Nationalist protesters disrupt Poland independence day events

[pauldun170]

60,000 people
Richard Spencer is checking airfare and the status of his passport as we speak.

I'm also reminded of Trumps speech several months back

Trump " America loves Poland, and America loves the Polish people. ...
And so I am here today not just to visit an old ally, but to hold it up as an example for others who seek freedom and who wish to summon the courage and the will to defend our civilization....
This continent no longer confronts the specter of communism. But today we’re in the West, and we have to say there are dire threats to our security and to our way of life. You see what’s happening out there. They are threats. We will confront them. We will win. But they are threats. ...
We are confronted by another oppressive ideology -- one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We’re going to get it to stop. ...
I called on the leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations to join together to drive out this menace which threatens all of humanity. ...
We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. ...
The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? ... "

Warsaw, Poland (CNN)Tens of thousands of nationalist protesters disrupted Poland's independence day events Saturday, waving flags and burning flares as they marched down the streets of Warsaw.

Demonstrators carried banners that read "White Europe, Europe must be white," and "Pray for an Islamic Holocaust."
Some wore masks and waved red and white Polish flags, chanting "Death to enemies of the homeland," and "Catholic Poland, not secular."

Police estimate that 60,000 people took part in the nationalist demonstration. While the vast majority were Poles, other protesters came from all over Europe.

One of the lead organizations behind the nationalists march is the National Radical Camp, which has previously taken to the streets to protest against Muslim immigration,gay rights, the EU and anything it considers undermines Polish Catholic values.

While support for the group remains small, its critics argue that the Polish government, which has struck a nationalistic tone and linked immigrants to crime and disease, has fostered an atmosphere of intolerance and xenophobia that has emboldened it.

Earlier on Saturday, the Polish capital had seen a far smaller demonstration by groups condemning the protesters' hijacking of Polish independence day, which falls on November 11.

The day celebrates the re-birth of Poland in November 1918, 123 years after the Prussian, Habsburg and Russian empires carved up Poland among themselves and erased it from the map of Europe.
But in the past few years, the holiday has been overshadowed by the far-right march and fears of violence.
Polish President Andrzej Duda led the formal celebrations of Polish independence day in central Warsaw. After laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier, he told the crowd to remember the price of freedom and independence.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/12/europe/poland-warsaw-nationalist-march/index.html

 

[sandorski]

Fascism is on the rise. Who will be the ones who stand against it this time?

 

[Jaskalas]

Is there not a "wave" of rising violence originating from the immigrant populations in Europe? It'd be nice to have to some data on that. You call these people fascists, and indeed the slogans are certainly supremacist and racist and need to be stopped, but beyond that... there are people caught between the fascists and the Islamists. Who may be afraid of the violent change in their society and are looking for someone to help them. Fascists answer that call and, presto, significantly larger movement.

If we could study the root cause and address its concerns directly, it'd sap and peel away a large amount of potential mainstream support.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I'm sure it's purely coincidental that it nearly fell on the exact date that kristallnact happened in 1938. Purely coincidental. I fucking hate nazis. And for fucks sake Poland, of all places to embrace that ideology, really? Warsaw? Really!???!
Get your shit together Poland.

 

[sandorski]

I'm sure it's purely coincidental that it nearly fell on the exact date that kristallnact happened in 1938. Purely coincidental. I fucking hate nazis. And for fucks sake Poland, of all places to embrace that ideology, really? Warsaw? Really!???!
Get your shit together Poland.

This was on Polands' Independence Day.

 

[woolfe9998]

Is there not a "wave" of rising violence originating from the immigrant populations in Europe? It'd be nice to have to some data on that. You call these people fascists, and indeed the slogans are certainly supremacist and racist and need to be stopped, but beyond that... there are people caught between the fascists and the Islamists. Who may be afraid of the violent change in their society and are looking for someone to help them. Fascists answer that call and, presto, significantly larger movement.

If we could study the root cause and address its concerns directly, it'd sap and peel away a large amount of potential mainstream support.

Here:

We exploit the increase in immigration flows into western European countries that took place in the 2000s to assess whether immigration affects crime victimization and the perception of criminality among European natives. Using data from the European Social Survey, the Labour Force Survey and other sources, we provide a set of fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations that deal with the endogenous sorting of immigration by region and with the sampling error in survey-based measures of regional immigration shares, whose implications in terms of attenuation bias are investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Our empirical findings show that an increase in immigration does not affect crime victimization, but it is associated with an increase in the fear of crime, the latter being consistently and positively correlated with the natives’ unfavourable attitude toward immigrants. Our results reveal a misconception of the link between immigration and crime among European natives.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-015-0543-2

You don't seem to understand that people are being manipulated with fear. I'm afraid the fact that so many people don't get that is the main problem.

 

[Victorian Gray]

I'm sure it's purely coincidental that it nearly fell on the exact date that kristallnact happened in 1938. Purely coincidental. I fucking hate nazis. And for fucks sake Poland, of all places to embrace that ideology, really? Warsaw? Really!???!
Get your shit together Poland.

It actually goes back to 1918 and Poland's regained independence after the 1st world war. It's being hijacked by the far right for their own purposes. And Poland, a conservative country, has had a pretty strong right wing for an awfully long time and the govt. has been run by a right wing party since 2015.

Having said that, I do not for a second believe that the majority of the civil population believes in what those marching white nationalist shits promote but, from what I've read, it does resonate with a sizeable minority, especially with those under 25.

 

[brycejones]

Is there not a "wave" of rising violence originating from the immigrant populations in Europe? It'd be nice to have to some data on that.

I guess finding some actual data first would seem to be the answer? Is there an increase in terrorist acts? Possibly but Western Europe had some pretty rough times back in the 70s and early 80s as well.

 

[woolfe9998]

More:

For example, most research for the US indicates that if any, this association is negative (Butcher and Piehl 1998, 2007; Ousey and Hubrin 2009; Wadswarth 2010), while the results for Europe are mixed for property crime but no association is found for violent crime

https://izajodm.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9039-3-12

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

This was on Polands' Independence Day.

I saw that when I read the report, but also remembered the anniversary of kristallnacht happened recently. I could be way wrong on this, but there is some symbolism to be had, even if it was done with the smallest of nods to that night in 1938.

 

[pmv]

Here:



https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-015-0543-2

You don't seem to understand that people are being manipulated with fear. I'm afraid the fact that so many people don't get that is the main problem.

I would assume the OP is referring specifically to terrorist attacks, rather than crime in general. I don't see any evidence for a 'wave' of 'rising violence' in the latter sense. But while its only a tiny minority of nutters who are responsible for the former, they can do a lot of damage, and every time they do their thing, attitudes to immigration get more negative* (which might be part of their aims, though I'm not sure their aims are all that coherent or thought-through anyway).

(Though the increase in immigration to Western Europe in the 2000s was from Eastern Europe, so, ironically enough, that study is mostly asking whether immigrants _from_ Poland lead to increased violence.)

*not saying this is right, just that it's very depressing. Bad things begat more bad things in a downward spiral.

 

[Genx87]

That study doesn't include what the OP was looking for in recent mass immigration from Syria and Africa due to failed US and EU foreign policy in the region causing collapsed govts.

 

[fleshconsumed]

It's ironic and sad considering that Poland is "home" to Auschwitz. You'd think people living there would be a bit more aware of where fascism leads to.

On another note it's sad seeing all the places we've been to turning to shit. We were in Turkey for a few days around 2013 and we thoroughly enjoyed our short stay, it is really depressing to read all the news coming out of there lately. And we were in Poland last year too, lovely place, we actually felt that Krakow was one of the best towns we've stopped at on our trip, excellent food and lovely people is what made it. It was really sad to read the news yesterday, we just had "another one bites the dust" feeling. I really hope that this rally does not represent popular opinion over there.

 

[woolfe9998]

I would assume the OP is referring specifically to terrorist attacks, rather than crime in general. I don't see any evidence for a 'wave' of 'rising violence' in the latter sense. But while its only a tiny minority of nutters who are responsible for the former, they can do a lot of damage, and every time they do their thing, attitudes to immigration get more negative* (which might be part of their aims, though I'm not sure their aims are all that coherent or thought-through anyway).

(Though the increase in immigration to Western Europe in the 2000s was from Eastern Europe, so, ironically enough, that study is mostly asking whether immigrants _from_ Poland lead to increased violence.)

*not saying this is right, just that it's very depressing. Bad things begat more bad things in a downward spiral.

Since terrorism is included in the crime statistics, I would assume that any added terrorist attacks due to rising immigration are statistically insignificant.

Of course terrorism affects perception. That is the conclusion drawn by the research I linked. That perception is of course spurred on by demagoguery like what we're seeing right now with Trump, and by the far right all across the west these days. We either stand up against these lies or we will fall prey to them. The risk of being killed in an actual terrorist attack is minuscule. Even here in the US where we have so many mass shootings, only a tiny fraction of them are politically motivated. The risk of an authoritarian take over is far greater.

 

[Jaskalas]

So generally speaking, it shouldn't be crime motivating the nationalist movement.

What if it's more subtle changes, a general lack of social cohesion combined with the perception of danger? If you travel to a city in your own country and suddenly almost no one speaks the language and they start eyeballing you as a stranger.... awkward to say the least. Feelings of threat and distrust are hard for people to ignore, and that is often derived from people simply being different culturally, let alone ethnically. In many ways ethnicity is just a shortcut to assuming and recognizing cultural differences.

Europe's plight mirrors our own to some degree. Trump campaigned on anti immigrant policy. What sort of things could balm people's fears and stunt the growth of the nationalist movement(s)?

 

[sandorski]

So generally speaking, it shouldn't be crime motivating the nationalist movement.

What if it's more subtle changes, a general lack of social cohesion combined with the perception of danger? If you travel to a city in your own country and suddenly almost no one speaks the language and they start eyeballing you as a stranger.... awkward to say the least. Feelings of threat and distrust are hard for people to ignore, and that is often derived from people simply being different culturally, let alone ethnically. In many ways ethnicity is just a shortcut to assuming and recognizing cultural differences.

Europe's plight mirrors our own to some degree. Trump campaigned on anti immigrant policy. What sort of things could balm people's fears and stunt the growth of the nationalist movement(s)?

Good Leadership.

 

[Jaskalas]

Good Leadership.

A leader who does not share their fears is not trusted. Bush was viewed as a traitor to the right for that very reason.
And does Europe lack good leadership as well? Though there are parallels, they have a bigger movement than we do.

 

[woolfe9998]

Good WaPo editorial on the rise of fascism in Poland, and Europe in general.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-card-f:homepage/story&utm_term=.3220600a85dd

Deja vu anyone?

What has changed? The answer has partly to do with the current populist-nationalist ruling party, Law and Justice, which welcomed and encouraged Saturday’s march as a “patriotic” action, though the party knew who was behind it. Polish police, once trained to protect the public against neo-fascists, this time arrested 50 members of a pro-democracy group that staged a counter-protest, though they did nothing to stop “patriots” from beating up another group of counter-protesters. State media, which is now a mouthpiece for the ruling party, covered the march extensively and positively. As of this writing, no senior government politicians have clearly condemned the slogans or the organizers.

No deja vu required for this:

Finally, some of those marching also believe they have support from the United States. The American president’s speech in Warsaw a few months ago was partly written by advisers who understand the language and thinking of the alt-right, and, as I wrote at the time, it was heard by the ruling party as a stamp of approval. Like their comrades in Charlottesville, Poland’s neo-fascists think President Trump’s anti-Islam language is meant to encourage them, too.

 

[sandorski]

A leader who does not share their fears is not trusted. Bush was viewed as a traitor to the right for that very reason.
And does Europe lack good leadership as well? Though there are parallels, they have a bigger movement than we do.

Good Leadership entails not exploiting those Fears for Political Gain, like Trump has. Not only did that get him Elected, but those motivated by their Fears chose an exceedingly poor Candidate/President.

Fascism isn't just Evil, it is Stupid.

 

[darkswordsman17]

A leader who does not share their fears is not trusted. Bush was viewed as a traitor to the right for that very reason.
And does Europe lack good leadership as well? Though there are parallels, they have a bigger movement than we do.

Sorry but that's straight up stupid, because it would require a leader that fears interdimensional bigfoot, witches masquerading as goats, and other ridiculous fears. Because there are fucking people that believe in and are afraid of such things. It also would mean that they'd have to be scared of the monster under the bed, since after all they'd have to share their fears or you couldn't trust them.

A real leader will know what to actually fear and work to figure out a way to handle it (which doesn't necessarily involve bombing it, or trying to paint entire sections of society as boogeymen out to get you to justify building walls that accomplish nothing). The best thing Reagan did is that he learned that him spouting off all that "the Soviets are the devil!" nonsense made things worse, not better, and so changed his approach.

Good Leadership entails not exploiting those Fears for Political Gain, like Trump has. Not only did that get him Elected, but those motivated by their Fears chose an exceedingly poor Candidate/President.

Fascism isn't just Evil, it is Stupid.

Witch Hunt by Rush ends with:
Ignorance and prejudice,
And fear walk hand in hand

 

[Vic]

Witch Hunt by Rush ends with:
Ignorance and prejudice,
And fear walk hand in hand

"The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will

"Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat, and burn, and kill"


The saddest irony here IMO is that fascism and nationalism inevitably lead to war, and I don't believe that Poland has ever won a war in all of history. These proud Polish patriots are begging to be turned into cannon fodder.

 

[Genx87]

"The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will

"Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat, and burn, and kill"


The saddest irony here IMO is that fascism and nationalism inevitably lead to war, and I don't believe that Poland has ever won a war in all of history. These proud Polish patriots are begging to be turned into cannon fodder.

They won an interesting war against the Soviet Union that surely had some influence on the interwar years in central Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Soviet_War