As we can read in the media, the guilty parties have been found in the situation that took place at the Elementary School in Starachowice, during the ceremony for the start of the 2025 school year. The responsible teachers were fired, to the undisguised outrage and satisfaction of the media and various commentators, that “justice has been served” and the guilty have been punished.
At this school, let us recall, students as part of a broader artistic performance, performed a show that included singing part of the Disco Polo song “Wedding in Dubai,” which contains words such as: “…at my wedding, I will be drunk, drunk” and “from Warsaw to Abu Dhabi, that’s how Poland f***ing parties.”
This event also moved me. Above all, however, it was our – society’s – reaction to what happened. I asked myself what this situation, this song, tells us about ourselves.
Above all, as a lawyer and a human being, I was moved by the fact that everyone had already passed judgment and expressed their righteous indignation before familiarizing themselves with all the relevant facts. In my opinion, the golden rule says that before we start pointing fingers at the guilty and calling for punishment, we should familiarize ourselves with what really happened and calmly listen to all parties involved in the event. Especially since we are putting not only the teachers but also the children who performed on the pillory.
Maybe we should listen to them first and only then pass judgment?
I found one article in the media where the school principal explains that it was an artistic performance in which the children wanted to point out various social problems, and this song was meant to show what can happen to us when we leave these problems unattended. This convinces me for now, but honestly, to pass judgment here one would need to be there in person or watch the entire performance (not just a fragment) and talk to its creators.
Nobody listened to the children, of course. Because why bother. After all, we adults know best what is the so-called best interest of the child.
The second thing that moved me was the song itself by the band Daj To Głośniej “Wedding in Dubai” and the righteous indignation of public opinion on the subject of alcohol. The song is definitely not my style, but I believe it is based on quite accurate observations of our Polish reality. And the phrase “from Warsaw to Abu Dhabi, that’s how Poland f***ing parties” is 100% on target.
Alcohol.
Our national idol. Taboo. Daily poison, our drink of life, without which we cannot function. We are born, celebrate, and die in the company of alcohol. Christenings, communions, birthdays, weddings (well, weddings are a separate alcohol-cultural category for us…), corporate parties, wakes.
Bakeries and grocery stores are open in Poland only during the day, but vodka and beer we can buy without a problem 24 hours a day.
The reaction of the media and public opinion to the artistic performance in Starachowice, to “Wedding in Dubai,” to what these young people wanted to tell us, is clear to me. We, adult Poles, were hit in a sore spot. We howled with righteous indignation because we don’t want to look at the truth about what alcohol is in Poland, in our homes.
After all, the phrase: “at my wedding, I will be drunk, drunk” beautifully transports us to a certain socio-cultural Polish myth called the Polish Wedding, one of whose solid foundations is vodka. What is the ratio “so there’s enough”? Half a liter of vodka per head, including everyone, children and seniors? Drinking songs, “bitter-bitter,” the best man carrying bottles of vodka around. And all this in the company of children watching their parents, grandparents…
This is the truth about us, about the Wedding in Dubai, about weddings in Poland, about alcohol and our problem with it.
So maybe instead of righteous indignation, we should appreciate that the children from the school in Starachowice noticed and addressed a great social problem in Poland. Listen to what they had to say to us, the adults? Something important that we ourselves don’t have the courage to touch.
After all, we live in a country where the loudest expressions of outrage were made by a member of parliament who walked on the parliamentary roof at 3 in the morning, and one of the most important national politicians regularly travels the country for meetings with voters, the key point of which is “talking about Poland” over beer.
The song “Wedding in Dubai” is 100% part of the repertoire at many Polish weddings, where entire families with children party in the fumes of alcohol. Where children from a young age absorb a culture where all adult events take place in the inseparable company of alcohol, often consumed in unimaginable quantities.
Finally, let all those outraged that young people from the Elementary School in Starachowice sang about drinking at a wedding open YouTube and watch how on Polish Television, during the extremely popular Voice of Poland Kids program, small children sing the party hit by Kayah & Bregowicz with lyrics like “right, bro, let’s drink to that.” To the great joy of everyone: jurors, audience, and proud parents.
So maybe instead of the oh-so-comfortable righteous indignation (comfortable because then you don’t have to think about yourself) and pointing fingers at the guilty, I will just leave this quote here: “let him who is without sin cast the first…”
And looking at the matter more practically, perhaps thanks to the children from Starachowice, it is time for our – adult Poles’, their parents’ – national, honest, universal debate about alcohol in our society.
Edit: 19.09.2025
The recent commotion with the failed attempt to introduce a nighttime partial prohibition in Warsaw fits perfectly into what I wrote about here. The problem is not whether such partial prohibition will exist or not, but that the only thing we, as a society, can do in the face of the damage alcohol causes in our lives is some operetta-like attempt at partial prohibition in Warsaw. Nobody – we as a society or political leaders – dares to touch the core of the problem.
Nighttime prohibition? OK, but that is only symptomatic treatment on the surface. Perhaps in parallel, a long-term social campaign should be planned that honestly says what alcohol is in Poland, breaks this taboo, and makes many people, ourselves, aware that it is a poison, culturally packaged as a reward, luxury, or pleasure, that will not solve our problems. On the contrary, it can destroy us.
In other words, to sensibly address this problem and for the introduced regulations to matter and change something, an honest debate and a long-term plan are needed first.
Paweł Osiński
Attorney