Oleg Smirnov
2013-12-22 20:30:33 UTC
http://www.poloniatoday.com .
"Warsaw (PMN)—For the third year, November 11 ended inclashes between rioters and police as nationalist
hooligans torched cars, threw firecrackers, and set fire
to a guard’s booth in front of the Russian Embassy,
resulting in a diplomatic scandal between Warsaw and
Moscow. And, less than a mile down the road from the
embassy, far-right protesters (right) torched an 80-foot
rainbow art installation made of flowers that many in the
city had regarded as a symbol of gay rights and
tolerance. /.../ “Radical movements have been on the
rise, due to national identity problems,” says Ireneusz
Krzeminski, a sociologist at the University of Warsaw.
“This is a side effect of the democratic transformation
process.”"
are Poles and only 1.2% are minorities.
Then what're the 'national identity problems',
and why are the Polish nationalists unhappy?
And what exactly has the Russian Embassy to do
with these quite obscure 'national identity
problems'?
say, in Lithuania, where is afaik some group that the
Poles tend to count as Poles while the Lithuanians tend
to count as 'polonized' Lithuanians. This is 'national
identity problem'. Nothing of such kind may be actual
for situation within Poland where the society is highly
mono-ethnic. Also I didn't hear about problems of huge
immigration in Poland. So it looks like the sociologist
Ireneusz Krzeminski is either stupid or sly.
But if these right-wing movements, that have been on the
rise in Poland, are focused on 'external' targets; say,
to bring Lithuania back, or 'to take revenge' on Russia
(for millennial / centuries-old grievances) than it's
close to the German revanchist aspirations in the 1930s,
and in the current Polish case it has a little to do with
the 'national identity problems' nor with the democracy,
it's closer to classic militant 'fascist' expansionism,
and decent sociologists should recognize that properly.