Polish TVP presenter Przemysław Babiarz has been suspended after saying John Lennon’s song Imagine carried a “Communist” message.
Management of the state television station issued a statement in which it called the presenter’s remark “unacceptable” and that it did not meet the standards of “tolerance” demanded by the channel.
Babiarz made the remark when he was commentating on the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris on July 26. Imagine, which has always been popular among peace campaigners, was performed during the event.
The lyrics of the song present a utopian vision of a world with no heaven, country, possessions or religion and with people living in peace.
Regarding the lyrics, Babiarz said: “A world without heaven, nations and religion. This is a vision of peace for all. It is also, unfortunately, a vision called Communism.”
In The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx saw the overthrow of capitalism and the installation of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as a transitory phase on the road to the realisation of Communism that was to be a world of people living in communes, without borders, states, property, patriarchy and religion.
According to John Blaney’s book Lennon and McCartney: Together Alone Lennon said: “‘Imagine that there was no more religion, no more country, no more politics,’ is virtually The Communist Manifesto even though I’m not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement.”
Polish law classifies Communism, alongside Nazism, as a “totalitarian ideology” and forbids the use of recognised Communist symbols from the Soviet era such as the hammer and sickle and fascist symbols such as the swastika.
Babiarz’s remark was criticised for bringing political divisions into the coverage of the opening of the Games. He had made similar remarks back in 2008 when he covered the opening ceremony of the Games in Beijing which also included John Lennon song.
The management of TVP agreed with the critics and on July 27 announced the suspension of Babiarz.
“Mutual understanding, tolerance and reconciliation are not only part of the Olympic ideal, they are also a fundament and standard by which TVP lives. We cannot agree to them being violated,” they said in a statement.
“This is why, following the scandalous remarks by Przemysław Babiarz, we inform that he has been suspended from his duties and will not be commentating on the Olympic Games.”
TVP’s decision has been slammed by those who agreed with Babiarz’s comment and who had other objections to the Olympic opening ceremony. Some were angered by a drag queen parody of the Leonardo da Vinci painting Last Supper that features Christ and his disciples, which they felt disrespected the Christian faith.
This is crazy. Opening your event by replacing Jesus and the disciples at the The Last Supper with men in drag. There are 2.4 billion Christians on earth and apparently the Olympics wanted to declare loudly to all of them, right out of the gate
NOT WELCOME pic.twitter.com/T88AmXbqXL— Clint Russell (@LibertyLockPod) July 26, 2024
Former Conservative (PiS) prime minister Beata Szydło thanked Babiarz for being “an honest voice of reason among the madness of political correctness” and another former PiS PM, Mateusz Morawiecki, added: “Truth cannot be silenced, censorship will be defeated”.
PiS MP and former deputy foreign minister Paweł Jabłoński said censoring Babiarz’s remark marked a return to Communist days and was a demonstration of how “the Left and Liberals respect free speech”.
But it was not only PiS and right-wing Confederation MPs who criticised TVP’s actions. Left MP Anna Maria Żukowska said that, while she did not identify with Babiarz’s views, “The suspension of a journalist for a total triviality in which he did not offend anyone is an overzealous overreaction.”
Babiarz himself has said he cannot comment on the situation due to contractual reasons, but it has been reported that his colleagues are planning to appeal to management to reverse the decision.
One of the first decisions of the incoming Donald Tusk government in December last year was to take over the management of public media including TVP.
The government justified its actions by arguing that it wanted to restore balance in public broadcasting.
According to independent watchdog Demagog, which had criticised the previous Conservative leaning management, TVP is now heavily biased in favour of the centre-left Tusk administration.
