The Poland of Solidarity, The Poland of Liberalism‪.‬

There is more than one Poland. From the economic perspective, there is a Poland of those who share in, or benefit from, her relative well-being, and there is a Poland of those who do not, except that some of the latter are eligible for a minuscule unemployment benefit. Some of those who are destitute today did more as a group for the Solidarity movement's success than all the intellectuals who also participated in the movement; others, now in their twenties, simply cannot get a job. The gap between these two Polands is considerable. Seen from the political perspective, the picture is more complex. The obviously predominant one is that of a Poland of an assumed modernity, as envisioned by the "enlightened liberals": open to the outside world or, to put it less diplomatically, favoring the supranational and the postnational over the national; and hostile to the other Poland, until very recently almost unheard from, one accused of provincialism and clericalism by the former, but in fact advocating adherence to the Polish cultural identity, with Catholicism not banned from the public domain. While the former preaches economic liberalism as a means to raise the destitute in due course, the latter emphasizes the state's role in bringing welfare to the poor as soon as possible. The latter also claims that its adherents think in terms of social solidarity, which is a key part of the fabric of a healthy society. However, they are accused of populism and socialist sentiments by the former. The "liberals" prefer anything individual over (almost) anything communal. The first of these two Polands has its major political representation in the party called the Civic Platform (PO) with Donald Tusk at the helm. Its main adversary is the Law and Justice Party (PiS) led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski.