Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 4, No. 2, Autumn 2019 | Page 24

AIA INTERVIEW WITH RAFAŁ DUTKIEWICZ,
MAYOR OF WROCLAW (2002–2018)
change of thoughts and ideas. This metaphor emphasises the role and importance of the
Academy and open society, after Karl Popper in a sense. I believe that the subsequent
part of our interview will include further justifications for the value and importance of
an open and tolerant attitude.
2. Why was reconciliation with the past important in the context of thinking about the
future?
The words of Cardinal Kominek, written in the 1965 Pastoral letter of Polish bishops to
their German brothers�“We forgive and ask for forgiveness”�carry a very important
moral message (Wikipedia 2018). Let us recall that these words were written only two
decades after the end of World War II, at a time when some war wounds had not yet been
fully healed. However, Cardinal Kominek believed that we have to forgive and�given
the complexity of Polish-German relations throughout history�also ask for forgiveness.
John Paul II once said that he had built half of his teaching on Kominek’s words.
There is something in these words that makes us human�a particular ability to “transcend”
ourselves, to cross our own boundaries. After all, it is not easy to forgive or to ask
for forgiveness. However, it is exactly this transcendence, this way of moving beyond our
weaknesses that makes us human.
Regardless of the type of relations�both individual and collective�the unresolved
issues from the past occupy our attention and pester our thoughts, thus becoming an
intrusive subject of our dreams and reflections. Only leaving the past behind and reconciliation
in truth�not in oblivion�frees our thinking, including social one, enabling us
to focus on shaping the future in a much better, richer and more creative way. This is the
meaning, the sense that I see in gestures and processes of reconciliation. This is why they
are so important from the point of view of our future.
3. Who influenced your vision? Intellectuals or citizens? And why?
That is a tough question. Family home, especially my mum.
Books. I used to be an absolute bookworm back in the day. Authors like Graham Greene,
who�I think�has been mostly forgotten these days. I loved reading his books as much
as I loved American literature: William Faulkner, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway,
Jack London, Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, Henry Miller, J.D. Salinger... However, the author
I appreciated the most was John Steinbeck�recently, I decided to read his oeuvre
in its entirety once again.
My travels around the world�this was one of the key factors.
My first stay in Germany�in 1990, when I was allowed to go abroad for the first time
19