled children caregivers in my office the other day. They came to me thinking they would chain themselves to the radiator. One of the men was yelling loudly. I allowed him to take it out on me, and then I said we would not reach any agreement that way. It was not a friendly group, but on the other hand they were fighting for a right cause and they had been through a lot. After the meeting we wrote down our arrangements and this was the beginning of a longterm plan. I asked them for two weeks and I promised that after my visit to the prime minister and the rest of the cabinet I would tell them honestly whether there was any chance to get anything.

Thanks to our mutual effort we managed to get PLN 600m, which is quite a sum these days. If there is a will, there is a way.

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Ideas

Jurek Owsiak, Polish radio and television journalist, social activist, showman, stain glass artist. The main initiator and implementer of the annual Finale of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, the creator of one of the biggest cyclical musical events - Woodstock.

The World Envies Our Emotions Jurek Owsiak

on the circumstances of setting up and the further operation of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, on creating an international brand and the meaning of the Teraz Polska distinction.

Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

Kamil Broszko: How did you come up with the idea to set up the Orchestra?

Jurek Owsiak: Actually, the Orchestra is the work of chance.

I participated in a conversation during which somebody said that the Children’s Memorial Health Institute needed equipment. The conversation was with physicians, my age, in an open atmosphere and with good contact. Obviously, the con44

cept of the Orchestra as it is today had not occurred to us yet, at that time nobody would even think in the categories of an action like ours. Back then we had only just survived the period of communism; if there were any charity campaigns going on, they involved petty issues, sometimes they were not even true, sometimes they had a political dimension. People didn’t trust that if they gave their money to some organizations it would have any positive effect. When we launched the Orchestra, we didn’t have any expectations, any assumptions that we would get it off the ground; that if I said anything about it, the whole machine would start. We were not prepared for it in administrational and formal terms. At the beginning there was just the slogan, but luckily it was directed to young people, who caught it immediately. The way of talking to young people, the way of collecting money, was so new, so wholehearted, that we didn’t have to ask anybody about anything, we just did what we were supposed to do and we did it well. The arrangement of the planets was favourable because I hosted a TV show and radio programmes. This way people learnt about the action. The first edition of the Orchestra we did really well, just as the following ones. We have been doing it for 20 years now. Only after several years did we learn that there were some legal regulations concerning public fundraising events that we had been unaware of. We didn’t even think about censorship, it never occurred to us that perhaps we couldn’t do something or couldn’t go any further. We did everything instinctively, and later on it turned out that the principles we created were the simplest, the most legible and the easiest for people to accept.

KB: Is it difficult to expand a project that everybody knows and everyone has got used to?

JO: On the contrary – it is easy, because you are trusted by many people. People are open to new proposals. We used to collect money and spend it on medical devices. Today we expand our assistance and we haven’t felt any objections from our donors, who would say that they are willing to donate to one purpose, but not so much to another. We look for specific needs which haven’t been satisfied yet, narrow gaps and issues, and we verify what else we could do for people. Nongovernmental organisations in other countries operate in a similar manner. For example, fighting cancer in rich countries is the responsibility of the government, but most funds come from private foundations. The situation is similar with Alzheimer’s disease or many other illnesses. If we undertake a project, if we do anything, we do it 100%. Nobody is disregarded, overlooked. If we examine children who suffer from a certain disease, we examine all of them. We also take care of our image, we talk about our achievements. We emphasise that in logistic terms we operate like a very well structured business or trading company. Whatever we do, we try as much as we can to do it as best as we can.

KB: Have you ever thought about exporting the orchestra, and if so, would it be to the west or rather to our eastern neighbours?

JO: We have already exported it. For five years now money has been collected in Ukraine, we have the same campaign there as in Poland. It is supported by Polish businessmen who got involved in transferring our idea to the east. The campaign is called “Heart to Heart”. This year its volunteers collected the equivalent of about 800 thousand dollars. Considering Ukrainian conditions, considering the extent to which voluntary services have developed in Ukraine so far, it seems to me that what we are dealing with here is a wonderful phenomenon and the direction of developing the project which we really like. People engaged in the Ukrainian charity campaign also prepared the first Ukrainian Woodstock this year. Near Lvov, in Winnica, they will organise a festival similar to ours. With the watchword of no violence, no drugs, where you don’t have to buy any tickets and where people gather with the same purpose as in Poland. Coming back to volunteering – in the west there are plenty of non-governmental organisations and associations that collect money for specific purposes. They know how to collect money, why to collect it, they know how to do it, they have very precise regulations pertaining to charity fundraising events and spending the collected money.

The only thing they envy us for are the emotions, because there they are extremely rare in the scale of the emotions we feel during the Finale of the Orchestra. Americans act ad hoc. If for example whales are stranded on the shore or people suffer some natural disaster, everybody bands together to help. But nobody does what we do on a regular basis. No organisation which collects money for others makes the country look like a Brazilian fiesta in the middle of a cold winter. The eastern direction of our expansion is great. Recently we have even received a question from the Bulgarian embassy how we prepare our campaign, whether we could advise or suggest anything. In situations like this one we are always very open to sharing our ideas with others.

KB: When the period of the last 20 years is summarised, it is often heard that Poles have failed to create good which would be a global value. But those who formulate this conclusion most often refer to a fashionable mobile phone or a German car. Meanwhile, perhaps soon Poland will have an internationally recognised brand, only it will not be a technological but cultural brand – I’m not only thinking about the Orchestra, but most of all the Woodstock Festival. I know that activities promoting the festival beyond the Polish borders are systematically undertaken.

JO: What you are saying is very important. We always say, whether during the Finale of the Orchestra or Woodstock Festival, that it is “Made in Poland”. We really want the methods and principles of our activities to be talked about abroad with this information: that it is a Polish concept and organisation, a Polish style. We often have discussions in talks with journalists, with the Polish media, which discredit our activities, try to find quarrel in a straw, who don’t get involved with our idea

or do it insufficiently. Let me refer to our annual conversations with Mr. Pacewicz from “Gazeta Wyborcza”, who believes that the Finale of the Orchestra is a boring and predictable moment.

Everybody knows people will collect money, everybody knows they will have fun and that all of Poland will join the fundraising. “And what comes of it?” some journalists ask. Mr. Pacewicz believes it is a boring ritual, so he writes about it on the sixth page of his newspaper. When I say that, I don’t want to satisfy my ego, I don’t have to, it has never even occurred to me because I have been very satisfied with what is going on. I am just trying to explain that Poles very often discredit themselves, the result of which is the frenzy during the Euro. All of the sudden, we started saying that we are nice and cheerful. This is a standard for other nations. It seems to me that also the day of the Great Orchestra shows that Poles can have great fun, and at the same time they learn how to be for others, they learn how to be volunteers – these moments and traits are worth manifesting. Perhaps that is why I may sometimes seem disappointed, but once again, it is not because I want to satisfy my hunger for popularity. I just want to remind people: be proud that year after year several million people stand side by side with the Orchestra and the Foundation of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity gives no reasons for any anxiety, time shows us that there have been no scandals. It is very important to say that it is “Made in Poland”, that it is absolutely ours, it has been our own idea and atmosphere right from the start that attracts and causes interest. Numerous institutions emphasise this fact. In the calendars of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in all sorts of publications about Poland the theme of the Great Orchestra is present. It is an event worth demonstrating, displaying, as on one hand an element of our daily life, and on the other – help for others and a great celebration of millions of Poles.

KB: What does the Teraz Polska distinction mean to you?

JO: I got a most beautiful statuette, truly magnificent. It is a work of art that stands on our conference table. It is the only statuette displayed in such a prominent place, so that everybody could read why it has been awarded to us. Nevertheless, we are very careful not to touch it as it is a true masterpiece.

But most of all, for me this award means that we belong to a group of distinguished entities. For us the Teraz Polska award is a sign that we maintain very high standards which eventually translate into high quality. The king of Spain was the head of an organisation supporting animals for 40 years. When he was noticed with a rifle on a hunting trip, he was removed from his position. In my opinion Teraz Polska would also have the right to take the award away from anyone who has suddenly lowered their standards. It is an important award, recognised by all Poles. We are happy to receive it after 20 years, and I believe quite deservedly. It will be an important item among the awards which are the most important for us.

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Photo: Kamil Broszko

Ideas

I Am Trying to Be an Individual, Not Just a Statistical Number Rafał Olbiński

on choosing the path of life, the different aspects of fame, the impact of the new media on the creative process.

Interview conducted by Kamil Broszko.

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Kamil Broszko: Choosing your own path at a very early age, making independent decisions concerning your own future – you touched upon this issue in your speech when you received the Teraz Polska award for a Distinguished Pole, referring to your experience and relations with your father.

Rafał Olbiński: When I was giving thanks for the award, I made a joke and it grew into something serious. I think that the issues connected with father-son relations and all the philosophical reflections about it since the dawn of our civilization are still valid. The myth of a hero has been developing since the origins of any message – oral at first, and then written. It demonstrates the development which leads to reaching the top.

And it always begins with rebellion against the father figure, which in symbolic terms signifies rebellion against the existing order. My experiences as a young man cannot be brought down to this pattern.

But everyone faces this question whether to follow a beaten track, programmed by society, or to choose the path of their dreams.

Of course, these dreams are not fully individual. They depend on the people we meet and the books we read. 99% of young people give up and do whatever society expects them to do; but there is also this 1% of heroes who destroy the existing order. Obviously, there is some truth in my dedication to my father – he did want me to become an architect, it was his first dream (he wasn’t able to graduate due to the war) and he passed it on to me. This happens quite frequently.

Unsuccessful tennis players torture their children since they are five year old to make masters out of them; such an attitude can be also observed in the field of arts. If we

think about life more deeply, beyond the popular stereotypes, we can see – which on one hand is wonderful, but frightening on the other – that we have only one life and what we intend to do with it entirely depends on us. Of course, I could have become an architect, even more so considering that I studied architecture for nine years. But all the time I had this hazy dream about arts and fame. Obviously, fame turned out to be neither close nor easy. I won my first poster competition when I was still a student, so I thought I was a genius. I needed 10 years to realize that I was no genius at all. I understood that success mainly relies on hard work, so I work all the time, also now. As far as visual artists are concerned, only after some time does it turn out whether we are leaving any trace, if we exist in the history of arts. In other domains you can test your achievements during your lifetime. Another aspect that has its impact on whether you are recognized as a great artist is geography.

There have been a lot of wonderful artists in Poland who have left no trace in the history of arts because they were born here.

Had they been born someplace else, their position would be stronger now. Of course, there are Polish artists who left the country and had a chance to manifest themselves in a global perspective. Culture is also connected with the economic dimension. First you eat, and then later you think about aesthetics. Furthermore, aesthetics requires time. Every person needs beauty, irrespective of their level of awareness. Slaves and Polish serfs also had the need to create emotional beauty, but they did not create any works significant for culture because they did not have time for it. The most wonderful civilisation of the West was created by several hundred guys who were drinking wine underneath olive trees, talking about philosophy, about the creation of the world, 500 years before Christ. These are the foundations. They didn’t work, there were not soldiers. They had time.

KB: Does the willingness to become a great artist come from the longing for fame?

RO: I believe each creative young person goes through this phase. Later on it turns out that fame is not that important. It is way more important to be fair and square with yourself. What matters is the sphere of values, ethical issues, the notion of being a good person, who feels good about himself, who basically does good and doesn’t harm anyone, who does a lot for others. It is much better to be a good person not known by anyone than a famous son of a b****.

KB: This is quite an idealistic view, such an idea often appears late or never.

RO: It appears later because you know more about life.

There is this book I often recall “The Razor’s Edge” by W. Somerset Maughan. The hero tries many things to learn the difficult art of being a good person. And finally he becomes

a good person, and he chooses the career of a taxi driver; he disappears in the crowd, but – like each good person, even an anonymous one – he contributes a lot to civilisation.

KB: Today fame has a different dimension than when you were beginning your artistic work.

RO: Fame is devalued by pop-culture, an opportunistic culture created for the needs of mass customers. All the criteria and ideas of culture must concern us. Sometimes valuable things are noticed accidentally by the mass consumer. In theory, the mass consumer does not have his own opinion, he is controlled. Like in the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

It is an extremely accurate observation of our civilization. Interestingly enough, Andersen wrote this tale quite a long time ago, when manipulation was not so widespread as it is today.

Once Einstein was asked what in his opinion is most unlimited.

He said that the universe and human stupidity, although there is no certainty as to the universe. Is this fame created by the controllable mass public opinion worth anything? I think that heroes created by the consumerist world will not stand the test of time. Mainly due to the fact that the assumption lying underneath pop-culture is creating fashionable art. This works in the same way as the trends in clothing: during one season masses wear one thing, in the next season they wear something else, etc. It is not easy to retain common sense; it is very difficult to be an individualist in the world of pop-culture. Assessments are made according to fashion, and not according to objective values. We have lost our relation with objective criteria of anything. There are no criteria, everything has been dismantled. I am trying to object to it – to know a lot, to read a lot, I am interested in everything, perhaps apart from quantum physics. I am trying to be an individual, not just a statistical number, which is enormously difficult in our civilisation; I try to challenge each message, not to fully believe each item of information. I learn to always look at facts or interpretations from two angles. Only later do I formulate my own opinion on the basis of my own judgment. All this is very difficult; we have less and less reliable information. Terrible times have come.

KB: But young people, including your daughter, have to enter these terrible times.

RO: Yes, therefore we have to ask ourselves what we should teach, what values to convey – should it be ideals connected with searching for our own self as a human being, or should you concentrate on the aspect of becoming successful. These two items are often contradictory. It is a dilemma. I would like my child to be safe, but also ethical and moral. I want a child to have courage, which is becoming a rare thing in the world today. For example, it is easy to criticise German or Italian fascism, 60 years after the war.

Today, other actions are more important and more couraPolska NOW #2014

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geous. But contemporary artists build their careers on the protest against selective Holocaust. It has nothing to do with courage or a true moral protest, but it is politically trendy. No risks, only benefits. Today, courage is, for example, Edward Snowden, who stands alone against a great machine which is CIA, and provides frightening data. As a result he will be hunted down and destroyed, but what he did was consistent with his ethical belief and will, and that is why for me he is a hero, and not an opportunist, who goes to Africa for a couple of days to take some photos with starving children in the background.

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KB: What topic should be present in Polish arts today?

RO: Art is created by artists, therefore it is hard to specify what topics it should be devoted to. Art should be the effect of individual reflections of each author. If an artist is an enlightened, responsible person, that person becomes conscience of the times and should carry a moral message. It is always so with great art, which plays a huge role and has a chance to go down in history. Is anything like this going on in Poland right now? I am afraid not.

KB: There was a time, not only in Poland and not only during communism, that art served as a platform for a critical comment on reality …

RO: Today money has become very important. It is the most important criterion right now. The average person, even not sensitive to paintings, films, sculptures or any other works of art, will get interested immediately if he learns that a particular item costs PLN 4m for example. The recipient is corrupt from this very moment. Art is evaluated according to business-like categories. We have lost an objective perspective on aesthetics, although it has never been available to everyone, it was necessary to grow into it and know something. Schopenhauer wrote that when we are in contact with a work of art, the third element of humanism – meaning the will – rests. The will does not exist, we surrender our will to art. And now everything has moved to a different direction.

Both the artist and the recipient scheme at each stage how much this art could cost. We are all terribly corrupt.

KB: And perhaps today art, like it used to do before, should incorporate the will of the recipients and this way generate some special good, some kind of change?

RO: It seems to me that if whatever we create changes the recipients in any way for the better, we win, because it will change their sensitivity. Their view point will change.

Art does not have to belong to the domain of propaganda, it does not have to be involved in any greater case. The recipient makes an effort and this in itself brings about a positive change. However, the whole concept of popular art is a denial, inversion of this activity. Patterns are easy, so that masses would not get tired, be a bit shocked and buy. This is the main goal now – to deprive people of reflections. Art has always been elite, it has always been beyond the average perception. But it has made people who were in contact with it enter a higher level, to develop themselves.

KB: One day you left for New York, which contributed to your international career. Do you think that today a young artist should leave for the USA or stay in Poland?

RO: Today it is not so important. Access to information is very easy. Obviously, to be somewhere, to touch something – it matters a lot, too. But being in the world’s centres is not so important anymore. And perhaps today, if I advised a young artist to leave Poland, I would suggest China and not New York. Any place where there is money, where something is going on, where there is some unrest - that is the place where art is created. It explodes when some new ideas cut into great cultures, be it tribal or national ones. In homogenous societies there is more stagnation. Poland is too homogenous. Obviously, it is changing fast. On the other hand, there is a certain paradox. When society was closed, in the

time of communism, there was much more interesting art created than there is today. There were restrictions, barriers and artists wanted to overcome those barriers in a natural way, jump over them, they wanted to stretch the criteria.

Today everything is allowed and the drive of that time has been lost. Then works of art did not imitate anything, they were original. It was a good time. Later on we desired to create art similar to the countries to which we aspire. The musical “Metro” appeared, but nobody actually considered that Americans didn’t really care that young people in Poland wanted to be like Americans. I went to the premiere in New York, and a week later I went to see the show “Forever tango”. Four pairs of dancers and an orchestra came to Broadway from Argentina to show New Yorkers the best they had.

We showed them something recycled. On our market, where musicals were not known at all, “Metro” was something new, but in the USA – it was old leftovers. Let us not be afraid of being original, we should be original. Each artist is like a separate planet, he should not be a copy of someone else.

Unfortunately, today the whole culture is based on copying.

KB: How is the present America different from Poland in terms of creating development perspectives for young people?

RO: Although I used to teach in the USA in a college, I haven’t observed it as sharply as my daughter has, who studied there. She told me recently that for her the American myth burst because American colleges “produce” corporation employees, for specific departments in companies. Young people get programmed so much that they want to go to a specific office and all they dream about is to blend into a certain system. In Poland we educate individualities, everybody wants to implement their own ideas. Another matter is to what extent such an approach is adaptable, because it will work only for an insignificant percentage of people. The other system wins thanks to its pragmatism, but on the other hand it actually does not offer any opportunities to do anything original. It seems to me that the ideal place for developing talents could be the Netherlands, with a large budget for education, helpful institutions, numerous grants. On the other hand, when it is too easy, there is no hunger for doing anything great …

KB: Can Poland make America interested in or even enchanted by Polish culture today?

RO: Of course it can. Take the Romanian cinema. It derives from a poor country, suffering greater problems than ours, but it shows the truth about the world there. It does not make copies of American movies. Actually, in the domain of cinema in Poland there are a couple of productions which stand a chance abroad, but generally I think we have lost our individuality. We have opened ourselves to the ocean of pop-culture, which floods us, we have become a part of it. But the same Polska NOW #2014

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Ideas happens in other places, although there are those who are still standing, for example France.

KB: The other day a famous Polish pianist interrupted his concert because one of the listeners was recording his performance on a smart phone to upload the recording on YouTube, and he commented that the Internet kills real culture.

RO: Nowadays, the topic of selection is more valid than ever. If a recipient of culture wishes to consume something interesting, a question arises how to find valuable things. There is not one obvious key here. Of course, I am from a different generation, I have no time for Facebook or YouTube.

But my son cannot live without them. I think that because of YouTube culture has become cheaper, which obviously does not mean that it has become better. It is far too easy to receive culture through the Internet. It seems to me that it is not enough to appreciate classical music. I remember my professor in middle school in Kielce. He would take us to concerts in the philharmonic. When we were young, it was probably the worst experience you could imagine – so boring. And later on, over time, when I was able to understand art better, I concluded that these outings under the eye of our teacher were the best thing that ever happened to me. This pre-war professor had opened a completely new world to us, a better and more difficult one at the same time, but the world which gave us something. We had to make an effort, we were forced to take some specific action. A TV show is an easy and shallow culture because most of all it sells commodities. We watch a simple message without any reflections, next we purchase pills without any reflections to feel better, but intellectually and emotionally we are dying away, while a perfect citizen comes into being. Taking these pills, we are half-sick, which is the perfect starting point from the viewpoint of a corporation, because you have to take more pills to feel better and better. Finally, we are deprived of any possibilities to make rational decisions and evaluate what is the truth.

KB: This is a pessimistic vision.

RO: It is, but let us fight to preserve our individuality and personality, let us choose more difficult performances, let us read more difficult books, let us listen to more difficult music.

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Rafal Olbiński,

Polish painter, graphic designer, poster artist. Since 1981, he works in New York for Newsweek, Time, Business Week, New York Times, Der Spiegel, Stern as well as the New York City Opera, the Utah Opera and the Philadelphia Opera. Winner of 150 awards.

Polska NOW #2014

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Ideas

Photo Mateusz Skwarczek/ Agencja Gazeta

Urszula Dudziak, Polish jazz vocalist, has recorded 50 CDs, among others, with Michał Urbaniak, Adam Makowicz, Bobby McFerrin, Herbie Hancock, Nina Simone, Sting and Lionel Hampton.

In 1973 she went to New York. Currently she lives in Warsaw.

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I Am Optimistic as a Rule Urszula Dudziak

on Poland and Poles.

Interview conducted by Krzysztof Przybył and Adam Mikołajczyk

Adam Mikołajczyk: How does Poland look like from a distance, from the perspective of New York or Stockholm, where you lived for a long time and often visit?

Urszula Dudziak: From the perspective of my experience I can say that we were most admired in the period of Solidarity.

All the more is it difficult to grasp why Wałęsa, a true icon of the Polish transformation of the 1980s and 1990s, has been “beat up” so much by some of his countrymen. Abroad such an attitude is completely incomprehensible. People appreciate and respect Wałęsa; he is for them a symbol of peaceful transformations in Poland. We are right after the premiere of Polska NOW #2014

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Ideas Andrzej Wajda’s movie, for which – I must confess – I was waiting with a certain anxiety whether the historic events we had all taken part in would be rendered in the way we remembered them. I am glad that maestro Wajda created a work which honours Wałęsa.

AM: How does the world perceive Poles?

UD: We, Poles, are very emotional in our approach to everything; we are not able to find the balance between our judgement and our feelings, we pour out our anger, our complexes, our immaturity on whatever we can, while we should think constructively, we should respect the image of our country, our traditions and finally ourselves. As Poles we have

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an immense potential, we have extraordinarily gifted people, scientists, inventors and artists. We have distinguished individuals virtually in every field of life. Our nation should know how to make them stay in the country, creating favourable conditions for their further development, like for example Sweden, which I know so well.

Krzysztof Przybył: Don’t you think that most of all we must notice our own value and work on feeling proud of our country and ourselves? We are only just learning how to do it and we still need a lot of time for it. I am thinking about the generation of 40- and 50-year-olds, because the young are completely different – courageous and deprived of any complexes, they treat the whole world on an equal footing with their own environment.

UD: Borders have been brought closer, they have even blurred and now young people can’t see why they should not go wherever they could find fulfilment.

They are mobile and self-realisation is their priority.

But I am worried about another Polish national trait – each of us believes that he is right. Each subsequent national or local government start their term of office with criticising their predecessors, everything is destroyed and started anew. We lack the habit of continuation, which makes us lose a lot of time, energy and money. I also get irritated by petty but important issues, as they concern all of us and our everyday lives.

I am referring to, for example, badly timed traffic lights at intersections. Pedestrians have no chance to cross the street before the light changes! I am quite sporty, I play tennis (the third place in Poland among artists) and I barely manage to cross the street, not to mention older people, children ...

But we are complaining right from the start of our conversation, which – incidentally – is very typical for us, Poles.

AM: Speaking of complaining, not long ago the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, responsible for promoting the Polish culture abroad, wanted to use this vice of ours in its marketing activities and commissioned a marketing campaign under the slogan “Poland. Come & Complain”.

UD: I am optimistic as a rule, so the next question, please!

AM: Let me ask you about our strengths then. We seem to be hardworking and creative.

UD: I will invoke the opinion of my daughter, Kasia, who was born, raised and is working in New York.

She has been coming to Poland regularly for the some years now. She has noticed that Polish students, especially those at artistic schools: filmmakers, writers and visual artists, are very creative, open, genuine and have a great sense of humour. Contrary to Americans, who from a very early age are carrier and money oriented. And Kasia tells me, “Mum, I want to live in Poland!”

AM: And what led to your decision to return to Poland?

UD: Although I am as free as a bird, now I have settled down in Poland because I feel I have a lot to offer. I believe Poland needs national therapy in order to improve our sense of well-being. Whenever I can, I always try to talk about the correct state of mind, which is the most important. On the one hand the human organism is like the most advanced computer, but on the other – like a narrow-minded moron who will believe everything he is told.

If we keep telling ourselves, meaning our organism, that we can’t do anything, that we are good for nothing, our organism will finally believe it and its capabilities will diminish. When we want to do something specific, our organism will protest, as if saying, “I’m not even going to try because nothing will come from it anyways.”

A right state of mind is the most important - supported with exercise, love and re-

spect for others. This year I am celebrating my 70th birthday, but I am not afraid that perhaps it is time for me to get packing; on the contrary – I am full of new ideas, creative power.

From my time in New York I subscribe to the motto “What you pay attention to – it grows”. Such a simple principle, and yet so true and effective.

AM: Marketing specialists have been working their heads off about what message Poland should send to attract the world. I think you have grasped the essence of this issue – perhaps this creative unrest, constant state of agitation, could be this magnet attracting people to Poland. Here they can absorb creative tension and participate in the cultural and business unrest.

UD: Poles are more and more willing to come back to Poland after years of emigration and start to live their lives anew here. The human, intellectual and emotional potential of this place attracts like a magnet.

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Ideas Let me give you the example of my friend, who has just visited Warsaw and Krakow after 55 years of absence. Many people had been trying to persuade her to come, but she couldn’t believe the stories about wonderful Poland were true, she was lingering, and finally she arrived and … she was so impressed! She remembered the country from the 1960s and she could not believe that Poland is so beautiful today.

Emigrants returning to the country finally they feel they are in the right place. Just like a mother will always embrace her prodigal son, our motherland waits patiently for each of us and will receive us.

I felt this in 1985, when I came to Poland for the first time after 13 years of absence and I sang a capella in a duet with Bobby McFerrin in the Congress Hall during the Jazz Jamboree Festival. Even today I am grateful to the audience for their warm welcome. I was in a difficult moment of my life – a jazz vocalist, left by her husband, with two children, in Manhattan, destitute. I came to Warsaw with my heart in my mouth and the whole hall was chanting “Ula, you are great! Ula, don’t give up!” Thanks to this very moment I didn’t fall apart and I faced life with my head up high. Breaking up with Michał Urbaniak turned out to be not an ending, but a beginning of a new stage.

This concert in Warsaw allowed me to move on to the next stage of my career.

KP: Your daughters, Kasia and Mika, followed in their parents’ footsteps. Did they have to become musicians due to your family tradition?

UD: From a very early age my daughters were surrounded with music and were raised in it. So naturally they started off in music. My older daughter, Kasia, wanted to become a violinist when she was four and she persistently practised in the music school until she went to her dad’s concert, Michał Urbaniak, and she saw what a great virtuoso of the violin he was. She decided she didn’t stand a chance of being such a gifted violinist. She lost her zest for the violin, but she became enchanted by the piano. Both my daughters started to play the piano, but only Mika acquired a taste for it. Kasia, on the other hand, changed her interests again – although she is very musically gifted, ultimately became a photographer. Mika would always sing and dance; at home for pleasure – Michael Jackson style, and at school – out of duty, to Grieg’s music. Journalists often ask me whether I and Mika compete with each other. Such questions are very irritating as we are completely different and we have our separate specialties. I have my “cacophony”, as Kasia says, that is my characteristic singing style. Mika is also unique and special in what she does.

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AM: Are Poles a musical nation?

UD: Unfortunately they are not. Sometimes there are some exceptions, which may be seen in talent shows such as e.g. “Bitwa na głosy” or “Voice of Poland”. On a daily basis, however, we observe certain negligence in the musical education of young people and in the musical culture of all of us. I visit Sweden frequently as I have family there, so I will give you an example from this country. Sweden has a passion for singing; there are choirs and bands in almost single village; whole families take part in singing competitions.

Polish families, on the other hand, sit in front of their TVs or computers. Polish school does not provide proper musical education. Children avoid PE and music classes because they are boring. I am sounding the alarm because the situation is catastrophic, and as a result we, Poles, are not able to sing in tune our anthem or even Christmas carols.

KP: Does jazz, dominated by men, provide any space for the development of women?

UD: Poland is lucky to have good female jazz singers. I am referring to Grażyna Auguścik who has recorded albums and performed with me for many years. I am also referring to Aga Zaryan, Ania Serafińska and Dorota Miśkiewicz. We must not forget about Basia Trzetrzelewska, who succeeded in developing a great international career, and this was in the period of late 1980s and early 1990s when American radio broadcasting stations would play her songs continuously. I am rooted in jazz, but I have also had my flirt with pop music thanks to “Papaya”. It is a jazz piece that you can dance to, and that is why it was noticed by pop artists. Jazz is generally believed to be dominated by men so much that it is difficult for a woman to succeed in it. I was lucky enough to be taken care of by great jazz musicians – Krzysztof Komeda and Michał Urbaniak and at his side I was able to develop for 20 years.

AM: So Ula Dudziak is all right?

UD: Very much so. Everything is fine, in accordance with the title of my last album. As I have said, I will soon celebrate my 70th birthday and I am a fulfilled woman. I am in good health – knock on wood, I have life experience, I know what I can expect from myself and how bold my dreams can be.

Now I work as a mature woman, who knows my worth and reaching beyond what the eyes can see. As a Libra I live observing nature and in accordance with it.

Lusławice for the Young

– the European Krzysztof Penderecki Centre for Music In a small village in the south of Poland something extraordinary emerged that amazes and attracts the whole world. And it is not a house that is upside-down or a park with plastic dinosaurs, but high culture and magnetism affecting even the most sophisticated recipients, music lovers and fans of classical music.

The idea originated from a dream. Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki, composer and conductor, having obtained great artistic achievement and extraordinary world recognition, decided to offer a part of his talent – symbolically – to others, to the next generations of Polish musicians. He had always dreamt about establishing his own academy.

Finally, after 14 years of efforts and works, the European Krzysztof Penderecki Centre for Music was founded.

It is located in Lusławice, 20 km from Tarnów. From the perspective of large cities it is but a village, somewhere in the provinces, without motorway access or an airport, far from any large city. This is the place where Krzysztof Penderecki decided to settle down in 1976. In a former manor complex he established an arboretum with thousands of plants from

all over the world. The trees would be covered with blossoms every spring, and in the maestro’s mind an idea bloomed to locate this ideal academy in the vicinity of his garden.

It would have been be groundless to expect the composer of “Dies Irae” and “Seven Gates of Jerusalem” to be satisfied with only half measures. He had been planning the academy to match his own values and his own ambitions. A specific combination emerged as a result. On one hand the Centre is addressed to local children from Tarnów and its vicinity, who will be able to develop their musical talents under the supervision of true masters and mentors, the likes of which none of the Warsaw-based schools of music could even dream about. This also includes the parents of these children, who perhaps for the first time will have a chance to experience an opera or symphony, but who are lucky enough to be able to listen to music in a hall with perfect acoustics, performed by the world’s most distinguished musicians.

The second addressee of the Centre is … the whole world.

Not just Warsaw or Krakow, but the most important operas Polska NOW #2014

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and philharmonics of the world, the most distinguished musicians, the most ambitious youth studying music and music lovers. All of them could come from Austria, Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, the USA, Brazil – to mention just those countries where the interest in the classical music and the buzz around it is big enough for the group of potential recipients of the offer of Lusławice to reach even hundreds of thousands of people. However, according to the composer’s intention, the most important are artistically talented young people – it doesn’t matter whether local or global – from all over Europe, who will perfect their instrumental, vocal or conducting skills under the watchful eye of true masters.

Nevertheless, it was this locality of the project that allowed obtaining financial support from the European Union to finance this concept. The investment, completed right from ground up within 16 months, cost nearly PLN 65m, with PLN 50m coming from EU funds from the Operational Programme Infrastructure and Environment. The remaining amount was offered by the Malopolskie Province, the state budget and the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy Association – International Centre of Music, Ballet and Sport at PLN 5m each. As the composer emphasises, the investment managed to obtain such a high EU grant, amounting to 85% of the whole costs, because it was established in a small village, which thanks to this new facility will culturally affect the whole region.

The Centre has been designed to be a top quality multifunctional music facility, offering opportunities for versatile improvement in the field of music, organisation of concerts and chamber ballet shows. Within the scheme of the project a complex of buildings was built, accompanied by all the necessary technical 58

infrastructure. The heart of the facility is a state-of-the-art concert hall with 650 seats. It has been made of natural materials (oak and fir wood) and it satisfies the world’s strictest standards in terms of acoustics. Such halls are very rare, according to many specialists it is Poland’s best concert hall of this size.

There is also space for orchestra rehearsals and ballet practice.

The European Krzysztof Penderecki Centre for Music – unlike many other facilities financed by the EU and contrary to the voices of the critics – is not just standing there and looking beautiful, but it has been actively operating since its very beginning. Anne-Sophie Mutter, a violinist who had frequently cooperated with Krzysztof Penderecki, accepted the invitation to the inauguration of the Centre. The Lusławice Talents Orchestra, an ensemble established in the Centre consisting of young students of classical music (aged 7-14), who had been mastering their skills and preparing for the concert under the eye of distinguished professors, also performed on the new stage.

Another great dream has come true – not just the dream of a world class master and one of the most distinguished contemporary Poles, but also the dream of young people in love with music. It was confirmed by Krzysztof Penderecki in his speech at the opening of the centre: “I would like to tell all young musicians that no creative power can survive without roots. Let us take a look at a tree. It teaches us that a work of art can have double roots – in the ground and in the sky, and that it is always about the highest and the most fundamental values. Therefore, may this place in Lusławice become the ‘tree of knowledge’ to young and talented musicians and may it facilitate the beginning of their artistic careers.”

Krzysztof Penderecki Born on 23 November 1933 in Dębica. Distinguished Polish composer, conductor and teacher of music. Graduate from the Academy of Music in Krakow, rector and professor of the Academy of Music in Krakow. Doctor honoris causa of e.g.

Jagiellonian University, Yale University, Warsaw University, Fryderyk Chopin University of Music and Academy of Music in Krakow. Initiator and president of the Programme Board of the European Krzysztof Penderecki Centre for Music in Lusławice, Knight of the Order of the White Eagle.

He won recognition for his first compositions, becoming a leading representative of the Polish school of composition of the 1960s. The originality of sound in the initial period of his work was manifested in treating bowed string instruments as percussion instruments. However, the series of his great oratories and cantatas of a religious nature and symphonic monuments referred to the aesthetics of late romanticism. Reaching for universal themes, Penderecki rejected the attitude of an avant-garde composer and became an artist engaged in the synthesis of the previous achievements of music in the 20th century.

The most important oeuvres by Penderecki are: “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima” (1960), “1st String Concerto” (1960), “Anaklasis” for Springs and percussion (1960), oratory “Dies irae” commemorating those murdered in Auschwitz (1967), “Cosmogony” (1970); religious oeuvres: “St. Luke’s Passion” (1965), “Matins” (1970), “Magnificat” (1974), “Te Deum” (1980), “Polish Requiem” (1984); operas: “The Devils of Loudun” (1969), “Paradise Lost” (1978), “The Black Mask” (1986), “Ubu the King” (1991); music for orchestras: “2nd Christmas Symphony” (1980), “Passacaglia” (1988), “Adagio” (1989); concertos: for cello, violin, viola; chamber music piece “String trio” (1991).

Krzysztof Penderecki is an extraordinary figure in the history of the world’s contemporary music. His great talent, rich composing career, achievements as a conductor and a teacher, brought about the dynamic development of his career. With each of his works Penderecki wins the hearts of his audience and the recognition of the critics.

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Regions

Centre of Science – Centre of Attention For over two years now it has been in the lead among places you just have to visit when in Warsaw, although it doesn’t aspire to the title of the most important tourist attraction in the capital of Poland. During the first weeks of its operation, residents had to wait in long traffic jams to get there. What are we talking about? The Copernicus Science Centre – a facility so much different than any other, whose goal is to promote love for science among people of all ages, from preschoolers to those attending universities of the third age.

By the end of 2012, that is nearly two years after its opening, the Copernicus Science Centre was visited by more than two 60

million guests. These numbers attest to the great popularity of the project, quite astonishing for its authors themselves. They wanted to create a place where everybody could have the opportunity to discover their curiosity for the world and passion for experimenting. They were hoping that their method of perceiving and exploring the world will infect visitors. They never would have thought that the response would be so great. This is a true success, but also a great commitment at the same time.

Due to the specific character of its activities, it is difficult to compare the Copernicus Science Centre to other Polish institutions of culture. But from a global perspective, science centres have existed for many years now. They all offer interactive exhibitions presenting scientific phenomena. The Amsterdam-based NEMO attracts 500 thousand visitors a year, Heureka in Helsinki – 280 thousand, Cité de l’Espace in Toulouse – 200 thousand. The world’s first science centre, the American Exploratorium, attracts 560 thousand people a year. These results attest to the great interest, but the attendance at the Copernicus Science Centre is twice as large. Why? Perhaps CSC was established at the right

time and it was the perfect answer to society’s needs. “This is the kind of spirit I would like to see throughout Europe. The spirit of engagement in science, innovation and research”, said José Barroso, President of the European Commission after his visit there.

At first everything in Copernicus was new and surprising to its visitors. People were astonished that there were no guides around, that you could choose on your own the direction and rhythm of your visit and the necessity to interact with the exhibits. Some were a bit confused, others too embarrassed to act. But finally they overcame their fears as the willingness to explore and experience the reality is simply irresistible.

Fighting their reluctance, they noticed value in what initially had raised their concerns. Many adults comment on their visit to Copernicus saying: “I wish there had been such places when I went to school!”. They recognise the educational values of CSC, but most of all the adults disThe Copernicus Science Centre cover their child-like was established, as it were, curiosity and urge to “on the subconscious satisfy it. Don’t we learn request” of society. all our lives?

Children get around Copernicus intuitively. Whatever their age, they are able to spend long hours at the exhibits. When leaving the building they are just as thrilled and care-free as at the beginning of their visit.

But are they really unchanged? Many weeks after their visit they are able to remember the difference between a meteorite and a meteor and show how to impale a balloon on a stick.

The Centre changes even the attitude of young children to the world. “After our visit to Copernicus, where you can touch everything you want, my son started to behave in a similar way in other places. Sometimes it is quite amusing. He touches screws on a bench, drawers in a shop. I guess he must think that you can influence the world this way everywhere you go”, the mum of a 3-year-old toddler observes.

The Copernicus Science Centre offers more than just exhibitions. It changes people’s attitudes. CSC organisers closely observe the changes affecting our reality as well as the changing social needs. They do their best to address them, creating a platform for dialogue, discussion and activity. A dash of initiative is often enough to see how much enthusiasm can be hidden in a person.

Teachers have also been invited to cooperate with the Centre in order to seek new ways of thinking about school. The goal was to find alternative attitudes and opportunities, without dealing directly with the system of education.

Nevertheless, it was impossible to avoid it – it soon turned

out that teachers themselves are willing to discuss possible changes in formal education.

Another important task of Copernicus is reminding us that science and arts create culture together. Conversations with artists showed how many of them sympathise with this view. It didn’t take a lot of effort to convince them to cooperate, which resulted in a collection of artistic exhibits, shows, exhibitions and many other projects, implemented e.g. within the framework of the Festival of Changes.

The Copernicus Science Centre was established, as it were, “on the subconscious request” of society. Newcomers had no idea what to expect. They experienced much more than they had hoped for. Copernicus has created an opportunity to satisfy the basic needs of civilisation: a need to fathom the world, to experience beauty, to create reality. And it has evoked the willingness to come back here – there is always something new waiting to be discovered at CSC. The Copernicus Science Centre is an institution of culture set up by the capital city of Warsaw, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the Ministry of National Education. It consists of a team of enthusiasts and science lovers, headed by Director Robert Firmhofer and Chairman of the Programme Board, Prof. Łukasz Turski.

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Regions

Mazury, the Wonder

of Nature

Who of us has never heard of the cool blue of Mazurian lakes, the green woods and primeval forests, which, directed by the eternal rhythm of the music of nature, grow green in summer, turn gold in autumn, or are covered with the silver of a harsh northern winter? Yes, for certain Mazury is a wonder of nature. Sometimes it happens that tourists sit at the shore of one of thousands of lakes and, gazing into the mysterious depths, they swear to themselves to always keep coming back here. The richness of nature, breathtaking landscape and the intellectually elusive, inexpressible, but detectible taste in the air attracts and captivates, Providence has equipped Mazury with treasures it has refused to give to other places, but in some kind of inhumane maliciousness it has sent all possible calamities to this beautiful land. A complicated history, confused fates, wars, shifting borders, plundering, murders and great escapes – all this has made the beautiful Mazurian Province a poor, destroyed and neglected land. People, ethnical groups and whole nations lived here and then had to move, and the Mazurian nature, like a silent witness, depositary of the regional heritage, endures and charms successive generations.

The contemporary inhabitants of this region, 21st century Mazurians, are the “product” of the complicated history of this part of the Old Continent. They are patched with the traditions of their predecessors, who after the World War 2 were forced to come here, “encouraged” to leave their homesteads with Soviet bayonets, like thousands of people from the eastern borderland, whipped on by a communist soldier from the far slopes of mountain pastures in the Bieszczady mountains, like crowds of Ukrainians and Lemkos, or whipped on by poverty and famine like the Kurpies from Mazovia, who were looking for their El Dorado in Mazury. For generations they settled on a land which was not theirs, which with each church, each piece of the Prussian wall or graveyard tombstone reminded them they were but unwanted guests in this land. And only the breathtaking Mazurian nature seemed to – as Jose Ortega y Gasset used to say – have no opinion, judge nobody from the group of 62

the newcomers. It was the Mazurian nature and landscape that became the element which started to combine the diversified Mazurian melting pot. Over time they were rooted in the human consciousness as an element of their own world, their new Mazurian fatherland. Today, it is a part of the Mazurian heritage, which together with the people inhabiting the region, their rich tradition and interesting colourful culture, constitutes the greatest treasure of the region. How to boast of this richness?

How to advertise this, after all, rather poor region, deprived of big cities, big factories and the bustle of the global rush?

How to show a place where one would have to work three times more and three times faster, without any break, to catch up with the rest of Poland. A place where thousands of people motivated by their true love for the region and – well, I don’t hesitate to say it – a sense of service and mission, make up for something that others can just take for granted? How to boast of a piece of Poland which enchants, captivates and allows a person to be set free from the chains of the empty chase after a plastic illusion of happiness? Like yoghurt which makes us “get better”, like credit which gives us “everlasting” happiness, like a face cream which will rejuvenate our skin and soothe our face with its “intelligent” system? No. Or perhaps, as frequently numerous advertising magicians would like, by showing dehumanised figures of naked women thanks to some computer tricks? No. Something obvious should be said, something like the statement of Jules Michelet, ingenious in its simplicity: “Gentlemen, England is an island!” And that’s what actually happened – a couple of hotheads sitting at their desks at Emilii Plater Street in Olsztyn came up with a crazy and blatantly obvious thought: “Mazury, the Wonder of Nature”. So obvious that one would just like to mock it: “Oh really, tell me about it!”. And then a true avalanche was triggered.

The idea to promote Mazury from the angle of its wonderful nature was not conceived in the glass skyscrapers of the capital, it did not appear in any “Important Ministry”, and neither did it come into being in the heads of some experts in deceiving people, sellers of junk and tawdry impressions. Nobody took it from a colourful American handbook. The idea was conceived by those who had grown in this unique wonderful natural richness of the region; it is, as it were, the breath of the Mazurian spirit, emanation of complete uniqueness. I daresay the idea to promote Mazury by demonstrating the wonders of its nature is a certain cocktail of youthful romanticism, the sense of attachment to the little fatherland and the willingness to do something good, something that would be noticed by others and thanks to which perhaps things would get better here. Perhaps the region could get richer thanks to tourists, perhaps it would be more global due to being shown on CNN, perhaps we would be more proud of our Mazury, perhaps once again we would realise that this is a truly extraordinary phenomenon.

The campaign “Mazury – the Wonder of Nature” was developed as a proposal for a competition in which seven new wonders of the world were to be selected. And then there was just hard work - convincing people, attracting well-known, recognised and appreciated figures to become ambassadors of Mazury. They were convinced. The current president, Bronisław Komorowski, who boasts that in his

youth he explored the local waterways in his canoe, and the former president –the electrician, Lech Wałęsa, who in the breaks from his anti-communist revolution would fish here, and the former president ex-communist, Aleksander Kwaśniewski, who as a young apparatchik would sunbathe on the shore of the Mazurian lakes and later on, as a converted democrat, would often come here. And great travellers, the pope, pop stars, actors and politicians. A lot money was spent, but all of them were talking about it. There were billboards, concerts, commercials on TV, Facebook accounts.

Marketing experts were evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign, were counting minutes on air, website hits, those who clicked on “Like”. It must be admitted – it was a marketing success unmatched in any other region of Poland.

It was an idea conceived on this unique land and transformed into a great advertising machine, thanks to which in Europe, in Poland, but also here, in Mazury itself, people again learned, or were just reminded, that there is a place where nature is a true wonder.

Jacek Poniedziałek sociologist, Ph.D. in humanities, lecturer at the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

Photos: The Marshall Office of The Region of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn

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Valedictions Kamil Broszko: Should politics still fight for something today, 25 years after the great transformations, or should it just “keep an eye on the hot water in the tap”?

Tadeusz Mazowiecki: I don’t subscribe to and I don’t like the concept which assumes that the roles of politics are limited only to practical aspects. I don’t think that politics today comes down only to this. As far as the period of the transformations is concerned, then the goal of politics was to introduce democracy and the system of free market economy in Poland, as well as a shift in the orientation of our foreign policy, to open Poland to the West. Today Poland is a democratic state, but strengthening its democratic system and strengthening its economy are the goals which politics can still pursue.

KB: Speaking of strengthening our economy, are you referring to liberalisation or social orientation?

TM: I wouldn’t set these two tasks against each other.

Economy liberalisation is a means to be free from excessive regulations – too numerous, too detailed and poor quality. As we know, such regulations plague the Polish economy. However, I wouldn’t say that economy is an end in itself; it should offer certain social solutions, necessary for contemporary society.

KB: Mr. Prime Minister, if we assume that for the past years the goal of the politicians holding power and social mandate was to strengthen the Polish economy, is it possible to say today that they have managed to achieve this goal?

TM: Generally speaking, the development of Polish economy is good; we are successfully resisting the waves of the crisis. But this does not mean that we should be satisfied. We need to catch up with countries which are better developed; we need to make up for the fact that we have been lagging

We Need to Build the Necessary Minimum of Community Spirit Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Prime Minister (1927 - 2013), in a conversation with Kamil Broszko.

Interview conducted on 25.09.2013 64 Kamil Broszko Photo:

behind not just for decades, but centuries.

KB: Perhaps somebody should stimulate this process of catching up. Is it the role of politics or the government?

TM: It seems to me that that there is no one concept for catching up. I think that a well functioning public opinion should bridge this backwardness.

KB: And how does this public opinion function in Polish conditions?

TM: Not too well, I am afraid. It is stuck in a destructive dispute, which is futile, instead of being constructive, because it concerns facts which are being denied. I am referring to the disaster … It is a dispute which hinders the development of civil awareness.

KB: Going beyond home affairs, how do you talk about your country and Poles on the international arena?

TM: Functioning on the international arena must be much more than just propaganda. Everybody knows more or less how the situation develops in other countries. The image of Poland and Poles is well known to the actors of international spheres.

KB: Nevertheless, there is an opinion that everybody should promote their country, their city, their territory the best they can. Ideological reasons are not so important here as such promotion will be beneficial in mercantile terms sooner or later.

TM: Of course, it is very important. That is right, every single country does it and we should not hesitate or be uneasy about it. It is normal promotional activity, very common and very valuable.

KB: The political transformation which was taking place with your contribution happened in the pre-Internet era. If today - in the times of advanced communication – you would have to fight communism, wouldn’t it be a more difficult fight? After all, the Internet can be a great propaganda tool.

TM: Most of all, I think that the Internet enhances opportunities to communicate. Looking at this question from this point of view, it seems to me that this fight would be possible even more so. Of course, you are right to assume that the totalitarian system would not lag behind and would definitely invent something against free communication. It is hard to speculate about it today. Advanced solutions, advanced technologies are more likely to enhance opportunities to communicate.

KB: And do they increase human freedom?

TM: They intensify the flow of information. And as far as freedom is concerned, well, I believe everything is possible.

KB: There is a belief in Poland that we could be a role model for other parts of the world in terms of our successful transfer from the chains of totalitarianism to modern democracy.

To what extent is the Polish experience unique in the global scale, and to what extent is it typical for those historical and geopolitical conditions?

TM: Historical and political changes are always original.

They are never the same everywhere. Although, on the other hand, there are some similarities.

KB: There was a moment in the awareness of western intellectuals when it was believed that democracy is “the end of history”. At present this view is broadly denied. Is democracy threatened today?

TM: Opinions about the end of history were hasty. Since that time many phenomena have occurred, such as, for example, global terrorism or other threats, which are very difficult to overcome using democratic methods. And besides, communication and information increases, but the participation of people in establishing democratic political systems leaves much to be desired. Our current challenge is to look for new forms of participation in the decision-making process.

KB: Will democracy develop towards direct participation?

TM: Both direct and indirect participation. The thing is that the elector should not be a person that politics seeks just once every four years. It is important that electors should shape public opinion, and public opinion should shape politics.

KB: Recently the media has been reporting a new emigration wave of young Poles. Does it make sense to encourage these people to come back? What argument should we give to convince them come back? Maybe it doesn’t matter where we live if we have a common Europe, a global world?

TM: Today everyone can decide for themselves. Personally, I believe it would be better if Poles gained experience abroad and came back and shared their experience with their fellow countrymen in Poland. I would be happier to see this option, rather than the situation where Poles stay abroad for good.

KB: At the end of the 1980s a lot of Polish people believed in a concept which basically could be brought down to one sentence, and the focal point was freedom. This concept was so strong that it brought about ground-breaking changes. Is it possible to formulate a similar short concept, strategy, which will be accurate enough to push our Polish issues ahead?

TM: All of us Poles have something in common. We will develop, we will develop democracy, as long as we build a minimum of COMMUNITY spirit.

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