The funeral of Solidarity legend and former foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek was tainted by the politicisation of the event, say critics.
When the late Professor Bronislaw Geremek’s funeral, attended by all of the leading Polish politicians and public figures, was in progress in Warsaw Monday afternoon, the Law and Justice (PiS) Chairman showed a lack of respect for his former political opponent and was relaxing on a river boat 100 kilometres away, beer in hand, as part of his tour of the regional party structures, writes Dziennik daily.
Chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s office said that he rarely showed up at events attended by his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski. But when Jaroslaw Kaczynski also failed to attend a ceremony at the Lower House yesterday when MPs were passing a resolution to honour the late Bronislaw Geremek by naming one of the halls in the Polish Parliament after him, many have teken this to be a snub to the memory of Geremek.
But Kaczynski’s absence was not the only incident that seemed out of place at a funeral to such a respected figure. Bronislaw Geremek’s old friend and contemporary in the Solidarity movement in the 1980s, Adam Michnik was the source of the second blunder at the funeral in the opinion of the majority on the Polish political scene.
In his speech Gazeta Wyborcza’s Editor-in-Chief recalled one of the last statements made by Geremek in which he proposed an open letter to “the remembrance forgers”, referring to the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), often criticised by Geremek for its ardent enforcement of the “unconstitutional vetting procedure” of public figures. Adam Michnik said that Geremek had “saved the honour of the Polish democracy” by his refusal to undergo lustration by the Institute.
“A funeral is not the right place for delivering political manifestos,” some governing Civic Platform (PO) politicians said unofficially after the funeral on Monday, as reported by Dziennik.
Former Foreign Minister and MEP Professor Bronislaw Geremek, who died in a car crash July 13, was buried in the Alley of the Meritorious at the Powazki Cemetery in Warsaw on Monday. (mj)