Three years aside in age, the brother and sister grew up in a tiny village in jap Poland, serving to out on the household farm and going to church every Sunday below strain from their mother and father.
Today, 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 slender majority in Parliament to opponents of the nationalist governing occasion.
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 principle opposition occasion.
Drozdowo, the village the place the siblings grew up however which Monika left as a youngster, gave 66 p.c of its vote to the conservative ruling occasion, Law 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. Maybe that is why we see things differently,” Szymon, who voted for Confederation, stated 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 recently 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, ladies additionally voted in bigger numbers than earlier than, although exit polls indicated that they cut up their vote pretty evenly between Law and Justice and Civic Coalition. The New Left, the one occasion that put gender equality and abortion rights on the middle of its marketing campaign, fared poorly.
On no matter facet they stand in these geographic, gender and generational divides, nevertheless, many citizens yearn for a much less polarized nation after a brutal marketing campaign by which Law and Justice and Civic Coalition assailed one another as a mortal risk to Poland’s future.
That could also be a tall order. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Law and Justice chairman and Poland’s de facto chief for the previous eight years, has solid 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, stated he was disgusted by each primary events and solid his poll for Third Way, a centrist alliance that completed third on guarantees to calm Poland’s ill-tempered divisions. “They are the least dangerous,” he stated.
The demonization of Mr. Tusk as a traitor by the governing occasion and the general public broadcasting system it controls helped rally core supporters to Law and Justice. But it alienated others in a rustic that’s ever extra secular, related to the skin world and more and more proof against divisive nationalist messaging.
The father of old-school nationalism is Roman Dmowski, an early-20th-century politician who, after railing for years in opposition to Jews and Germany, died in Drozdowo in 1939. He is commemorated in a village museum displaying his death mask. The museum has been renovated and expanded with cash from Law and Justice, which throughout the election marketing campaign transferred lots of Dmowski’s phobias, notably his claims of inside enemies conniving with Germany, onto Mr. Tusk.
“Tusk, Tusk, Tusk. That is all they talk about. I can’t take it anymore,” stated the siblings’ father, Leszek Zochowski. A conservative however open-minded farmer, he solid his vote for Third Way to help considered one of its elements, the Polish People’s Party, a stolid center-right fixture of Polish politics because the 19th century
Monika left Drozdowo as a youngster to review, first in Warsaw after which within the United States and Spain. She now runs her personal magnificence product firm, Glov, in Warsaw, the place she lives together with her companion and their 3-year-old youngster. Her firm’s primary product is a patented fiber material she developed for eradicating make-up.
Pregnant with a second youngster, she had frightened about one other victory for Law 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 young. I don’t feel safe having a child here,” she stated. “They are fighting for fetuses, not me.”
But the principle motive she voted for Civic Coalition, she stated, was that “it focuses on the future, instead of always focusing on the past” — which means Poland’s painful historical past of occupation and dismemberment by outdoors powers and the trauma-fed grievances these occasions have left.
“If you tell people all the time they are victims, they don’t see opportunities, only enemies,” she stated.
Szymon additionally moved to Warsaw for a time however then returned to Drozdowo to develop leeks on the household farm.
The farm is profitable however it put him in a special world from that of his sister, who was just 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 youngsters in a home subsequent to a yard the household makes use of to retailer farm tools. He attends Mass frequently.
His primary political concern is defending Polish farmers, which is why he voted for Confederation, an unruly right-wing alliance that thundered in opposition to Ukrainian grain imports, despite the fact that he had run in earlier native elections for Law and Justice.
Law and Justice banned the import of Ukrainian grain in September, however Szymon stated 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 worth has been pushed down by Ukrainian imports, he stated.
Szymon can also be cautious of the European Union. He stated he stayed away from shops just like the German-owned Lidl and France’s Carrefour as a result of “I prefer Polish products.” His sister, who sells her items in dozens of nations, has no drawback procuring at overseas supermarkets.
Despite the political variations, Monika tries to see and keep on good phrases together with her household. She visits Drozdowo frequently, satisfied that considered one of Poland’s largest issues is that giant elements of the inhabitants stopped speaking to 1 one other.
“I am super proud of where I come from,” she stated, “I want to show people that a girl from a small village in eastern Poland can achieve something big in an ethical and hard-working way.”
One of the principle causes Law and Justice managed to win the 2 earlier elections, she stated, was that the liberal opposition, centered on Warsaw, confirmed “huge arrogance” towards conservative voters.
In a gaffe much like Hillary Clinton’s description of Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables,” Mr. Tusk offended thousands and thousands of Poles in 2005 by dismissing conservatives as a “mohair coalition” — a reference to the mohair berets many older ladies 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 street from the village church with their three youngsters. She stated she would by no means vote for Mr. Tusk or his allies as a result of “they can’t be trusted” and “look down on people like us.”
She and her husband, Sylwester, 45, voted for Law and Justice.
Sylwester stated he understood why Monika supported the opposition and its guarantees to restore frayed relations with Brussels. “Everyone is just looking after their own interests,” he stated.
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 Law 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 wrestle between good and evil.
“As you can see,” Leszek stated, “there is no party discipline in this family.”
Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting from Warsaw.