Interview with Konrad Pędziwiatr

September 21, 2019

University of Toronto

Galina Şcolnic: Thank you for agreeing to discuss with me, Dr. Pędziwiatr! Before asking more structured questions, let us start with how do you see your research overall as it connects to the themes of the workshop?

Konrad Pędziwiatr: I’ve been involved in several research projects around the themes of the workshop, but I think the one which is most relevant is a project studying Christian dimensions of Islamophobia, where we looked into Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox dimensions of the fear of Muslims and Islam in Europe. While the project was based in several European countries, a large part—the Catholic—was linked to Poland. As a result, … I started to investigate and look more broadly into issues of sacralization of the nation and the mixing of religion and nationalism in the context of which religious narratives build up. I think this research on Islamophobia, in a way, has quite important dimensions for looking at how religion is linked with nationalism and how it works. At the same time, I drew some observations from other research analyzing transformations of Islamism in Egypt and Tunisia. For me, it was eye opening to see how religion is entangled with national state-building processes in the Middle East. I can see better how it works in Europe; how European states are politicizing religion by simply taking a stand in religious matters, using religious figures during state ceremonies, opening spaces for expressions of religious values and opinions in the public sphere during state ceremonies, and so on and so forth.

I write about Islamophobia in Central Europe and in Poland in particular, where it became a phenomenon largely taken for granted, as in the concept of “banal nationalism,” where “the Muslim Other” is being banalized and taken for granted. In the UK, one MP once said that Islamophobia has passed the ‘dinner table test’. In Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary, Islamophobia has been banalized to such an extent that it has passed not only the dinner table test, but also the breakfast and lunch table tests. It’s not being questioned but taken for granted. Muslims have been racialized to an unbelievable extent, regardless of which group they come from. In particular the Arabs… but even if they aren’t Arabs – being viewed as Muslim brings all kinds of imagery. This idea that, regardless of who you are, the fact that you are Muslim constitutes for a lot of people a threat. And interestingly enough, one of the groups that is feared the most is actually the converts—people who are supposedly “one of us” but have embraced this “evil religion.” This document which I mentioned today during my presentation, namely the draft of a Polish migration policy, talks about converts as one of the most problematic groups of Muslims. It is interesting because it does really fit into this idea around conversions and converts as the most dangerous group. Because the convert is one of us who has supposedly “betrayed the true religion” and the “true ethnicity.” This group is being heavily racialized.

Galina Şcolnic: Let’s zoom in a little bit. Historically, Poland and Catholicism are interwoven. What does it mean to be Polish, given that 96% of people identify as Catholic? Could you reflect on how that comes into play with concepts such as place, sovereignty and state?

Konrad Pędziwiatr: It has not been always the case that Catholicism was so strongly interwoven with nationalism. The roots of modern nationalism are linked with Catholicism as the neighboring empires partitioned the country and colonized Poland at the end of 18th and throughout the 19th centuries. They were often portrayed as religiously alien.

Galina Şcolnic: And you also mentioned in your presentation that during Communism, religion was often suppressed…

Konrad Pędziwiatr: It was, as you know, in all Communist countries, but at the same time there’s the strength of the Church as well as new realities. It is very important to remember the new social context in which Poland re-emerges after the Second World War as a country, as never before, homogeneous. There are still minorities, and one of the interesting minorities are the almost million Silesians who are partially claiming to be part of the… Polishness. At the same time part of this group, several hundred thousand of Silesians say that they are not part of the ‘Polishness’, and they claim a strong regional identity. However, they are not recognized as either a national or as an ethnic minority. They want to be recognized as a national minority. There are debates—academic and political—about Silesians as a stateless minority and whether they have the features of a nation.

Apart from that, there are several other minorities; but still in a nation of 38 million, they constitute a very small minority in contrast to what was the social landscape of Poland before the Second World War. What is important to remember is the fact that the Church, alongside ethnicity, was nationalized and this process of nationalization of Catholicism in Poland precipitated the sacralization of the nation. The sacralization of the nation has been taking place, you may say, from the beginning of the 19th century or even earlier, as some people would say that it started with Polish independence, which is traced back to the 10th century with the Christianizing of the country. If one accepts this theory, then from the 10th century onwards, the Christian religion and state are linked. But even then, they were linked very vaguely, until the 19th and 20th centuries. Before that people, were not necessarily ethnically Polish and the Polish Kings were of various ethnicities such as Lithuanian, Scandinavian, and the elites were super cosmopolitan as they had superficial relations with the masses. With the formation of the modern nation-state from 18th-19th centuries onwards, depending on the theoretical framework you adopt, the actual masses were obviously linked with the Church, but at the same time, they were disconnected from it. Why? For example, because the Church was holding the mass services in Latin up until the second Vatican Council. By introducing a national language into the full order of service, the Church also adopted important ethnic national features.

The additional element, which is very important in the Polish case, is the stance of the Church towards the state and the fact that the Church was the most important institution of society, increasingly nationalizing after the Second World War. By linking itself with society and then providing space for contestation (to limited conditions in which all Communist societies functioned with strong secret services), the Church was able to provide an important space, a sanctuary in a way, to some of the oppositional figures and ideas for resisting the Communist power. The choice of John Paul II to be the Pope also played an important role in linking the Church with the opposition, strengthening the Church, providing even more spaces for the contestation of the regime. In a similar way to how we cannot imagine the Civil Rights movement without the church space organization for African Americans to contest the racial context of their country, in the same way, we can’t imagine the Polish Solidarity (Solidarność) movement without the Church. We thus need to consider the pursuit of nationalization and the number of people seeing themselves as homogeneous as well as providing the space for contestations. The Church emerges from Communism as a victorious Church; as a Church that is searching for its new role in the democratic realities, but also as the Church which is internally divided between various priests and bishops who hold different views on social reality and the political system and who have different types of relations with the political elites. Today, the political elites in Poland have to take the Church into account. Regardless who they are, no political party has ever been able to win votes and win elections by taking a strong stance against the Church. Even the political Left in Poland is taking a very dialogical attitude towards the Church because they know that at the end of the day they are in a society where you cannot openly fight the Church. The current government is making this comparison by saying that whoever attacks the Church attacks Poland, and obviously the Church’s leadership likes this. The processes of nationalization of religion and sacralization of nation and state are, in a way, going hand-in-hand in Poland. I claim that in the last year they have intensified as a result of these trade-offs that the two groups made between each other.

Galina Şcolnic: Let us move towards Islam in Poland. You mentioned in your presentation that the oldest existing mosques are from the 18th and 19th centuries…

Konrad Pędziwiatr: Yeah, but the actual Muslim population of Poland traces its roots to the 14th century when Poland was, at that time, in Commonwealth with Lithuania and the Muslims came not so much to the current Polish territory—as you know, but to the Lithuanian territory. When it comes to the contemporary Tatar community, a very important part of this community is in today’s Lithuania. The organization, which I mentioned during my presentation, the Muslim Religious Union, which was formed after the First World War in the 1920s, is an organization that had its headquarters in Vilnius and actually… the law according to which Polish muftiate functions stipulates that the seat of the Polish mufti is Vilnius, which is the capital city of Lithuania. So, you can see how this law on the basis of which this institution functions up until now in Poland is disconnected from the actual realities in which people live. While the origins go back to 14^th century, the Tatar communities lived in various parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, then just the Polish state, which is much more in the East of today’s Lithuania. As a result of the of the Second World War, what happened is that a significant part of the traditional Tatar communities has remained outside of Polish territory and a lot of the Tatars that were within the Polish territory were also displaced and moved around the country out of their historic places. This was also important in the process of keeping the religiosity of the community. One of the reasons why religion in the community declined…is because it became a faith very much kept at home, rather than a faith that was celebrated in the public space, because the Communists obviously tried to clamp on religious communities. In particular, those who suffered most were the minority community. In this case, the Tatars.

Galina Şcolnic: In one of your articles, you mention that there’s been recent resistance to mosque construction in Poland. Given the diverse Muslim communities in the country, including the Arabs and the Tatars, how do they manage their claim to place in Poland?

Konrad Pędziwiatr: There are four purpose-built mosques in Poland. Two of them are in villages very close to the North-Eastern border in Poland. Apart from that, the new mosques were opened in 1989 in Gdańsk and in 2015 in Warsaw. The history of the purposed-built mosque in Warsaw is particularly interesting. With the formation of Muslim migrant groups, there were efforts made by both Tatars and Muslim migrants for the first purpose-built mosque in Warsaw. As you know, Warsaw is the capital city and, obviously, if you want to have any stake in power, you want to be the first to have the purpose-built mosque in the capital. The Tatars were trying to have it before WWII, but they never managed to complete the project of building a mosque. When the institution of the Muftiate was reestablished and they were legitimized as a religious and ethnic community, they felt that they should also have the mosque in Warsaw. So interestingly, they were trying to build it, but they didn’t succeed. When the immigrant community in which the Arabs played a key role grew bigger, they also wanted to have their mosque. The Arab-led community was much more entrepreneurial as they maintained links with Arab states or Arab ambassadors; they were able to secure a substantial amount of money to buy a piece of land to build a mosque. When this project started to take shape, the Tatars were trying to argue that they, as the first true Muslims of Poland, have more rights to the first purpose-built mosque in Poland than the immigrants. The arguments that followed were supposed to cast the immigrant community in a dark light and delegitimize their claim to a sacred space in the capital city. But at the end of the day, it has to do with internal tensions and internal struggle for authority within the diverse Muslim population of Poland. In the end the Tatars have no purpose-built mosque in the capital city while the immigrant community does in spite of substantial resistance from within and from without the Muslim community. When the project started to take shape, it was attacked not only from within, but also from outside of the Muslim community very strongly.

Galina Şcolnic: Could you elaborate on the latest attempts regarding the Polish migration policy and the role of Catholicism in it?

In this context, we are talking about mixing nationalism with religiosity like saying that you as a true Pole have to embrace Catholicism. One can see that, for example, in the unpublished draft of the new migration policy (HYPERLINK: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/the-new-polish-migration-policy-false-start/), it was suggested that a truly accomplished assimilation process is when you accept not only our values, but also our religious values. So, you can see how strongly the lawmakers think within this sacralization framework. They truly believe that religion is linked with national identity in a way that you may say is unprecedented in the European context. The other example that comes to my mind is the Israeli case of ethnocracy, in which the only truly way you can be a citizen of Israel is if you are a Jew. If you are not a Jew, you can only be a second-class citizen because the legal framework of the country is such that it stipulates that this is a Jewish state. So, in a way, Poland is unprecedented in the European context, because none of the European States say that in order to be a citizen of the state, you need to embrace a certain religion. And that’s what is being implied here—that assimilation processes should lead to a situation that you embrace a majority religion of the state, which is weird. It is against the constitution that obviously guarantees freedom of religious practice and this does not take into account the religious diversity of the country. Okay, it is pretty homogeneous when you compare it to other European countries, yet you have a substantial number of minorities and people who are also nonbelievers and people who believe in other faiths. So, why do you make such a claim that then the only way of being truly integrating as migrant involves accepting religious values? It doesn’t make sense.

Galina Şcolnic: In countries like France, the Netherlands and here in Canada, in Quebec, they have instituted laws where they ban religious symbols from public spaces. I want to connect that with a quote from an interview you did, to paraphrase the informant… they said that they have a friend whom they couldn’t imagine wearing a hijab at work, even though they thought of their boss as tolerant. Could you reflect on the connection between Poland which is a Christian majority country and the other mentioned Western countries, all claiming to be tolerant towards religion?

Konrad Pędziwiatr: This is a very interesting development, the politicization of a piece of cloth. And it does not involve all European countries. You have the example of the UK and obviously some Scandinavian countries that do not politicize the hijab. The hijab is being treated as a political demonstration. It’s the French and the French l’affaire du foulard in 1989, and then the follow-ups, which are in a way the processes that led to the politicization of the hijab and also this ban on religious symbols. At the end of the day…these laws make very little sense because our public space is full of religious symbols and the way it works in France is just not functional. I think it makes much more damage to social cohesion than it has good because obviously it marginalizes people who want to be in the public space with religious symbols on them and the hijab is so polysemic it has so many meanings as there are so many reasons why women wear it or not. In Poland, there are only a few women that wear a hijab so these kinds of discussions are very much part and parcel of Western European societies, like some of them, at least those who are influenced by the Francophone way.

Galina Şcolnic: This is my last question. You mentioned the radio station Mary and called it a social movement. What is the role of this radio station within Polish politics, the Catholic Church in Poland and its attitude towards Muslims and Islam?

Konrad Pędziwiatr: They significantly contribute to anti Muslim sentiment in the country. The movement started with the formation of the radio station by Father Rydzyk, who became a very important figure in some parts of the Catholic Church, especially amongst the conservative circles of the Catholic Church. Many older people who found refuge, help and connection, especially as people grow older and become increasingly lonely, the Church provided them with a kind of family. That’s why the movement is called “the family of the radio station” and organizes meetings for them. It provides older people a purpose of life, and the movement around this Church is linked with institutions apart from the radio station. They have also a TV program, which is called television Trwam, where they provide space for encounter (especially amongst older people) and at the same time, they take political stances – especially since 2015. The current government did absolutely everything to please Father Rydzyk and his collaborators, knowing that they would go to the meetings of this radio station. Whenever they organize some conference, a prime minister goes there to deliver speeches that appear on television ran by the network. They give them grants. There is a very strong link between the current government and this radio station, and even wider circles. They know that they are the core voters of the Law and Justice (political party), and whatever happens they would always vote for the party. The politicians make sure that the radio people are pleased with the policies of the government and with the politicians. Even the younger politicians pay tribute in a way to this conservative, right wing circle of the Catholic Church.

The leadership of the Catholic Church in Poland tried several times to better control the movement but succeeded only partially. The movement has many friends among the key bishops in the country that they are a church within the Church, and a very important political actor and social actor. All political parties—especially all conservative political parties – need to take them into account. This coalition with the Church is functioning super well for both the Church and for the leading party. But most importantly, the reason why so many people are ready to vote for this party is that they basically started to build a Polish welfare state. A program which is called the 500 plus, meaning that every month every family with children received this 500 Polish złoty for every second child (around 120 euros). Soon the program will change, and it will provide 500 PLN for every child. Initially, the government claimed that this is not an economic policy tool, but part of the demographic policy. However, everybody knew that families make decisions on family planning, not on the basis of economy only. So this didn’t have a significant demographic effect, but a very important political effect. A lot of people who have, for example, two kids receive 250 euros per month, on top of their salaries. And the salaries in Poland are not very high. For now, the economy is doing quite well with unemployment rate unprecedentedly low and an increasing number of migrants coming to Poland, which is becoming a net immigration country.

Galina Scolnic: Thank you so much for this interview, Dr. Pędziwiatr!