Maciej Giertych
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Maciej Marian Giertych (born March 24, 1936 in Warsaw) is a Polish politician of the League of Polish Families (LPR), and holds conservative social views. He favours state intervention in the economy. Member of the Sejm (between 2001 and 2004) and a current Polish member of the European Parliament (since 2004). He was a candidate in the 2005 Polish presidential elections, but withdrew from the race because of low vote results (circa 3%).
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[edit] Biography
Maciej Giertych was born March 24, 1936 in Warsaw, to a notable politician of the National Democracy movement Jędrzej Giertych. In late 1945 his family left Poland for post-war Germany's British zone and finally settled in the United Kingdom. In 1954 Giertych passed his final school exams and entered Oxford University. He received the BA and MA in dendrology. Between 1958 and 1962 he studied at the University of Toronto, where he received his PhD for studies on tree physiology.
In 1962 Giertych returned to Poland, where he completed his qualifications for an assistant professorship at the Institute of Dendrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) in Kórnik near Poznań. In 1964 he married Antonina née Janik. In 1970 he received his Habilitation degree for his studies on forest genetics at the Agricultural University of Poznań. Since 1976 he has lectured at the Nicolaus Copernicus University of Toruń. He has also published more than 200 works and studies, mostly on forest-related topics. The same year he also became a member of the Forest Sciences Committee of the PAN.
In 1981 he received the grade of common professor. During these exciting times in Polish history, Giertych did not oppose communist government. Contrary, personally he critiziced the Solidarity movement and initially supported introducing martial law in Poland.[citation needed] In 1986 he joined the advisory council (Rada Konsultacyjna) made up of opposition members and party officials set up by the leader of the communist authorities, Wojciech Jaruzelski. The council included several prominent Poles such as Marek Kotański, Krzysztof Skubiszewski and Kazimierz Dejmek, but also leading members of the communist party.
In 1986 Giertych also became the Polish representative to the International Union of Forest Research Organisations. He supported strengthening ties with the Soviet Union in accordance with Roman Dmowski's ideology, while criticizing some dissidents for working too closely with western politicians, which he believed would jeopardize Poland's western borders.
After the fall of communist rule in Poland in 1990 he returned to scientific work and between 1993 and 2000 was an advisor to the Ministry of Environmental Affairs. In 1990 he was a member of one of the minor political parties, the National Party of Poland (Stronnictwo Narodowe), which eventually entered the League of Polish Families (LPR) coalition.
On September 23, 2001, Giertych was elected to the Polish Parliament from a Poznań constituency. On June 16, 2004, he became a Member of the European Parliament for the LPR. Together with the rest of his party he sits as a Non-attached Member. Giertych comes from a famous Polish nationalist political family: he is the grandson of Franciszek Giertych and son of Jędrzej Giertych, and father of Roman Giertych, who currently leads the LPR.
In the European Parliament, on July 4, 2006, Giertych opposed the commonly spread highly negative view of Spanish Nationalists' uprising lead by Francisco Franco that brought about the Spanish Civil War, stating that "The fact that Communism did not take root in the West is largely thanks to the victorious civil war fought by traditional Spain against Communist governments." Martin Schulz, German SPD politician, cried out: "Nazi!" after Giertych's address. During his discourse Giertych however had explicitly condemned National Socialism and insisted Mussolini and Hitler also had an "atheistic and socialistic taste about them". He also praised Antonio Salazar and Eamon de Valera in the same address to the European Parliament.
[edit] Views
Maciej Giertych opposes lifting the ban on purchase of land in Poland by foreigners (due to fears of resurgence of German colonialism), homosexuality and moral relativism. He criticized and opposed Poland's entry into the European Union and supports closer ties with Eastern European countries (especially Russia), as well as defending Polish industry against what he regards as unfair practices of western companies. He is also against the proposed European Constitution. In general the views of Maciej Giertych are inline with the ideology of Radio Maryja, a media group and political-religious channel of conservative parties in Poland.
In his foreword to Gerard Keane's Creation Rediscovered, Maciej Giertych documents how his views changed from assuming evolution is true to being skeptical of it.[1] Giertych rebutted the accusation that he advocated creationism in schools. He stated: "I am a scientist — a population geneticist with a degree from Oxford University and a PhD from the University of Toronto — and I am critical of the theory of evolution as a scientist, with no religious connotation."[2] As a skeptic, Giertych referred to what he called 'growing evidence against evolution.' However, all of the claims he referenced are disputed in subsequent correspondence by others. Giertych asserts that his genetics studies led him to examine the claims that evolution is supported by genetics and found them wanting. (Maciej Giertych's son, Roman Giertych, Polish minister of education (2006), was asked if he will take any action against evolution in Polish schools. Roman Giertych's response was: "I am no expert. I am not a biologist".)
Maciej Giertych supports a version of creationism that attributes creation of universe, life and its further development to an act of God's will. In the tradition of medieval theology of the Scholastic school, he once calculated Noah's Ark capacity. He is an honorary member of the Daylight Origins Society, a British based creationist organisation.
One of Giertych's slightly more unusual views is that the Neanderthal man still roams the planet. In October of 2006 he told a seminar that "A scientist showed me a picture of an American boxer. He had all the traits of Neanderthal man. These people are among us. They are part of the human race, probably more prevalent once upon a time, but who still exist." He also believes that man and dinosaurs coexisted on Earth at one point. "Research shows that dinosaurs and man were contemporaries. In every culture, there are indications that we remember (dinosaurs). The Scots have Loch Ness, we Poles have Wawel dragon (in Krakow), Marco Polo spoke of an imperial carriage in China which was pulled by a dragon."[1]
In February 2007, Giertych sparked outrage among European Union officials and Jewish organizations by publishing a brochure called "Civilizations at war in Europe" that claimed that Jews "create their own ghettos" because they supposedly prefer to separate themselves from others.[2]. During the European Parliament's session on 14 March 2007, Parliament's President [3] Hans-Gert Pöttering reprimanded Maciej Giertych for the content of his pamphlet in accordance with Rule 147 of the EP's Rules of Procedure. He said that the publication was "a serious breach of fundamental rights and, in particular, the dignity of human beings to which our institution so strongly adheres". Mr Pöttering dissociated the Parliament from the work saying that it had made no financial contribution to its publication. Many journalists and certain Jewish organizations considered the brochure to be anti-Semitic.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Creation Rediscovered, Gerard J. Keane Foreword Maciej Giertych, 1999 TAN Books.
- ^ Nature 444, 265 (16 November 2006) http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/444265d; Published online 15 November 2006 Creationism, evolution: nothing has been proved Maciej Giertych
[edit] External links
- personal website (Polish & English)
- League of Polish Families (Polish)
- Maciej Giertych – "Poland above all!"
- Maciej Giertych – Speech in European Parliament, 4 July 2006, about the Spanish Civil War
- Skeptics
- Nature 444, 406-407 (23 November 2006) http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/444406a; Published online 22 November 2006: Anti-evolutionists raise their profile in Europe
