What can citizens do when their democracy is under threat? What do you intend to do yourself? What should we do together?

This is the problem with democracy today: impoverished tools is all we have with which to respond to the diseases and pathologies of our political mechanisms! We sense that civic protests and marches are a weak way of protesting, especially when confronted with the cynicism of our powers-that-be. Democracy has failed to develop facilities of shoring itself up against the relentless degradation of the ruling elites it produces. What are the reasons for the ever-worsening degradation of social and political discourse which followed the year 1989?

A period of change has allowed engaged and ideologically advanced individuals to join the debate. Besides, democracy has been an object of desire, a dream system of values for a large proportion of the Polish people.

The last decade has been marked by a fading of political awareness, possibly even the appearance of a totally indifferent generation. Democracy has become an empty word, the frustrations of today’s citizens being articulated differently – another return to a status quo of social primitivism, only this time amplified by our consumerist civilisation.

All of this is at the heart of the moronic dialogues taking place within politics today.

What can the ordinary citizen do? Shit in the street? A democratic state has not created the space for civic political discourse, not even some sort of modernised version of Athenian democracy. In fact, the citizen has been denied the possibility of engaging in such discourse – held in check as totally inconsequential when it comes to all things – which is now resulting in ever-growing indifference.

How is it possible that only half of all those eligible to vote take part? How is it possible that our society, the people, our 25-year-old democracy has come to be in such a sorry state?

Voting should be a civic duty. The current quagmire of civic passivity, acceptable in older, more stable nations, guarantees disaster when it comes to brand new democracies. Something those with less and less gravitas or authority are taking advantage of.

How can one sustain a democracy so sick it keeps on producing ever more disappointing political elites?

Hitler was born of the same sort of mechanisms. Let us look closely at the developments of 1933… If we don’t hurry, if we cannot stop that which is happening and the Frankenstein’s monster growing right before our eyes will reach invincible proportions. We forget that in the times gone by, society and even some of its more enlightened leaders did not notice the cancerous growth of fascist movements appearing right under their noses. It was always only once it was too late that the obvious stared them in the face. Which is also when it becomes apparent that to avoid such traps would have been so easy…

What makes the resident of a newly reborn, dynamic reality into a silent and passive jackass? This helplessness in the face of auras, imposed narrations, founding myths, the avalanche of lies which usurp the truth.

It’s obvious that people who depend on the support of the less aware segment of society cannot speak the truth, and so they wriggle and twist in this clench with the voters under an ever-growing cloud of lies and manipulation. In this diseased civic discourse, a hybrid is growing – a mythical unreality channelling hate and resentments. This is a typically cancerous model of growth, seen everywhere – Germany of the 1930s is only the most blatant example.

Naïve waiting for the other half of our society to react, while expecting the leaders of our political and psychological hybrid to fall in line with externally imposed (as it is in our world) logic, is a waste of time. We’ve always known what, for example, hides behind the reopening of the Smolensk investigation, as instigated by minister Macierewicz. This attempt to bend reality to an insane thesis posted before actual facts are considered, for that is the mythical motive behind the founding of Macierewicz’s sect – the expectation that in a different reality, with a new set of responsibilities, this man could go back to life outside of his sect, realign with “our logic” – is still the same naïve sin all those who find themselves outside the sphere of his mad influence are guilty of. And this is why the inane process of us getting conned by a small group of power-hungry maniacs always succeeds.

What can we do? What should I do? I have been asking myself this question for the past six months. Look for effective materials which could help enlighten us? Speak – what else can an artist do? Not to those who have been seduced by myths – because they, in the words of Thomas Bernhard, focus all their energies on trying to NOT understand – but to that anonymous, mystery “other half” of our society who do not use their vote.

This fantastical idea – human monologues, in sequence, one-minute monologues uttered by people in that memorable conclusion to last week’s parliamentary session. Suddenly, among that grotesque crew of politically enraged monsters, one could once again spot human beings. This way lies salvation. People are starting to listen again… maybe that is the way forward?

Let us speak and think more about the human capital at the heart of it all. Let us find and reveal the false mechanisms we have become victims of. They are more widespread than it might first appear. Let us talk about the right human beings have to become citizens, about the ideals and the secrets behind democracies. Let those who still have the facility via the media create the forums for such discussions, instead of performing in the shadows of today’s media circus.