The Anti-Immigrant Stance in Poland

You may have seen recent news coverage of a crisis on the Poland-Belarus border. Hundreds of, mostly Iraqi, migrants were stranded at the border, attempting to illegally cross into Poland, and the EU respectively, at the behest of the Belarusian president Andrei Lukashenko. Tensions quickly escalated and thousands of Polish soldiers were deployed to prevent the migrant influx. Clips surfaced of the migrants desperately attempting to break down the border fence, soldiers spraying them down mercilessly with tear gas, and Belarusian soldiers pushing migrants toward the fence. Besides the oppressive Polish militia standing guard and the Belarusian guards breathing down their necks, the migrants also faced hazardous weather conditions; men, women, and children were left to freeze in haphazardly constructed tents while the two countries were locked in a helpless stalemate. As Van Leeuwen says, “People are being treated like weapons” (Van Leeuwen). Several people died, people who were trying to escape the dangers of their home countries, people who wished for a fresh start, and yet, at the border to a new life, they were met only by more struggle, violence, and peril. It isn’t an understatement to call this conflict a gross violation of human rights. Poland has had many issues with immigration, but none in recent years have been as extreme and internationally publicized as this one. It has brought to the forefront the damaging anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Polish government and revealed an unfortunately similar mindset in much of Polish society. I don’t want to make it seem like poles are all in agreement on this issue though. Currently, Poland is extremely split on most socio-political issues, and this is one of them, Wesel cites a recent poll “…more than 50% of respondents think pushbacks are the right thing to do, more than 60% of those polled say those trying to enter the country should be allowed to apply for asylum” (Wesel). This portrays a split, if not confused, society, exactly mirroring the current Polish political climate. All in all, this anti-immigrant mindset is still far more prevalent than it should be. Perpetuated through the joint efforts of the dominant ruling party, ironically called Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (PiS for short and translated to Law and Justice), and the Church, which doesn’t even try to hide its immense influence in politics. I’m going to be examining the global implications of Poland’s dominant political forces, alongside the Church, pushing dangerous anti-immigrant rhetoric and examining potential solutions for helping immigrants and in turn, changing Polish people’s stances on immigration.

To hope to change people’s minds about immigration, we first need to examine how we got to this point and gauge how people in Poland feel about the issue currently. As I have mentioned, Poland is extremely divided politically with the current president, Andrzej Duda, getting a slim 51% reelection. Why is this? Well to start, the two major political parties, by major I mean they hold the most seats in the Sejm (like the House of Reps) and Senate, are both conservative, right-wing, and nationalistic parties. This may be surprising to Americans, with the dominant Democratic and Republican parties representing opposite ideologies, but Poland has been historically conservative-leaning, partly due to strong religious beliefs. Not only does Poland’s strong tie to Catholicism weaken right-wing politics, but the right has been notoriously disorganized and split, only recently has some semblance of a unified right begun to emerge. Back to conservative politics, the strongest party is currently the aforementioned PiS, alongside Platforma Obywatelska (translated to Civic Platform or PO for short). I am mostly referring to PiS when talking about the “political forces” that are anti-immigrant. The most recent election of Duda truly highlights just how divided the country is, with Duda just barely getting another term. Although people are split, the status quo that PiS has been creating was essentially renewed with the election, as Noryskiewicz describes “It was effectively a referendum on Duda and PiS building an ever-deeper alliance with the Catholic Church and the Trump administration in the U.S., reducing Poland’s active role in the EU, putting traditional values into legislative practice, turning the state-run media into an organ of the ruling party (PiS) and eroding confidence in the country’s independent judiciary branch”. (Noryskiewicz) This quote is tackling many different subjects, but the main focus lies in the continued perseverance and reliance of poles on PiS’s political influence. The political sphere’s ideals are re-solidified as strictly conservative, although this doesn’t entirely align with the people anymore. And here, within this conservative political ideology lies the destructive anti-immigrant stance. To cite some of the most egregious, these are quotes from prominent PiS politicians from a research paper by Anna Posmykiewicz, one from someone you may recognize: “…migrants who arrive to Europe could spread “various parasites and protozoa, which don’t affect their organisms, but which could be dangerous here” (The Guardian)”, stated by the leader of PiS Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and “…accepting refugees might put Polish citizens in danger, hence the government’s role is to, “protect its citizens from refugees bringing in “possible epidemics” (Al Jazeera)” spoken by none other than Andrzej Duda. In these quotes, extremely powerful and influential political leaders are openly spreading racist and misleading information that implies refugees are public health hazards. If this is what they are saying to the public, I can’t begin to imagine what they are saying behind closed doors. Clearly, PiS is quite against immigration and adamant about protecting Polish heritage and values, but is this a reflection of what the public feels? Well, it’s complicated. As shown with the election, support for PiS has been steadily decreasing for many years; however, the recent border crisis has to a certain extent revitalized the party, painting them as brave protectors of Poland, finally able to flaunt their nationalist ideals. As Kranz puts it “Having been considered pariahs within the EU for years, party leaders have now gained the unequivocal solidarity of the international community on the border issue and managed to rally previously waning political support at home” (Kranz). In the midst of the crisis, PiS has been able to regain the support of many countries that once looked down on their values. Not only this, but it also rallied support from poles, united by the shared goal of protecting their homeland, the past offensives of PiS seem to be temporarily forgotten. Although I am critical of how PiS is using this situation to bolster its image, I want to clarify that I am not condemning Poland for securing the border. This is a complicated situation, thought to be a way for Belarus to unsettle the EU and Poland has never faced a similar situation of migrants being pushed into the country by a neighboring power. Nevertheless, PiS has regained a certain amount of credibility from the crisis. This is a dangerous path, if PiS were to begin regaining their waning political power, the damaging policies they push will continue unhindered for years to come. Now that we’ve established how the politics in Poland push this anti-immigrant stance and examined how it is perceived by both Polish society and other countries, we should finally touch on a point I have alluded to, the strong ties between politics and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland.

The church is huge in Poland, internationally, people may be familiar with the following assumption “… changes in the religious and ethnic landscape of Poland and Roman Catholic Church’s resistance to the Communism — had great influence in creating “the Polak = katolik equation”” (Posmykiewicz) This “equation” is pretty much just the assumption that every Polish person is a devout Catholic (katolik). This assumption is mostly correct. As can be asserted from the following EU demographic analysis, “The Roman Catholic Church is the biggest church in Poland. The overwhelming majority (around 87%) of the population are Roman-Catholic if the number of the baptized is taken as the criterion” (Eurydice). So how did we get here, how is so much of the country Catholic? Well, it actually isn’t very hard to figure out. The vast majority of Poles are Catholic, often with political views influenced by their religious beliefs. The reason for this religious homogeneity can be traced to the communist regime implemented in Poland by the Soviets. Most Poles were extremely resistant to the Communist regime and as a result, in the early 1980s, the Solidarnosc (translated to unity) resistance was born. Solidarnosc was a trade union, but it was also much more. A social movement that pushed for social change, sticking to union values, and workers’ rights. The central goal of the movement was to end the communist regime and return Poland to a free state. This goal was a success and the leader of the union, Lech Walesa, was elected president in 1990, even having won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his work. But how does Solidarnosc relate to the enormous Catholic population? One aspect of Solidarnosc which I haven’t mentioned is their strong tie to the Church. During this time of extreme civil unrest, the Church resisted Communism alongside the public. The Church and the nation both held strong anti-communist sentiments and as such were unified in a way. “The strong bond between Polishness and the religion originates in the fact that the Church presented itself as a defender of Polish values, nation, and its people”, against a common enemy, the Church integrated itself as a just and moral power which Poles could rely on. (Posmykiewicz) It was the start of a new era, an era that unified the people with a religion, an era where religion was the government’s right hand. This is the root of not only Poland’s religious homogeneity but also the Church’s collusion with governing bodies. Back in the present, the Church remains immersed in politics, pushing for the nationalistic ideals that brought them to power in the first place.

With nationalism often comes exclusion, I have shown how open governing bodies in Poland are about parading their anti-immigrant ideals and now I want to emphasize the dangers of these ideals. As I mentioned, when dealing with migrants, people escaping dangerous situations in their homelands, Poland is notoriously unwilling to provide aid. As a member of the EU, they were meant to take in a portion of refugees, yet “Poland did not implement EU relocation and resettlement schemes proposed under “The European Agenda on Migration” in 2015, which was considered a comprehensive response by the EU to the migrant and refugee crisis in Europe” (Franzke, Fuente 172). Poland refuses to open their borders to people in need and this lack of openness only further perpetuates the nationalist values that other people are different from themselves. As a result, the refugees continue to live in dangerous conditions, with Poland feigning blatant ignorance at their plight. The way Poland so obviously skirts these issues regarding immigration may also empower countries with similarly strong nationalist values to join in this anti-immigrant sentiment. But how can this issue be tackled to prevent the spreading of this rhetoric?

Although clearly a multi-faceted issue, the key to changing people’s stance on immigration is allowing for more accessible immigration programs. This solution would not only aid the immigrants who are sometimes in dire straits but also allow for more exposure to different cultures and values in Poland which has, for so long now, been homogenous. Programs that do not attempt to keep the immigrants for a short while and then send them back like outcasts but help in integrating them into Polish society. With the Belarus crisis, the migrants were intending to go to Germany and only pass-through Poland. Although this crisis was largely a weaponization of migrants, the fact that many people only want to pass through Poland to get to other countries should also be addressed. Rather than letting people freeze at the borders, there should be regulations in place that can help the migrants actually figure out where they are can go, if their destination country is willing to take them, propose temporary shelter, etc. These are people in often quite desperate situations, and they shouldn’t be looked at as intruders. Alongside refugees, immigration for economic gain would also be able to provide immigrants opportunities while also exposing Poles to other cultures, eventually putting an end to the anti-immigration rhetoric pushed by Polish governing bodies for so long.