Life In A Post-Stalinist Country

The mayor of the capital bans the LGBT "Equality Parade", invoking an obscure law used only twice in recent years. The parliament, excluding three left-wing parties, overwhelmingly votes against a standard EU bill, banning discrimination on all grounds. A very productive parliamentary debate, includes statements like "Fags!" or "A woman weighs as much as her man wants". TV debates are full of people talking about abnormal behaviour and deviations. A judge decides that equating homosexuals with peadophiles and necrophiles is not as offense, since after all that's what the public thinks. Above all that sits a very satisfied catholic church, happy that its fascist interpretation of The Bible is put into practice.

No, it's not a Monthy Python episode. That's how life looks in a Post-Stalinist pseudo-democracy. Nevertheless, the more time I spend here, the more I realise how my decision to run away to UK was immature and pointless. And I feel like I want to abandon the disconnected from reality English degree and quit Queen Mary University, with its demoralising, anti-intellectual atmosphere and come back to Poland where in practice, teaching at unis is at much higher level.

After all, you can't run away from yourself. And on certain levels life in UK is even more horrific - it took me three years to make friends. Living in UK means constant stress. Everything is so expensive, my parents are investing so much money in me, I have to succeed. And I am a second class citizen, I can't get a student loan, I can't vote, I can't fully take part in public and political life.

I also discovered a lefty, activist, engaged sphere of public life here, which I wasn't aware of before. Great political and cultural magazines, culture jamming art collectives spraying "Why do you need this?" on billboards, groups of people who want to change things. And in a way living in such a conservative, intolerant country gives you a clear enemy and an impulse to fight against it. Especially that scary right wing parties, with names like "Law and Justice" look set to win the forthcoming elections.

The serotonin unblocker is kicking in. I am much better and feel like I want to do things (yesterday I've written to a Green Party MEP asking her to intervene in the Polish governement's idiotic decision to build a highway through an ancient forest - the project is EU funded and I hope that Green MEPs will stir some shit and help to sink that sick scheme). Therapy is great and already lots of things have been indentified and pointed out. I am doing a lot of thinking, trying to change the way I think and go about things. I am starting to feel happy again.

Of course there is a certain amount of doubt, even fear. What if it's all chemically induced? What if I would have to keep taking drugs till the end of my life to sustain it? But then I already see all the mistakes I have been making in the past and that it is possible to change things, even if sometimes it is very difficult.

I don't like the optimistic message, which comes through all this. It's so unlike me. Neither decadent, nor depressing, nor filled with existential pain and intense suffering. It even suggests that happiness might exist. Have I abandoned all my ideals and set off on a lie-paved road of soap advert happy-ever afterness? You decide. Send a YES or NO text message to 7832 (messages cost £1.69 plus vat; ask the bill payer for permission).