2024
In 2024 two events took place in the course of the project (its results were presented in several conferences in the meantime), a presentation and a panel discussion. Details below:
The presentation: "The Caring Eyes of the Leviathan? The "Hiacynt" operation in transversal perspective” was conducted by dr hab. Ewa Majewska, prof. SWPS w Warszawie, on the 2nd February 2024, in the Gallery Biuro Wystaw, Warszawa, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 16/18.
A Short Description of the event: What does it mean that the state "cares for us" or "watches" us? Why does this care only cover specific groups? Why do some people benefit from rights in such situations, while others do not have this opportunity? On what basis does it choose those groups and how does it legitimize its strategies and actions? Does the unscrutinized "Hiacynt" Operation still influence our perception of sexual minorities today? Does it reinforce stereotypes? Can its examination be an alternative to the process of evaluating this action that has not been carried out by the Polish state, and/or can it become a form of restorative justice? What can researchers, activists and members of the state apparatus do? What is the state of the archives of this and other operations of the Polish state towards LGBTQ+ people and what political consequences does it have? How to research these archives? These are some of the questions that guided the scientific project Public against their will? Production of Subjects in the archives of the "Hiacynt" operation, NCN grant no. 2021/43/B/HS2/00579. During the meeting, we will hear about the research, archives, documents, methods and alliances necessary to implement such a project and discuss them with the author of the research. More about the project: https://interalia.queerstudies.pl/13-2018/majewska/
The panel discussion: “Archival justice? Research and culture as forms of recognition” took place on the 6 March 2024, at the SWPS University in Warsaw, it was co-organized with the OSA UW. The panel was conducted in English, in hybrid format: in situ, at the SWPS University, Warsaw, ul. Chodakowska 19/31 Warszawa, and online. The participants included a great group of experts: prof. Antke Engel, Berlin; dr hab Tomasz Basiuk, prof. UW; dr hab Adam Bodnar, prof SWPS and Minister of Justice of the Republic. of Poland (replaced in the very last minute by dr Filip Cyuńczyk, lawyer, SWPS; dr Katarzyna Bojarska, SWPS; dr hab. Agnieszka Pantuchowicz, prof. SWPS; dr Michał Zadara - theatre director. Moderation and initiative: dr hab. Ewa Majewska, prof. SWPS.
Discussion’s description: In the recent years, many excluded and marginalized groups demanded recognition of their wounds and losses suffered from the agents and/or institutions of the state. The #metoo campaigns expressed disappointment with the lack of efficiency of the state procedures of justice concerning gender-based sexual harassment, #blacklivesmatter was preoccupied with racist violence of the police and the lack of state's response to it, and the LGBTQ+ demonstrations and movements express concern about the absence of due diligence in protecting the sexual minorities from unequal treatment. In Germany, and recently also in Austria, such calls for justice resulted in state apologies to the LGBTQ+ communities and to remunerations offered by these states to those persecuted because of homo- and trans-phobia. In UK the Prime Minister apologized for homophobia of the British government to the family of Allan Turing, the genius mathematician and logician, whose contribution was crucial to break the ENIGMA code used by Nazis in the WWII. In Poland - the current Minister of Justice, made an apology for the gender and orientation-based discrimination and harassment in the last 8 years of ultraconservative governments. However, the homophobic actions of the state-communist People's Republic of Poland, such as the "Hiacynt" operations of 1985-87; "Wrzos" operation of 1978-1983 and many other police and secret services operations the researchers are currently discovering, have not been properly recognized as harmful to the LGBTQ+ persons and communities; properly summarized and no justice procedure allowed to judge their perpetrators, measure their abuses or apologize to their victims. Jacques Derrida wrote that the work in archive is always already a work for the future. In our panel, resulting of prof. Ewa Majewska's project: "Public against their will. The production of subjects in the archives of Hiacynt Action", we will discuss, how the archive research work of science and culture can offer closure, as a non-juridical, reparative procedure of justice. We will also analyze the ways the state authorities and institutions can provide symbolic procedures allowing at least emotional closure to those wounded by its actions, especially among the LGBTQ+ communities. We will compare experiences from different sectors, in order to see, whether and how they provide recognition and thus - closure to those, whose wounds resulting of state operations did not meet proper institutional response. In effort to build solidarity and response-ability transversally, across the borders previously secluding intersectional approach, we will discuss ways of bringing recognition, which don't pretend to replace the juridical system of justice offered by the state, but create an alternative to it, especially in moments, when the state (spectacularly) fails to acknowledge and repair the wounds its functionaries and institutions created.