PiS has turned a blind eye to the activities of the likes of the All-Polish Youth and the National Radical Camp (ONR) — which were banned for decades before the fall of communism in 1989 — to the dismay of mainstream parties like the centrist opposition Civic Platform, which this week asked Poland’s prosecutor general to outlaw the ONR for propagating fascism. [...]
Green ONR flags rippled in the background as PiS-affiliated President Andrzej Duda made his way to a Gdańsk church for the reburial mass. Nationalists booed and harassed a handful of activists from the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD), a centrist grouping that has staged anti-government street protests in recent months.
Lech Wałęsa, the historic leader of the Solidarity labor union and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was greeted with cries of “traitor” and “death to the country’s enemies.” [...]
In response, Elżbieta Witek, chief of staff to Prime Minister Beata Szydło, told reporters, “Above all, I value those who are patriots.”
In last October’s parliamentary election, PiS had the support of a quarter of voters aged 18-29, much better than its past performance with that age bracket. Not all of those voters were nationalists or right-wingers, but those groupings have become part of PiS’s support base. [...]
In practical terms, too, the PiS government has made it easier for the ultra-nationalists to operate. In a review of police training materials conducted by the interior ministry in June, the ONR’s symbol — a hand gripping a sword — was removed from a guide to hate crimes.
When the ONR announced its intention to patrol the streets of the city of Łódź to “protect the Polish people against migrants,” regional governor Zbigniew Rau from the PiS defended them, saying, “If young people want to do something for the common good and they are concerned that [public] safety could be in danger, then it is the kind of capital on which we can build.”
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