Ojczyzna moralnie czysta. Początki HIV w Polsce

Bartosz Żurawiecki’s book of literary reportage taps into the ongoing trend of revisiting the 1980s in the context of the scary, stigmatising and then-unknown disease. He decides to chronicle the events in Poland, conveying both the country’s specificity as well as the universal principles that govern frightened and uninformed people. Hence, we see what is commonly repeated – the belief that the disease came from the US and that it applies to three groups: homosexual men, drug addicts and haemophiliacs. We also see the series of dramatic events reflecting the current mentality and the ease of exclusion. Let us recall a few. We have, for instance, the introduction of martial law and the closing of borders which delayed the virus’s arrival in Poland. We have the official downplaying of the dangers at the same time as the stigma and the suspicions around foreigners as carriers. We have the support centres and safe havens as well as the citizen grassroots projects to eliminate the sick from the immediate environment. Żurawiecki shows how unpredictable the consequences can be when knowledge and education are replaced with prejudice and fear. He also lays bare how easily one’s supposed concern for personal safety can devolve into actions resembling a lynch mob. By reconstructing the past and attempting a more complete view of it, he not only fills in the gaps of our knowledge but, in a sense, warns us. The story of the beginnings of the HIV epidemic in Poland thus becomes an analysis of society at a trying time.