Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for Europe? | 83 comments (83 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (4.00 / 6)

Poland's Atlanticism rests on three factors:

In the Cold War the Atlanticists were on the right side from Poland's perspective, their opponents were on the wrong one. That's fading and will continue to fade over time.
Russia. That's not likely to fade as fast. There's a very easy way to lessen Poland's inclination to Atlanticism, but it carries a price.
The most vocal anti-American, anti-Atlanticist voice in Poland is the radical right. That affects the way left-liberals view things.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 04:06:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 0)

Russia. That's not likely to fade as fast. There's a very easy way to lessen Poland's inclination to Atlanticism, but it carries a price.

What exactly is the "easy" policy towards Russia that you're hinting at?

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 04:20:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 1)

A strongly antagonistic policy - the kind of stuff that plenty of people are pushing for and Jerome rails against. As long as Poland views its geopolitical interests as opposed to those of the big EU players, but aligned with those of the US, it will act accordingly.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 04:30:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 0)

It's easy to be strongly antagonistic to Russia, but not necessarily smart.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 05:52:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 0)

Like I said, there's a price.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 06:06:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 1)

I suppose to make the Poles really happy we could be strongly antagonistic to both Germany and Russia.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 06:10:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 1)

lol

more seriously, the center and left may occasionally be a bit touchy about Germany but they're in favour of good relations and the idea of Germany as a close ally. It's an attitude thing. Germans don't go around celebrating their conquest of Poland and wondering why the Poles aren't properly grateful.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 06:14:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 1)

btw, just to make clear how fricking extreme it can get, the main foreign affairs commentator for Nasz Dziennik, Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski, sees an eternal Jewish conspiracy dating back almost two thousand years. That conspiracy rests on the essence of Jewishness which is to destroy Christianity and enslave the world. Its current incarnation is neo-conservatism and globalization And oh yeah, the central rite of Judaism is a perverted ritual celebrating the sexual union of Jews with Satan, making all Jews the children of Satan.

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 05:52:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 0)

And that's mainstream?

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 05:54:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (4.00 / 3)

No. But minus the weird ritual part it's par for the course on the fundy nationalist right represented by Nasz Dziennik and Radio Maryja

To take another example from one of their columnists, Father Jerzy Bajda:

History is bracketed by this `great war' which is waged beyond historical time between Satan and the Virgin who is the living image of the Church.[...] Man has merely been able to observe the visible aspects of thiss history, in which man, under the influence of the Evil One, chose sin, falsehood, hatred, battle, confusion, division, and war. One might even say, though one can't be certain, that all wars ever thought between nations and states are in some measure the work of Satan and fully reflect his aims.
[...]
.
It is horribly tragic fact that the nation which was chosen in order to serve God in the realization of His plan, has become in a large degree Satan's accomplice. Christ, revealing their sin (for they had decided to kill Him), said with the utmost clarity: "You have the devil for a father". It was a severe judgement, but a true one, for the Jews in seeking to kill Christ, "fulfilled the aims of Satan". The hatred of Christ inspired by Satan in the leadership of the Jewish nation, immediately turned against the Church, as can be seen in the persecution of St. Stephen and then in all subsequent persecutions. They were always instigated by the Jews and fanatically carried out by them. It is for good reason that the Book of Revelations speaks of the "Synagogue of Satan".
Seventy years ago a book was published in Warsaw which contains valuable materials about the systematic campaign of the Jews to conquer the world through both perfidious and revolutionary means.

The Great War (PDF - Polish)

by MarekNYC on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 06:04:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (none / 0)

Which particular weird part did you mean?

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 01:59:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for (3.66 / 3)

think i could do with only one reason (why multiply entities etc)

Poland, being sanwiched between Russian and German (whatever one'd call it) Empires dreamt for senturies to become an Empire too but failed.

The EU may be seen as some German Empire's extension - a long-hated enemy and then there's another nasty one -Russia (sure, all, we Russkie may think of is swallowing and enslaving poor little Poles). So where to go and whom to love? Another Empire, the Anglo-Saxon one, powerful enough to feel protected from those nasty two.

by lana on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 06:27:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Atlanticism (4.00 / 3)

If Bush manages to stay on another two year, I think even the Poles will be vaccinated against Atlanticism...

LOL.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 06:34:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Atlanticism (4.00 / 2)

I wonder if Marek can dig up a more in-depth poll on this, but the impression I got from earlier polls is that to some extent the majority of the population is already vaccinated, but not the (non-ultra) political class.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 07:05:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Would Scotland's leaving the union (none / 0)

Always wonder what kind of connection Poland has to Atlantic ocean and Atlanticism barring transatlantic dreams of descendents of empoverished Polish immigrants overseas?

by FarEasterner on Wed Jan 17th, 2007 at 08:13:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]

It's just (none / 0)

that the US beat the shit out of Germany in WWII (Russia's role being too controversial there from the Polish perspective), and then "beat" USSR in the Cold War.

So from Poland's perspective, they are the big boy who can protect them from their perceived enemies.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 01:35:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

I didn't think anyone didn't recognize that it was the Soviets who really beat the Nazis, other than Americans and the Brits. Don't the Poles read Tolstoy? Hitler's mistake wasn't that different from Napoleon's, after all.

Are the Poles really so much in denial of the basic facts of history? That would make them little different, in terms of their connectedness to reality, from the neocons.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 03:03:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

It's a narrative. Liberation from Hitler Was followed by occupation by the Soviets and then came liberation from that, attributed to Solidarnosc, Pope Wojtila and Ronald Reagan. The next to last liberation doesn't count for much.

"It's the statue, man, The Statue."

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 03:17:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 1)

Thank you. That makes things a little clearer for me. Although I think you should have used scare quotes for "liberation from Hitler". My guess is that, in the long run, the outcome of World War II will not be such a big deal for the Poles, since all that happened to them is that one occupier got replaced by another. So the question I posed which you are responding to was not a well formed one.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 04:15:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (4.00 / 3)

Also consider the Warshaw Uprising Stalin let be defeated by the Nazis. Ans also that Stalin shifted Poland 45% to the West: the Eastern parts of old Poland became parts of Belarus and Ukraine, while the Western parts of Germany became Poland (and refugees from East Poland settled in the homes of chased-away Germans). It was even worse than one occupation following another.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 04:45:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (4.00 / 2)

Sure they realize that. They also realize that Hitler invaded them in alliance with Stalin, that Stalin proceeded to kill hundreds of thousands of them in less than two years (a faster pace than Hitler at that point), and while the second coming of the Red Army wasn't as bloody, and it sure as hell was better than the Germans, it still wasn't gentle. Then they stayed for almost half a century. And it was only twenty years before WWII that Poland had become independent - with the bulk of Poles under Russian rule during the Partition perid.

Liberation is nice, but it doesn't outweigh the rest. The Czechs, Hungarians, and Slovaks only have the latter part of this history, so less suspicion. (The Hungarians got the Russians in 1848, but they left immediately and two decades later they got the Ausgleich)

by MarekNYC on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 03:34:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

Very informative, as always. Thank you. My question, actually, was formulated as a provocation to Jerome, but he sensibly hasn't taken the bait.

It is interesting that you write about these things that happened to Poland as very real and significant, whereas in an earlier exchange you said, "All nations are social constructs. Period." The usual view in philosophy is that either you are given an access to reality through your individual experience (this is empiricism), or reality is "socially constructed", in which case there are many different, equally valid (or invalid) realities. The philosopher who worked out how social constructs can be objectively true was Hegel. So I would suggest that you look at him more carefully than you have up until now. That would allow you to view the experiences of Poland as objectively true, while still being social constructs.

I might as well mention at this point that both my parents are Russian and were born in Russia soon after the revolution, although they grew up outside the Soviet Union.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 04:40:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (4.00 / 2)

Personally I don't think nations are social constructs that are objectively true. But this won't keep different individuals with different concepts of the nation by the same name from feeling prode or feeling wronged or killing in the name of that nation.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 04:48:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

By the way, as someone of Russian origin, I am curious if you ever heard of the 1848/9 intervention in Hungary. (I guess it is dwarfed by the major 19th century Russian wars with the Ottoman Empire and its occasional Western allies, but special in the lack of own power interests included.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 04:55:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (4.00 / 2)

It's considered one of the stupidest foreign policy moves in Russian history, made on wrongly understood obligations (mostly of honor), and a proper prelude to the catastrophe of 1856.

by Sargon on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 09:25:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 1)

I probably learned about it in history class, but now I'm afraid I can't recall it specifically. I just have a general recollection that after the Congress of Vienna, Russia would intervene in Central Europe to prop up absolutist governments.

A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns

by Alexander on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 01:25:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 1)

All identities are social constructs (not just national ones - class, gender, sexual orientation, political, etc.). But just because I realize that doesn't mean that I don't have any (and we all have them). Objective truths are assembled and understood through the lens of various values to create those identities. There is no one Polish identity. Mine is largely that of the liberal intelligentsia and really bears little resemblance to the national identity of the folks I speak of above. I feel on some level a sense of collective shame at various acts of repression and discrimination committed in Poland's name, e.g. against the Ukrainians. Those events and policies are objective facts, my understanding of them is on one level a combination of my values and my national identity, on another a constitutive part of that identity, a reflection of a collective understanding of what being Polish 'means'. Someone with a different Polish identity will understand various objective facts in a completely different manner.

Virtually everyone in Europe and the US has some sort of national identity, and that includes those who dislike the whole category. Take DoDo for example, his feelings about Horthy or Kossuth are, I am certain, of a different nature than about Antanas Smetona or Garibaldi. On the other hand a few centuries ago most Europeans had no such identity. National identity is a relatively new phenomenon. At the same time most had some sort of estate consciousness, most don't now.

by MarekNYC on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 03:13:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

Take DoDo for example, his feelings about Horthy or Kossuth are, I am certain, of a different nature than about Antanas Smetona or Garibaldi.

Well, I must admit I don't have much feelings regarding Horthy, but Kossuth is another thing, but that's probably because I am related to him. I don't know Antanas Smetona, but do Garibaldi, and until a year ago better than all 1956 revolutionaries, which says something. The single historical figure I must have read the most on is Jeanne D'Arc.

I'd say yes there is an over-representation of historical/cultural influences in me of the places I have been longer at, and that much of these influences were nationalised (e.g. a state TV, a dish provided...), but to call that a national idenity, I think is forced.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 05:44:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

(And if called a national identity, what is its name? Y-ungar-ger-am-eu?)

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 05:48:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

Maybe I'm reading things into what you write, but my impression is that it is there, even if in an attenuated, rejected form. As the what it should be called - I don't know. Presumably at least as a child you felt Hungarian to some extent as the default, almost automatic way children assume things. That wouldn't necessarily been the case with Germanness as a foreigner, though it could have been (I have no way of knowing).

In my case, while I developed a strong feeling of attachment to Geneva and to French culture in the broadest sense of the word, to the extent of feeling a sense of being at home when I visited Quebec in college, I never got any Swiss or French national identity - I was always a foreigner.

by MarekNYC on Thu Jan 18th, 2007 at 06:09:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Are the Poles really that naive? (none / 0)

I will reply in three directions.

The first 'default' I personally felt was actually something else, as I gained self-consciousness when in Yugoslavia. (One of my first surviving memories of thoughts is actually looking out of the window and thinking that 'this is my homeland'.) Later on, I did develop a feeling of Hungarianness, albeit not as default but school education and partly family, and the rejection (not of Hungarianness but the whole frame of reference) started to kick in very early (first grade, effects of thinking about some books I read). I never could 'do' collective pride and shame even to the extent you describe, though I discovered that I have more of it than realised, as Euro-booster (back when I battled freepers).

I mention that what I diary or comment on ET is not a random selection of thoughts. I do aspire to bring unique material, or to cover things not covered, be it trains or obscure history or local politics. Given the current readership of ET, within the scope of my cultural influences, that also makes me the reporter for Hungary. And thus writing stuff is usually also an educational experience for me, and funnily enough, I never learnt as much about all things 'Hungarian' than when searching for stories or researching for ones I found in the last year and half...

On a second level, my case of having lived within multiple 'nations' and thinking about categorisations as small kid rather than torture hamsters may be not common, but I view the more general 'objective' identities (say Polish-speaking intelligentsia) vs. sense of identity issue you described differently. I do think that there are multiple collective identities in most people's minds, to the extent of feeling pride and shame and having in-group/alien distinctions and codewords and solidarities, even if they are 'aware' of only a singular national identity. So I see casting things in the national framework as a deeper denial (or more generously, oversimplification) than just of differing individual senses of a nation by the same name.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Fri Jan 19th, 2007 at 04:54:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Would Scotland's leaving the union be good for Europe? | 83 comments (83 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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