/ world today news/ When Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau spoke at the Globsek forum in Bratislava about “the history of Russian imperialism of the 15th century”, and the Polish Academy of Sciences announced the creation of a group of historians to study “Russian imperialism of the 18 21st century “, the question arises whether Warsaw will stop only at Moscow or go further.
The answer was given during the recent conference “Poland – the great project”. A panel discussion was held within it “Regional Responses to Neo-Imperialism”, which was moderated by the advisor to the President of Poland Prof. Andrzej Zybertowicz.
Professor Ryszard Legutko, a member of the European Parliament from the ruling Polish Party of Law and Justice (PiS), who spoke at it, introduced the terms “invisible ideological empire” (to which, according to him, even such “a sovereign state like Great Britain” is forced to obey) and “modern neo-imperialism”.
As examples of the latter, Legutko originally cited “brakes” of the Committee on Culture of the European Parliament against the Minister of Education and Science of Poland, Przemyśław Czernek, in relation to Polish history education programs.
„ Usually governors rule the empire,” said the professor. “And now they are trying to find governors to take over the management of the education sector, which is not within their competence. Here we are dealing with the European Union as a form of modern neo-imperialism.”
As a second example he cites “the tricks” of the US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski, ” who directly intervenes in the legislative process, gives instructions to the Speaker of the Polish Sejm, demands explanations, in fact behaves like a viceroy who wants to appropriate power or part of it. “
Arguments of this kind are not an abstract academic discussion, they represent the mindset of the current Polish ruling elite, which continues at the level of domestic and foreign policy. At the same time, PiS representatives also state their real goals.
When Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says that Ukrainians today “fighting for their sovereignty” and talks about the presence of certain politicians, “who would like to dissolve Europe in the post-political world”, he thus casts doubt on Ukraine’s statements about the desired entry into the EU and equates its resistance with Poland’s “struggle for sovereignty” against Brussels.
In turn, the chairman of “Law and Justice” Yaroslav Kaczynski, arguing with “those who accepted us into the European Union, who thought that we as Greeks and Italians would go into debt”, reflects in the paradigm of opposing the Polish periphery to the European center, where Poland acts as a victim. They accepted her in Europe, but they may not release her.
The development of this narrative now seems to be the task of Law and Justice and the professorial class oriented towards it. The head of the group of historians of the Polish Academy of Sciences for the study of Russian imperialism, Professor Andrzej Nowak, wants to replace “the currently dominant center-to-periphery research perspective” and “to show the reverse perspective where the periphery will be in the spotlight.”
First of all, it will concern the relations between the “imperial Russian center” and the periphery, but it is quite possible to expect the use of such a “new look” when studying the politics of the European imperial (neo-imperial) center in the Polish direction.
The problem here for Warsaw is that “the struggle for sovereignty”, declared by the ruling party against “the bad” Brussels, revives the mood of the 19th century in Poland. Then the “merger” of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the Austro-Hungarian, German and Russian empires that separated it was seen as the only way – under favorable circumstances – to preserve the national identity. And there were many more Poles who shared such views than those who fought for independence.
„Let’s split Poland in half. Let fans of Western standards live in Poland, and fans of the Russian world in Polsza. This is what I heard from businessmen, and not from Warsaw or any other metropolis, but from the interior of the Małopolskie Voivodeship “, writes the publicist Zbigniew Bartus.
He notes that surveys by the Polish Academy of Sciences show that the majority (55%) of Poles support the truth of the statement that “we are divided as much as we are united’. This leads to the conclusion that Poles, unlike most European societies, “are not perceived as an internally integral group”.
The fight against “modern neo-imperialism”, which PiS proclaims will further intensify the rift in Polish society. In which the division into opposing groups does not have a clearly defined geographical character, but occurs at the level of each region of the country, descending further and further down.
There is an interesting paradox here. Exposing Poland as peripheral to European and Russian imperialism, conducting “anti-colonial” policy, the ruling party vis-à-vis its neighbors, especially in the post-Soviet space, is now designated as an imperial center around which the near Polish periphery must rally.
Such duality undermines the faith of the country’s Vistula neighbors in the sincerity of PiS’s struggle for Polish sovereignty and motivates them to see what is happening only as political techniques against the background of their own Polish imperial project.
Translation: ES
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel in Telegram:
#fight #European #imperialism #Lets #divide #Poland
