Three years aside in age, the brother and sister grew up in a tiny village in japanese Poland, serving to out on the household farm and going to church every Sunday below strain from their mother and father.
At present, the siblings, Monika Zochowska, 38, and her brother, Szymon, 41, are separated by a large gulf opened by politics and outlook — examples of the numerous chasms cleaving Poland because it wrestles with the outcomes of a latest common election that handed a slim majority in Parliament to opponents of the nationalist governing celebration.
Monika and Szymon stand on reverse sides of maybe the deepest of these divides: the hole between villages and small cities, which voted closely for nationalist forces, and concrete facilities, which gave overwhelming help to their extra centrist and liberal opponents, notably Civic Coalition, the primary opposition celebration.
Drozdowo, the village the place the siblings grew up however which Monika left as a young person, gave 66 p.c of its vote to the conservative ruling celebration, Legislation and Justice, and a second, extra radical right-wing group, Confederation.
In Mokotow, the high-end district of Warsaw the place Monika, a profitable entrepreneur and supporter of Civic Coalition, now lives, the 2 right-wing events totaled solely 25 p.c.
“She left. I stayed. Perhaps that’s the reason we see issues in a different way,” Szymon, who voted for Confederation, mentioned throughout a lunch final week in Drozdowo along with his mother and father and his visiting sister.
The urban-rural divide is strengthened by a generational hole that additionally helped form the result of the Oct. 15 election. For the primary time, Poles below 29 — who typically transfer to cities and are main what the Roman Catholic Church in Poland lately bemoaned because the nation’s “galloping” secularization — voted in bigger numbers than individuals over 60, lots of whom nonetheless go to church and have a tendency to tilt conservative.
With total turnout at a report 74 p.c, girls additionally voted in bigger numbers than earlier than, although exit polls indicated that they cut up their vote pretty evenly between Legislation and Justice and Civic Coalition. The New Left, the one celebration that put gender equality and abortion rights on the heart of its marketing campaign, fared poorly.
On no matter facet they stand in these geographic, gender and generational divides, nonetheless, many citizens yearn for a much less polarized nation after a brutal marketing campaign wherein Legislation and Justice and Civic Coalition assailed one another as a mortal menace to Poland’s future.
That could be a tall order. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Legislation and Justice chairman and Poland’s de facto chief for the previous eight years, has forged Donald Tusk, the chief of Civic Coalition, because the “personification of pure evil” bent on undermining religion and promoting out his nation to German pursuits.
Piotr Zochowski, Monika and Szymon’s youthful brother, mentioned he was disgusted by each principal events and forged his poll for Third Approach, a centrist alliance that completed third on guarantees to calm Poland’s ill-tempered divisions. “They’re the least harmful,” he mentioned.
The demonization of Mr. Tusk as a traitor by the governing celebration and the general public broadcasting system it controls helped rally core supporters to Legislation and Justice. Nevertheless it alienated others in a rustic that’s ever extra secular, linked to the skin world and more and more immune to divisive nationalist messaging.
The daddy of old-school nationalism is Roman Dmowski, an early-Twentieth-century politician who, after railing for years towards Jews and Germany, died in Drozdowo in 1939. He’s commemorated in a village museum displaying his demise masks. The museum has been renovated and expanded with cash from Legislation and Justice, which in the course of the election marketing campaign transferred lots of Dmowski’s phobias, notably his claims of inner enemies conniving with Germany, onto Mr. Tusk.
“Tusk, Tusk, Tusk. That’s all they discuss. I can’t take it anymore,” mentioned the siblings’ father, Leszek Zochowski. A conservative however open-minded farmer, he forged his vote for Third Technique to help one in every of its elements, the Polish Individuals’s Get together, a stolid center-right fixture of Polish politics because the nineteenth century
Monika left Drozdowo as a young person to check, first in Warsaw after which in the US and Spain. She now runs her personal magnificence product firm, Glov, in Warsaw, the place she lives along with her accomplice and their 3-year-old youngster. Her firm’s principal product is a patented fiber fabric she developed for eradicating make-up.
Pregnant with a second youngster, she had frightened about one other victory for Legislation and Justice, which in 2020 pushed by a near-total ban on abortion that compelled medical doctors to place the lifetime of unborn fetuses forward of moms’ well being. “I’m not younger. I don’t really feel secure having a baby right here,” she mentioned. “They’re combating for fetuses, not me.”
However the primary motive she voted for Civic Coalition, she mentioned, was that “it focuses on the longer term, as an alternative of at all times specializing in the previous” — which means Poland’s painful historical past of occupation and dismemberment by exterior powers and the trauma-fed grievances these occasions have left.
“In the event you inform individuals on a regular basis they’re victims, they don’t see alternatives, solely enemies,” she mentioned.
Szymon additionally moved to Warsaw for a time however then returned to Drozdowo to develop leeks on the household farm.
The farm is profitable nevertheless it put him in a special world from that of his sister, who was lately featured in “The Wives of Warsaw,” a Polish model of an American actuality tv present.
Szymon lives along with his spouse and their three kids in a home subsequent to a yard the household makes use of to retailer farm gear. He attends Mass commonly.
His principal political concern is defending Polish farmers, which is why he voted for Confederation, an unruly right-wing alliance that thundered towards Ukrainian grain imports, although he had run in earlier native elections for Legislation and Justice.
Legislation and Justice banned the import of Ukrainian grain in September, however Szymon mentioned it ought to have acted sooner as an alternative of ready till the final month of the marketing campaign.
The farm isn’t an enormous grain producer however what it did produce this yr is sitting unsold in a barn as a result of the market value has been pushed down by Ukrainian imports, he mentioned.
Szymon can also be cautious of the European Union. He mentioned he stayed away from shops just like the German-owned Lidl and France’s Carrefour as a result of “I choose Polish merchandise.” His sister, who sells her items in dozens of nations, has no drawback buying at international supermarkets.
Regardless of the political variations, Monika tries to see and keep on good phrases along with her household. She visits Drozdowo commonly, satisfied that one in every of Poland’s greatest issues is that enormous components of the inhabitants stopped speaking to at least one one other.
“I’m tremendous pleased with the place I come from,” she mentioned, “I need to present individuals {that a} woman from a small village in japanese Poland can obtain one thing massive in an moral and hard-working manner.”
One of many principal causes Legislation and Justice managed to win the 2 earlier elections, she mentioned, was that the liberal opposition, centered on Warsaw, confirmed “enormous vanity” towards conservative voters.
In a gaffe just like Hillary Clinton’s description of Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables,” Mr. Tusk offended tens of millions of Poles in 2005 by dismissing conservatives as a “mohair coalition” — a reference to the mohair berets many older girls put on to church. Mr. Tusk apologized however struggled for years to shake off a picture of haughty contempt for a lot of the inhabitants.
The resentment lingers amongst some in Drozdowo. Monika and Szymon’s cousin, Magda Zakrzewska, 42, married a neighborhood resident and lives throughout the highway from the village church with their three kids. She mentioned she would by no means vote for Mr. Tusk or his allies as a result of “they’ll’t be trusted” and “look down on individuals like us.”
She and her husband, Sylwester, 45, voted for Legislation and Justice.
Sylwester mentioned he understood why Monika supported the opposition and its guarantees to restore frayed relations with Brussels. “Everyone seems to be simply taking care of their very own pursuits,” he mentioned.
Monika’s father and her mom, Elzbieta, 62, disagree with their daughter’s politics however are very pleased with her success in Warsaw. Seeing little they like in Legislation and Justice, regardless of sharing lots of its conservative views, they are saying Poland can be a a lot more healthy democracy if individuals accepted their variations as an alternative of turning politics into an existential battle between good and evil.
“As you’ll be able to see,” Leszek mentioned, “there isn’t any celebration self-discipline on this household.”
Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting from Warsaw.
