Anyone know what's happening in Poland?

Post Reply New Topic

As the war on Ukraine has revealed the megalomania and paranoia of Putin, the apparent flirtation Ukraine has with the far-right and the war crimes by Russian soldiers. Things in Poland also seem to have gone downhill?


Does anyone know what is happening in Poland right now? there seems to be nothing reported on the internal situation in that country since 2021 when this Youtube video was made?

I know what's happening in Poland right now.
Nothing.
Far right activists started voicing support for Putin and that was a nail to their coffin. Anyone who confused nationalism for patriotism before, now has left and shunned them. Speculations that Polish far right had been financed from Kremlin have become practically a consensus. "Ruska onuca" - "russian footwrap" - is how they are being called now.
We're living with 3.5 million immigrants with decreased number of incidents.

According to the Vice video they are ultra-nationalist and staunchly pro-catholic (kind of like the old Irish republican army). I find it hard to believe they would listen to Putin.

Those who heard them making exceuses for Putin also found it odd... and very telling.

In any country, there will always be folks who are inclined towards fascist modes of thought.

Yes. The question is how organized they can get and how much support their actions can get among regular folks.
An external danger generally caused a shift of opinions towards centrism and cooperation. In particular, far right activists speaking along Kremlin lines caused a massive consternation and resulted in their supporters leaving for more moderate right.

According to the video they have the support of the Polish government.

That's more complex. Our goverment is, let's say, moderate right.
Sometimes they took part with activities also hosting far right, especially the infamous Independence Marches.
However, the Independence Marches where the government participated were way safer, more orderly and more moderate than the ones without them.
Recently, the government was losing their support for reasons like corruption and incompetence. Their reaction was to blow ideological horns, which was pushing them further and further right.

This process was stopped by the war in Ukraine. The government stepped down with divisive rhetorics and took an universally applauded position on the war, regaining support of moderates. On the other hand, declared far-righters (Konfederacja) boiled ofer their activists taking pro-Kremlin stances and lost their supporters, to PiS' gain.
Right now, the government's incompetent financial politics is making them lose support again but it's unlikely they would turn to deeply divisive rhetorics again, because in the entirely new social situation after Feb 24, it would drown them.

My reflections on several PiS activists and supporters was:
They couldn't function without an enemy, so they were creating enemies for themselves, a very harmful process. Now they have an objectively real enemy and they instantly started acting more sensible.

I don't believe Duda would coddle the "Alt-Right" like Trump did. Saying the folks with the Nazi insignia, etc. were "fine people, too," at the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally

Duda is more like a conventional person of the "religious right," with some other moderate "rightist" tendencies. He might believe that he has to not go all "hard line" upon them so that they don't foment things all that much in Poland. Magz can confirm this---but he doesn't seem to actively coddle them, and call them "fine people."

I would hope, once the crisis is over, that Duda doesn't align himself with the far right element owing to perceived "security" concerns.

Indeed, we rather have religious right than alt-right.
Open nazism is law-forbidden here and even if it wasn't, relating oneself to historical nazis would make everyone hate you. Poland lost 1/3 of population in WWII, literally everyone here has tragic family histories caused by historical nazis.
That, however, does not cross out other forms of nationalism. Russia has become practically fascist in their "fight western nazis" ideology.

About our system: Duda has way less to say than Morawiecki. We have a parlimentary system, the president's power is pretty limited. The most influencial person is Kaczyński - the head of the ruling party.

One thing about PiS: first of all, they're populists. They played on religious right because it gave them support. Duda won with Trzaskowski by LGBT-bashing - horrible but true. But now the wind of change has blown and you don't get votes from LGBT-bashing, you get votes from building temporary homes in Borodyanka.
Well, I find it a change for the better - and I honestly hope they lose the next elections. Mainly not for being right wing (though the abortion thing and attacking LGBT were clearily unacceptable) but primarily for being incompetent, corrupt and tampering with the very system (e.g. so called "judicary reform").

Hmm, President Duda was a strong ally of Trump wasn't he?

He made alliances with far right elements in Poland to attack both LGBTQI marches and anti-abortion protests. In the video I posted far right activists attacked young women protrsting about abortion laws (one woman can be seen getting his by a car) while police were ordered to stand by and watch and do nothing,

In another a crowd of neo-Nazis can be seen throwing Molotov cocktails into a apartment building where gay pride flags were hanging resulting in the apartment catching fire. Again Duda's secruity forces were hanging around smoking cigarettes and playing cards.

I have read other articles about the president and his popularity with mainstream Poles seems to be connected to his strong stance on abortion, gay rights and immigration. He certainly is not moderate.

1. We don't have presidential system. Duda is just a puppet. Kaczyński is the one making decision;
2. Not really "strong" Trump supporters. Polish politics during Trump presidency was very much focused in Europe, not America. They were very close to Orban - before the Russian invasion and Orban's reaction to it ripped this alliance apart;

2020. Yep, it was bad. Lawsuits are still flying back and forth.
Not Molotov cocktails. Flares. Flares are traditionally brought to the march as a form of fireworks but in 2020, they were used this way and caused a fire in a private apartment.
It was 2020. All was officially locked down. The city council canceled the licence for organizing the March. But the city council is liberal, so the march organizers started crying that they are discriminated against. However, the city council was prepared and they had official opinions of Head Sanitary Inspector. Nevertheless, the march organizers kept crying it was them being discriminated against and tried to make the state government force the city council to allow the march. But the state government didn't back them this time, for sanitary reasons.
Practically all moderates stayed at home that year, those who arrived were pre-selected troublemakers, many drunk.
Just before the feral day, the march organizer announced it won't be a march, it would be a motor rally. In that form, they got a permission - but many, including the main organizer arrived on foot. And started fights with the police. And threw flares at private apartments.
BTW, the guy whose flare caused the fire got arrested when trying to flee aboard. I don't know about the rest, I wasn't following it that closely.

Next year, after such an outcome, city council tried to disallow the march but that year, the march was defended and protected by the state government - and this time, it was again peaceful and orderly.

"Strong stance on abortion" actually made the government very unpopular among mainstream Poles, because it was too strong. The president tried to step down with it but the party chief did not let him (yes, that's the balance of power here!)
Government's actions against LGBT and immigrants horribly polarized the "mainstream Poles". We generally suffer from strong polarization, similarily to USA.

But it all was before the war. Things have really flipped upside down here in the last three months.

What I am trying to understand is why Poland does not try to be more like the Czech republic or Slovakia and focus on developing its industries and agriculture and tourism rather than focus on things like abortion, gays and minority rights. Why all this obsession in Hungary, Poland and Ukraine over right wing stuff?

Countries that go down this road too long collapse.

We are developing industries, agriculture and tourism. It just does not end up in international headlines.

And why the same in USA? France? Australia?
It's not some exotic phenomenon, it's all around you, too.
Right wing stuff is half of polarization. If your news source ignores the other half in some countries but not in others, then it's a problem of your news source.

You're again ignoring that this discussion is practically historical after the last three months.
Hungary has fallen indeed. They became a Russian Troian Horse in EU. Which makes Polish right-wing government reconsider several policies that led Hungary down that road - Polish right-wingers no longer like Hungarian right-wingers nor want to be like them.

But aren't Slovakia, Croatia, Czech Republic and even Melania Trump's homeland of Slovenia developing countries? What about the Baltic states and east Germany? they seem to be developing fast.

Why are these countries developing faster and have now become tourist hotspots. I am not familiar with these countries first hand but my parents have travelled around 20 times though eastern Europe and Russia since the 1980s and they actually contrasted how different these countries were (and still are) from Poland/Hungary and Ukraine. Maybe the latter three have been held back by Russia during Soviet times? is this the reason?

When were the trips taking place?
Because from 1980 to 2022, there's 42 years, during which really a lot has happened in each of these states.
If your parents didn't compare each state year by year but rather visited this and then that and later those, their impressions would most strongly depend on when, not where.