rys. CartoonStock

W Polsce dominuje czołobitne podejście do Kościoła katolickiego, którego lokalnym symbolem stał się poprzedni papież. Krytyka Jana Pawła II w powszechnej świadomości jest tożsama z "atakiem na Kościół", a stąd już tylko krok do obrazy uczuć religijnych. Podejrzewam, że ma to poważny związek z silnym w Polsce kompleksem braku powodów do narodowej dumy (z wyjątkiem upajania się pamięcią o przegranych powstaniach, o czym było wczoraj). Prosty chłopak z Wadowic, który doszedł na szczyt kościelnej hierarchii jest polską wersją amerykańskiego mitu "od pucybuta do milionera". Gdyby zamiast papieża z Polski wybrano papieża z np. Francji czy Włoch, Polacy nie poświęcaliby niemal żadnej uwagi głowie Kościoła. Potwierdzają to hasła w stylu "nasz papież" (tak jakby każdy naród miał osobnego) albo "ojciec nas wszystkich" (co stanowczo sobie wypraszam, bowiem mój ojciec nijak poprzedniego papieża nie przypomina).

Media podtrzymują ogólnonarodowe uwielbienie do postaci zmarłego przywódcy katolików i karmią nas wyłącznie jasnymi stronami JP2. Przypominane są filipki o kremówkach, mniej lub bardziej udane żarty, ale nie ma krytyki. Nie znaczy to bynajmniej, że poprzedni papież na nią nigdy nie zasłużył. W złym tonie jest wyłamywanie się z tłumu. Być może dlatego Czesław Miłosz zapytany w jednym z wywiadów o ocenę papieskiej poezji stwierdził jedynie, że pisanie wierszy nie było głównym zajęciem JP2 (nie cytuję dosłownie, ale taki był mniej więcej sens). Fakt, że żaden był z JP2 poeta nie znaczy, że to wszystko co można mu zarzucić. Tadeusz Bartoś napisał, że Jan Paweł II nie rozumiał Zachodu mówiąc o cywilizacji śmierci. (przytaczam za Gazetą Świąteczną, bo książki, jak wspomniałem, jeszcze nie było mi dane przeczytać). Dalej w "Gazecie" czytamy, że sam poprzedni papież przyznał, że z Zachodem mu nie wyszło.

Samo pojęcie "cywilizacja śmierci" w ustach JP2 brzmiało groteskowo. Miało ono oznaczać powszechne przyzwolenie na antykoncepcję i aborcję (jedno i drugie jest często wrzucane przez katolików do jednego worka) oraz pomniejszenie znaczenia tradycyjnie rozumianej rodziny. Tymczasem w imię walki z "cywilizacją śmierci" zakazywał używania prezerwatyw, co nie sprzyjało zapobieganiu AIDS np. w krajach afrykańskich (tutaj jest trochę więcej dla głodnych wiedzy). Innymi słowy, tłumacząc Afrykanom, że prezerwatywy są złe, mógł JP2 mieć pewien pośredni udział w rozprzestrzenianiu się AIDS, była to więc agitacja za "cywilizacją życia"... Powszechnie wiadomo, że był poprzedni papież sceptyczny nie tylko wobec prezerwatyw, ale też wobec sztucznej antykoncepcji w ogóle, nie każdy natomiast wie, że reprezentował pod tym względem pogląd przeciwny wobec swojego bezpośredniego poprzednika, Jana Pawła I.

W Polsce krytykując Kościół można zapracować sobie na etykietę komunisty. Przeważnie jest to pojęcie używane przez ludzi, którzy go nie rozumieją, tym niemniej jest to pewien wytrych językowy dowodzący istniejącej w przekonaniu wielu osób antynomii Kościół-dyktatura. Tymczasem monarcha Watykanu (państwa, którego istnienie w XX w. zapewnił Mussolini) ochoczo spotykał się z dyktatorami od lewa do prawa. Papież, który miał być jednym z powodów upadku komunizmu w Europie Wschodniej odwiedził komunistycznego dyktatora Fidela Castro. Nie oznacza to jednak, że JP2 przyklaskiwał kubańskiemu reżimowi. A przynajmniej nie bardziej niż chilijskiemu, bo Augusto Pinocheta też odwiedził.

Szkoda, że polskie społeczeństwo charakteryzuje mocna tendencja do popadania w skrajne uwielbienie lub nienawiść do jakiejś idei czy postaci. Trudno mi sobie wyobrazić, by np. w TVP wyemitowano rzetelny program o jasnych i ciemnych stronach pontyfikatu Jana Pawła II (aby poczytać o tych ciemniejszych zapraszam tutaj, tych "jasnych" i tak wszędzie pełno). Katarzyna Wiśniewska pisze w Gazecie Świątecznej, że "niestety, na polskim podwórku myśl, że Jan Paweł II przy całej swojej wielkości mógł popełniać błędy, uważana jest ciągle jeśli nie za grzeszną, to przynajmniej za nazbyt śmiałą". Umiarkowanie wzrusza mnie czy pisząc ten tekst popełniłem grzech, podobnie zastanowiłbym się nad nazwaniem Jana Pawła II "wielkim" (choć bez wątpienia był ważny), mam jedynie nadzieję, że kult jednostek odejdzie wreszcie do lamusa.

Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel Banquet Speech, December 10, 1980

J'adore André Suarès que j'ai toujours tenu pour le plus grand écrivain français (pour son éblouissant Voyage du Condottiere notamment mais pas seulement). Cette photo vous paraîtra sans doute un peu inquiétante mais ne vous y fiez pas. Je la mets ici parce qu'elle est vraissemblablement guère postérieure à l'époque où Suarès passait devant le conseil de révision des Armées en se présentant devant les autorités militaires avec sa grande cape noire, ses longs cheveux tombant sur ses épaules et, sous le bras, la partition de Siegfried de Wagner ! J'adore cette histoire et imagine que les officiers ont du s'étrangler en voyant arriver ce jeune homme passionné, à la fois sombre et diaphane.
Pourquoi diable est ce que je vous raconte cette histoire ? Ah oui, Wagner : hier, en lisant des textes de Milosz, j'ai découvert qu’il ne passait pas seulement des journées entières à apprivoiser les oiseaux mais qu'il leur sifflait des airs de Wagner ! Et, comme avec François d'Assise, tous les oiseaux arrivaient et se posaient sur ses épaules. «C’était surtout en hiver lorsque la neige recouvrait le parc que le spectacle était étonnant, raconte un jardinier ; On le voyait marcher tout seul, vêtu de noir, accompagné d’une centaine d’oiseaux de toutes les espèces.» (*)

Voilà la grande découverte qui me ravit littéralement : Milosz ne parlait pas seulement aux oiseaux de la forêt de Fontainebleau : il leur chantait du Wagner !

Le Voyage du Condottière de André Suarès
François d'Assise et mes petites soeurs les hirondelles

(*) Citation de Janine Kohler, Présidente de l'Association des Amis d'Oscar Milosz

Deux phrases trottent dans ma tête en ce moment. Similitude ?

La première de Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz Milosz :

Si l'impossible attendu si longtemps

Frappait à la fenêtre, comme le rouge-gorge au coeur gelé,
Qui donc se lèverait ici pour lui ouvrir ?"

et la seconde de Rainer-Maria Rilke :

Si je criais,
qui donc entendrait mon cri parmi les hiérarchies des anges ?"

Wer wenn ich schriee...
Le poème de Milosz en entier
Le canari de Milosz
Le canari de Kazantzaki

--
Oui, je sais, l'image et la phrase de Milosz ne sont pas vraiment de saison mais peu importe : toutes les saisons sont belles !

Il y a des soirs, comme ce soir, quand les choses deviennent particulièrement intenables, où je sens qu'il va m’arriver quelque chose comme une crise d'apoplexie ou une crise cardiaque ou une crise de nerfs, en tout cas une crise. Quelque chose dans le genre de ce qui est arrivé au grand poète et ami des oiseaux, Oscar Vladislas de Lubicz-Milosz : le 2 mars 1939, juste avant que n'éclate la guerre mondiale qu'il pressentait, il s’effondrait mortellement après s’être fâché contre son canari qui ne voulait pas rentrer dans sa cage. Le médecin concluera à une embolie.
Mon canari à moi, c’était la paix de l’âme. Et je n’arrive plus à le faire rentrer dans sa cage. Et sa cage, voyez-vous, c'était ma tête. On verra les conclusions du médecin légiste. [mais bon, n'appelez quand même pas la police. Le café ne fait plus d'effet ; je vais me coucher et m'occuperai du canari demain]

Nikos Kazantzaki aussi avait un canari sur la tête !

W Warszawie przy karuzeli
Przy dźwiękach skocznej muzyki
Salvy za murem Getta
Głuszyła skoczna muzyka
Czesław Miłosz "Campo di Fiori"

In the podlaskie voivodeship, on the Eastern Lake District of Suwałki, there spreads the picturesque Land of Sejny. It is the land of green woods and clean lakes. Situated by the farthest part of the North-Eastern Poland, the Land of Sejny is surrounded by the ancient Puszcza Augustowska and Wigierski National Park.
Post-glacial hills, soughing old forests, groves, and the countless amount of lakes and rivers create characteristic picture of this area. Marshy and usually misty ranges put a person in a unique state of mind by their characteristic wild beauty. The Marycha River and the Czarna Hańcza River join with the current of Niemno and Wigry Lake is located directly on the Polish-Lithuanian border.
Many rare species of animals and plants find their shelter in this natural enclave. The reserves “Bobruczek”, “Ostoja Bobrów Marycha” and “Łempis” are inhabited by beavers, which lodges are for good present in this countryside. Woods and thick backwoods are inhabited by black grouse, white eagle, wolves and lynxes.
The Land of Sejny, presently situated on the crosslink of Polish, Lithuanian and White Russian borders, previously was the home for Jaćwież tribe, inhabitants of the Mazovia region, Lithuanian people, Jews and oldceremonials, called also old-believers. There used to go an emplacement historic tract through the Land of Sejny, which was tramped by merchants, religious emigrants and almost all the armies of Europe. Nowadays the Town of Sejny is an important element of a tourist tract connecting Eastern and Western Europe.
Some historic names sound misterious in Polish language: Sejny, Krasnogruda, Jegliniec, Żegary, Sejwy, Boksze, Oszkinie, Wiłkokuk. There are also some old fairy-tales and legends about the defence of the monastery by “the divine army” against Moscals during the “Swedish flood”, about bringing the Figure of St. Mary of Sejny to Sejny or about the King Żaltis and beautiful Jegla.
Old noble mansions and farms in Dusznica, Krasnogruda, Klejwy, Szejpiszki and Hołny Wolmera are unique monuments of the Land of Sejny. While wandering from one mansion to another one can bend the steps of many hundred years old tradition of gentry. Czesław Miłosz described his return to his home in Krasnogruda in such a way:

“In my old age I went to the places where my early
youth used to wander.
I recognised the scent, the lines of post-glacial hills,
Oval lake basins.
I forced my way through thicket where a park used to be,
But I haven’t found any traces of the path.
I stood on water and just like the wave was rippling,
Unimaginable identity, unimaginable separation.”
The poem “Powrót” from the volume “Dalsze okolice” (1991)

The character of the Land of Sejny is also determined by the inhabitants of this land. Their friendliness, hospitality and frankness encourage to visit this place and add charm to this land. One can not only rest here in the open, but also delight with unforgettable taste and aroma of home-made food. There are some very unique dishes served there, like “kartacze’, “kińdziuki”, “soczewiaki”, “czenaki” and “sękacze”, which are typical only for the Land of Sejny and you will not try them anywhere else.

As stated in the previous entry, Dante is the patron saint of all those who only visit their homelands in memory - Milosz being one of those who pray to Saint Dante for strength and inspiration. Such a distance from one's homeland, a distance of the time and space of forced exile, is the mother of the Muses which informed the poetry of Milosz: whose aim was to capture a significant and precarious century which most others had swept under the rug as finally overcome when the Berlin wall fell leaving only Democratic freedom within the purview of the globe.

Dante adds to the conversation of exile a pre-democratic (once again, democracy in the modern sense) look. Dante himself was a white Guelph who opposed the presence of the Pope in Florentine politics. Dante was part of a movement which would eventually lead to the enlightenment and the separation of religious authority and political authority which makes possible the modern American Democracy.

Dante's discontent with the political situation of his day arises from a concern with corruption in the church. The realization that a religious government was prone to corruption was also a concern for Pride, that a Pope could put himself above the needs of God, and when he does so politically he corrupts an entire nation. In some ways, his discontent is one of Ideological Absolutism, which, since the birth of Christianity had manifested itself in Religious terms, but since then has reared its head in secular forms. In short, despite Dante's role in bringing forth the enlightenment, his desire to do so was born from a concern that he thought would be removed by removing religious authority. This concern did not disappear. Whereas Dante assumed religion would still play a major role in people's lives, hence balancing political tyranny, the institutions that arose did not maintain religious authority in any way, allowing secular Ideology to merely replace Religious Ideology.

Such a move was incomprehensible to a Europe that had been understanding its politics within religious contexts for a millennium - incomprehensible to all except Tocqueville. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America was published in 1835 and talked much of a perceived possibility of great decline in the spiritual characteristic of America - one that for better or for worse we all must admit, has come true - 173 years after he first published. This merely goes to show that democracy was not always considered the only option for political justice, despite the modern trend, it was considered by many foundational thinkers in Western Civilization, as a dangerous turn - one that always comes before tyranny according Plato.

Hence, after three entries, we have finally concluded the introduction to a most interesting problem, which challenges a paradigm once thought unquestionable. Our allies in this questioning range from the former Soviet Union, to Imperial England, Renaissance Italy, and even Ancient Greece. The thing they all have in common is exile. Solzhenitsyn from Russia, Milosz from Poland, Dante from Florence, and Plato from Athens (Plato being the only one exiled FROM a Democracy in leau of execution, which was Socrates destiny).

Exile brings from the fore what exactly caused all these people to bring the best critiques. Exile means you have no home, nothing to lose, no national language, no cultural pressure - you are allowed to be a voice of all, of yourself, and of none simultaneously standing outside culture, outside history, and yet inside the vision of all. The memories, usually painful, of their homeland and of their loss, are the motivations, the Muses, that drive them with otherworldly fervor and power. They, unlike us, understand what it is to lose it all, to walk but be dead and this inability to lose any more, to understand what it is at stake gives them an omnipotence and wisdom beyond their peers.

Finally, from ambiguity, we are free to rise to a particular question. The question is exile. The frame is 20th century ideologies including democracy. The people are Milosz, Dante, Tocqueville, Solzhenitsyn, and Plato. Together they form an unbroken line which runs through the heart of every man. They share a destiny, a pain, and an insight which, if we are to be free thinkers, we must confront as the possibility that there is an option outside of our current system, which may allow the soul to ascend to greater heights.

I now return to anthropocentricity, and in particular evaluate the 20th century ('the century of exile') and how these strange sons of the enlightenment became distasteful of the direction that Western Civilization is heading in. In particular the role of extreme oppression, totalitarian regimes, and genocide on all sides turned the minds of Solzhenitsyn and Milosz toward democracy with a critical eye - but first lets turn several centuries back to a man heavily admired by Milosz: Dante Allegeri.

Why Dante? Why do we trun centuries back to Italy to discover our current dilemma? "A patron saint of all poets in exile, who visit their towns and provinces only in remembrance, is always Dante" (Milosz, Nobel Prize Lecture 1980). Dante not only embodies poetics but he was also an exile, who, unlike Milosz, could not find solace in being in the century of exile. Dante also understood anthropocentricity as he placed pride in the bottom two layers of hell, as well as the first layer of purgatory. It is the proud who become traitors, as we see Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in the mouth of the devil himself. But alas, Milosz is not talking about the pride of just one man against his fellow man, but the pride of Man against God (or anything higher than man, for that fact).

This anthropocentricity arrives as a product of the same movement that brings modern democracy - the enlightenment. Note here a delineation between modern and ancient democracies - this will be explored later. Ironically, the enlightenment also makes way for the two greatest opponents of democracy - communism and fascism (fanatical nationalism). All three governments share a commonality, which shows best their relation to anthropocentricity and the enlightenment.

Democracy is founded on the principle that man can logically understand what is best for him and that in groups his desires are checked by others to form a common good created through the fulfillment of contrary private goods. It is man who makes laws which reflect what is best for man and only through this communal process can he create a government which is just. Here anthropocentricity appears as man's ability to rule over himself - through law.

Communism is the belief that true utopia can be created on earth by the sharing of all, and is not far from Christian Theology. However, Communism puts heaven on earth by creating an ultimate and absolute end to history whereupon all social classes are equal and all conflicts cease. Any aim short of this absolute end is deemed political heresy, and what arrives is the belief in man's unlimited possibility to achieve this end; a faith in mankind over God.

Fascism is the bond one has with his nation - and its absolute leader and speaker. Here we see cold efficiency of tyranny combine with ideology to create a super state whose goal is the consumption of all. Fascism's close ties to nature and scientific realism allow it to set aside justice as something higher than man, and rather embrace the cold power of the will to achieve ends - for what else is there for man other than ends - the belief in anything higher than man himself is deemed a dream.

All three were born from a single principle of the enlightenment - that man's reason (and his reason alone) is what gives him his identity - and furthermore - his power. This power, if properly aimed, could and SHOULD master nature to make it his slave. It is cold reason which rejects anything higher (anything beyond reasoning, i.e. epiphany, faith, belief, or revelation), it is mechanical reason which applies lifeless history to known future in an attempt to reach a paradise within man's mind, and it is short-sighted reason which dictates the new laws.

Triplets of the Enlightenment. Of whom, 1 has risen from the ashes of two world wars and one cold war. Democracy, the child of liberalism, of the ill-fated French revolution, of Locke, has stretched the globe like the once great English Empire. Democracy, the study of Tocqueville, the asylum of Solzhenitsyn, the linguistic prison of Milosz, offers freedom of the body, and enslavement of the soul. So is the contention of these three authors, who see in the world's most prolific political institution a problem only visible from outside its persuasive walls.

Inside its walls nothing is clearer than the supremacy of democratic Western ideas - it is enough to fuel wars and commit atrocities so long as democracy is preserved and is allowed to metastasize. Allowed to escape criticism by being in the shadows of its two brothers for an entire century, it has now emerged as a beast too big to be fed, but it eats and it is still hungry. The two biggest modern critics of this beast are already layer before you (Solzhenitsyn and Milosz), and interestingly, grew up under the oppressive weight of democracy's twin; communism (Milosz having experienced all three triplets of the Enlightenment when Nazi Germany invaded Poland).

How could these two writers be so critical of democracy? The answer lies in exile, and in Dante Allegeri. 

More on Dante's role, and role of Exile, in the criticism of Democracy to come... but I feel enough head way has been made to warrant a rest to better distance ourselves from this material for a short while.

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

-Czeslaw Milosz (translated by Anthony Milosz)

-Csezlaw Milosz

Mes petites soeurs les hirondelles
Le canari de Milosz s'est envolé