Editorial

Welcome to The Ziggi's Corner - a brand new website focused on explication of Polish (and - in a broader context - Central European) point of view to the English-spoken audience worldwide.

The selection of information presented here is made by Zbigniew P. Szczęsny (you may listen to its native Polish pronunciation with a handy 'Flash' sample here), born 1966, who is a freelance thinker living in Warsaw, Poland. Because his name is that difficult, he has got used to his Usenet nickname "Ziggi", much more sound for non-Poles :-)

The motivation for creating such a website is clear: due to historical and commercial reasons, opinions and views characteristic to this corner of the globe are poorly recognized elsewhere. That leads to many mutual misunerstandings and confusions frequently observed by Ziggi, who has many opportunities to watch the image of Poland in various foreign media.

This non-commercial project has ambition to let non-Polish people understand main objectives of Polish raison d'etat, explain basic problems of Polish foreign policy, explore the background of specific mentality of Poles in the area of social, religious and civilization-related affairs.

The website will be updated weekly with natural pauses in case of holidays, illness or absence of any kind.

For obvious reasons, opinions presented here are non-representative in sense they were filtered by Ziggi and his fellow collaborators. On the other hand, they ARE somehow representative because the way Ziggi and his collaborators understand the world is not that individual - it is shared by many others who try to make their minds in contemporary reality, being exposed to the burden of the past and challanges of the future. Anyway, analysis of information presented here may be a good starting point for discussion about some fundamental differencies between the "Old" and "New" Europe for the people interested on the subject.

So what will you find here?

• A very brief of the history of Poland
• Some opinions on the "fall of the communism" and its consequences
• Opinions on Polish-Russian relationship
• Opinions on Polish-German relationship
• Opinions on Polish-Jewish relationship
• Opinions on Polish foreign affairs and international politics
• Opinions on some social / ethical / religious problems digested by Ziggi and his collaborators
• Some opinions on various "global" problems as seen by Ziggi and his collaborators
• Selection of news with no respect to their up-to-date accuracy but with attention to their importance to the profile of this website

It should be clear that many opinions shared on this website will be found "controversial", "particular" or somehow "extreme". On the other hand, Ziggi wants to make it strict - there is no room here for any sort of xenophopbia, rasizm, or hate-speech agitation. In case you find some opinion "extreme", please try to see it as discursive not agitative. It should bring critical reflection rather than be treated as "fixed, authoritative, undeniable". Consequently, you can not expect any kind of "political correctness" censorship. If Ziggi thinks given opinion has its right to be published - it will be published with no care of specific sensitivity of particular reader regardless his/her gender, belief, economical status, or whatever. The risk of axiological conflict is intrinsic to this website and should not become the reason of moral reprehension or legal prosecution unless the fundamental objective of "no xenophobia, no rasism, no hate-speach, no discrimination" is violated. That also means, that it may happen given opinion expressed here will put someone's point of view, religious belief, or ethical attitude under strong critism, disrespect, or "bad-light" of any kind. Taking that into account, Ziggi ensures such an opinon is properly argued and discursive in terms it never reffers to unvalidated assumptions or unverified, questionable facts.

The only exception from the above are comments of the visitors. Ziggi will do his best to avoid "trolls" overtaking discussions but due to the obvious reasons elimination of bad bahaviour of visitors posting their comments can not be always instant and immediate. Anyway, disobeying the rules explained above will force offensive posts to be deleted by the website owner as soon as possible.

Zbigniew P. Szczęsny

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