Poland’s Latest Effort To Repair Its Soft Power In Ukraine Ended Up Offending Everyone There
Poland still hasn’t learned its lesson that treating Ukrainians condescendingly always backfires.
Previously rock-solid Polish-Ukrainian relations have recently begun to weaken as a result of preexisting differences returning to the fore after the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive. This analysis here documents the rapid evolution of their increasingly multidimensional disputes, which is occurring amidst the vicious blame game over who’s responsible for the aforesaid debacle. The latest development is that a Polish official disrespected Ukrainians by literally comparing them all to children.
Plenipotentiary for Polish-Ukrainian Development Cooperation Jadwiga Emilewicz was defending her government’s plan to retain its ban on Ukrainian agricultural imports upon the expiry of the European Commission’s deal on 15 September when she employed a very condescending example. According to her, safeguarding the interests of Polish farmers before helping Ukrainian ones is no different in principle than the airline rule that “it is the mother who has to put on the [oxygen] mask first and then the kid’s”.
Emilewicz also suggested that Biden was personally to blame for this since he promised last summer that the US would build grain silos in Ukraine, “but when we started to ask about it [during a visit to Washington in July], no one in the [US] administration was ready to answer the question.” Nevertheless, she said that Ukrainian grain can still transit through Poland en route to other markets but that “some extra money is necessary” from Brussels to subsidize this since Warsaw doesn’t want to foot the bill.
The reason why her remarks are worthy of analysis is because they inadvertently confirmed that the Polish state views Ukrainians as children. This condescending attitude has been a criticism from them for centuries and contributed to Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s bloody mid-17th century revolt against the erstwhile Commonwealth. It also played a role in radicalizing Ukrainian nationalists during the interwar period, though that of course doesn’t justify their acts of terrorism or genocide of Poles during World War II.
The point is that Poland still hasn’t learned its lesson that treating Ukrainians condescendingly always backfires. There’s no doubt that the Ukrainian state owes the Polish one for the unprecedented support that it’s provided over the past 18 months since the start of the NATO-Russian proxy war and that sometimes Kiev does indeed behave ungratefully, but Emilewicz’s example disrespects all of the Ukrainian people, not just Zelensky. It’s also interesting that she tried to blame Biden for this too.
Polish-US ties have never been better on the military and strategic levels, but they’ve been beset by controversy since Biden entered into office and the liberal-globalist policymaking faction that’s behind him began pressuring the Polish ruling party on socio-cultural issues like abortion and LGBT+. Trump’s rogue State Department did the same, but the pressure is qualitatively different when the head of state and the entirety of their team are in full agreement with this.
Blaming Biden is therefore an asymmetrical response that’s also aimed at diverting Ukrainians’ anger over this issue away from Poland and towards America instead. There’s another purpose too that average observers might not have picked up on, and it concerns Emilewicz’s role in leading Poland’s campaign to slyly take control of Western Ukraine. It can be read about here and details how Poland is exploiting the cover of “reconstruction programs” to turn that region into its de facto protectorate.
She’s supposed to expand what’s presented as mutually beneficial socio-economic cooperation between their countries, but her work is now complicated by the government’s announcement that it’ll retain its ban on Ukrainian agricultural products next month and the bilateral problems that arose as a result. Polish-Ukrainian trust at all levels has plummeted, especially from the perspective of average Ukrainians, yet her effort to repair Polish soft power made everything worse after she insulted her target audience.
What this latest scandal shows is that Polish-Ukrainian relations will likely never return to their zenith from May 2022 when President Andrzej Duda received a hero’s welcome from the Rada. A “new normal” is in the process of being formed, but it’s impeded by Polish officials failing to learn their lesson that treating Ukrainians condescendingly always backfires. For that reason, more scandals and tumult are expected in their bilateral ties, especially as Poland approaches its next national elections on 15 October.
"Poland still hasn’t learned its lesson that treating Ukrainians condescendingly always backfires."
Yeah, Slavs are good at that. And Anglo-Saxons are good at hiding it (for as long as circumstance allows). It will be interesting to see how the Anglo-Saxons deal with it when the shoe is on the other foot. And, rest assured, both feet get a chance to wear the same shoes at some point.
"Previously rock-solid..."
What, you mean like Poles in Volhynia and Operation Vistula, or perhaps you were thinking more along the lines of the Soviet 1937–38 Polish Operation or the Katyn massacre? Either way, those are only a couple of the many such examples, together with appropriately responsive mentalities... Right up to and including the current conflict... So, yeah — I'm with you on that one.
"...increasingly multidimensional disputes..."
Surely, no more than just a little lovers' tiff — healthy disagreement among equal peers?
"...comparing them all to children."
There you go, you see: who other than truly-loving couples could use visions of children to hurt each other?
"...“it is the mother who has to put on the [oxygen] mask first and then the kid’s”."
See: it just gets better and better; watch this space! ('Sorry, Daddy, but we all know who's more deserving.')
"...“some extra money is necessary”..."
Oh, the beloved core of any properly divisive love loss!
'Oh, how sharper than a serpent's tooth!'
"...more scandals and tumult are expected in their bilateral ties..."
So, what you're saying, if I read this correctly, is that 'Putin' (for want of a better term) or Russia (to be more pedantically accurate) has been right all along: there was no need to get all impatient and nuke them to prove a point, like the Americans did in '45; because with just a bit of patience the Ukrainians will come home to the Russians, begging for all to be forgiven and help to fix the mess they've made, just like they always have done in historical record? Wow, that's some super patience of a saint needed to exercise such restraint! I wish I could do that.
And therein lies the difference between Russia and 'the West' (for want of a better term): when you understand how Russian politicians think by evaluating what they do, it's hard (impossible) to avoid thinking (something like) 'Wow, I wish I could do that.'
And therein lies the root of the problem (for Western 'politicians'): jealousy and envy because, whatever they think or do, they'll never be like that; because, unlike (good (They're not ALL good.)) Russian politicians, the money they get in the West is more important to them than the people they work for, who they're supposed to represent. So simple, really.
To me, this is the true beauty of the Putin era: it taught people the society they make is more important than the money they use to make it. Please don't degrade the beauty of that vision by getting it anywhere near associations to/with or comparisons with/to others.
I remember a 100 and something old Ukrainian man from Galicia being interviewed about 20 years ago. He had lived being ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, both the Whites and the Reds during the Russian Civil War, Poland, the Nazis, the Soviets, and then Ukraine.
The interviewer asked him which one he thought was the best government. He said the Austro-Hungarian Empire. What does THAT say?
My wife is, per DNA and records, about half Russian and a quarter Ukrainian, so I read up on the history of the area that used to be called Galicia. It's a generally horrific tale. One would hope people there would not wish to repeat history, and I doubt very much my distant Ukrainian in-laws in Lvov want to live under the red-and-white Polish flag any more than they do the white, blue and red Russian one.