Sunday, June 26, 2011

Poland's hidden minorities

The ethnic cleansing campaigns perpetuated by the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Ukrainian nationalist UPA (though in the latter case Poles were the primary target), to mention but the main actors (and not forgetting the Polish polonization policies, particularly in the interbellum, and the expulsion of i.e. Germans after the war), have left modern Poland a socio-political anomaly, a national state that is virtually made up of a single ethnic group. Indeed, the 2002 census found that 96.7% of Poland's inhabitants define themselves as Polish, while 97.8% speak Polish at home. In short, national and ethnic minorities in Poland are basically a statistical error. Or so one would think...

Over the past several years Poland has slowly embraced a less monolithic image. For one thing Jewish culture is slowly but steadily reviving, as seen in one of the better articles on the topic. I would argue that even there the author gives too much weight to "Poland's notorious antisemitism," which has been exaggerated, misunderstood, and purposefully misrepresented over the years, but this is too long and complex a topic for a blog post. In any case, the centuries of Jewish culture in Poland are coming back up to the surface, resulting a more colorful social landscape and, in fact, a return to normality.

But other minorities are not as well off. For one thing the two biggest "home-grown minorities," the Kashubians and the Silesians, both West Slavic ethnic groups closely tied to Poles (some even define them as Polish ethnic groups with languages that are but dialects), have been increasingly antagonized by the nationalist Law and Justice, who claim that they are "not real Poles" and "crypto-Germans." Both groups have suffered decades of abuse based on this line of argument, and have seen virtually all their petitions for some form of cultural or other autonomy rejected. They are beginning to grow understandably fed up with this situation. To add insult to injury, the national census has consistently been formulated in such a way so as to make them disappear: no possibility of double national identification (for those willing), the lack of relevant choices, and manipulations by census takers. And it seems they are not the only ones. Gazeta Wyborcza recently carried an article (PL) on how census takers were tricking or coercing Belarusians, primarily elderly village folk, into choosing the "Polish" nationality in the new census.

One could go on and on about how nationalist policy, even when it is just about closing an eyes to abuses downstairs never leads to anything good. That is all well and true, but it is so oft-cited that it is now little more than a cliche. Of course Poland should put an end to such practices, and most Poles support this option. But what really puzzles me is how this can be tolerated when Poland is engaged in very serious feuds involving its sizable national minorities in Belarus and Lithuania (though the whole affair is ridiculous, it seems to be a source of ongoing, high-level diplomatic disputes [PL]). This takes away all the strength from Poland's mostly reasonable arguments. Moreover, it highlights what is the weakness of every single country - whitewashing its own history.

Growing up in Poland, one is indoctrinated with the national myth of "Polska Chrystusem Narodów - Poland, the Jesus Christ of nations" (a complex and poorly translatable notion, your first hunch on what it means is probably right). True, Poland has suffered more than most nations, despite (or rather because of) usually being on the right side of history. But it is by no means a saint. Few Poles know, for example, that Poland had built an detention camp in Bereza Kartuska in the 1930s, for enemies of the Polish nation, mainly Ukrainians and Belarusians. While this was no concentration camp, it clashes with Poland's otherwise prim image.

The point here is not to make Poles feel bad or lose respect for the country's broadly courageous and unique history. But a cold shower once in a while is good for everybody. For one thing it could help tone down the nihilistic nationalism that is spreading through broad swathes of society (just as the bulk of it is reaching a historical high in terms of tolerance, wealth and openness), and threatening to create a rift within it. And perhaps it would help both census takers and the country at large embrace the cultural diversity that was once Poland's wealth...

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