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By Jean-Luc Testault
WARSAW: What’s the difference between Poland in World War II and
2007?
In World War II, the
Polish government fled to London and the Polish people were at home.
In 2007, the Kaczynski twins are home and the Polish people have
fled to London.
As their country
braces for snap elections Sunday which are being seen as a
referendum on two years of often controversial conservative rule,
Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and his identical twin Prime
Minister Jaroslaw, are the butt of a wave of jokes.
For those who
remember the communist era, the wave of cynical humor has a familiar
feel, evoking the way people used to mock the regime and the
economic shortages which were a feature of daily life for ordinary
Poles.
“We’re seeing
the same phenomenon as at the end of communism. People, and
intellectuals in particular, are against their rulers, just as they
were back then,” said political scientist Kazimierz Kik.
But while the
anti-communist jokes of the 1980s were spread by word of mouth,
their anti-Kaczynski equivalents use the information superhighway,
and are passed around by e-mail, phone text messages, and a plethora
of websites showing doctored footage of the twins in action.
Polish Internet
surfers can feed their need for novelty thanks to video-sharing site
YouTube, for example, where a Star Wars-themed “Attack of the
Clones” clip showing millions of Kaczynskis bracing themselves to
invade Earth had received more than two million hits by Friday.
The 58-year-old,
almost indistinguishable, diminutive and portly Kaczynskis are a
dream target for humorists.
“What do the
Kaczynskis do on a tennis court? They play volleyball,” goes one
Polish favorite.
Their surname
derives from “kaczka,” the Polish word for duck, and waterfowl
are an ever-present feature of anti-Kaczynski comedy.
One video shows a
real speech by Lech Kaczynski in which he declares, “My fellow
Poles, I have just three words to say,” followed by a superimposed
“quack, quack, quack” as his nose and mouth transform into a
beak.
Another visual joke
plays on the fact that the president shares his first name with a
local brand of beer, and that the Polish acronym of the Kaczynskis’
party, Law and Justice, is PiS.
Kaczynski is
depicted clutching a bottle, under a cheeky slogan referring to the
after-effects of a tipple, and clearly destined for English-speaking
Poles: “Make PiS, Not War!”
The brothers have
given humorists a helping hand: several months ago Jaroslaw
Kaczynski announced he didn’t have a bank account and paid his
salary over to his mother.
Polish caricaturists
are also having a field day with some of the more controversial
practices of the twins, such as their alleged penchant for using the
secret service and anti-corruption squad to dig up dirt on
government ministers and lawmakers.
A cartoon by Andrzej
Mleczko, one of Poland’s most biting artists, recently showed a
waiter in a restaurant telling a couple: “For an extra charge, we
have a table guaranteed not to be bugged.”
The twins’
allegedly authoritarian leanings also lend themselves to mockery,
with the hardball Jaroslaw Kaczynski getting the most stick.
One video montage
mixes footage from North Korean television with images of the
premier, showing adoring crowds apparently praising him as the “double
smile of the sun of the Tatra mountains” and the “ray of
sunshine of the lands of the River Vistula.”
The Kaczynskis are
deeply sensitive about being seen as figures of fun, and their
supporters sometimes say the jokes are often dreamed up by snooty
opponents who can’t abide the twins’ earthy style.
They are
particularly riled by humor from abroad, especially neighboring
Germany.
--AFP
‘D’ as in Zapatero! Spanish PM mocks self
MADRID: Is that “Z”
for Zorro? No, for Zapatero!
Five months before
general elections in Spain, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero appears to have taken his cue from Hillary Clinton and used
some self-deprecating humor in a campaign ad.
He appears in an
online video, laughing as a puppet parody of himself makes fun of
his way of speaking, in which he pronounces the letter “D”
as a “Z” when it comes at the end of a word.
The puppet, and
Zapatero himself, are seen repeating several words ending
in the letter “D,” such as modernidad (modernity) and seguridad
(security), which they pronounce as “modernidaZ” and “seguridaZ.”
“You can say
anything with a smile,” jokes the Socialist prime minister,
dressed in an open-necked shirt and looking relaxed.
The ad ends with the
slogan “With the Z of Zapatero,” over the rose symbol of his
Socialist Party.
The spot was widely
mocked Friday in the right-wing press, which ran articles in which
all the letters “D” were replaced with the letter “Z.”
But it contrasted
sharply with a recent somber ad by conservative opposition leader
Mariano Rajoy, released before Spain’s national day on October 12.
Rajoy appears in his
office, in a suit and tie, alongside the Spanish flag. He
calls on Spaniards to carry the flag at the celebrations as a
“display of love” for the nation.
Opinion polls give
the Socialist Party a slim lead over Rajoy’s Popular Party
ahead of the March elections. The prime minister is expected to
officially announce his candidacy in November.
Last June, US
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton released a humorous online
campaign ad that featured her husband, former president Bill
Clinton, and spoofed the US television series The Sopranos.
--AFP
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