News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


Becoming a Polish citizen does very definitely make him a Pole.


So why do you think Mr Godson (or other new Poles) make their home here?

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]

Well, you did join in an existing debate - but have a great time fishing, and catch one for me!

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


Perfect. We're all minorities somewhere.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


This is after all a forum.


It sounds nice, however Dorset is a very far cry from industrial cities and large ports, which were always mixed. Your website mentions Liverpool, which has had a black population for 200 years. The chocolate box villages of the south look pretty, but aren't everyone's reality nor ever have been. It's hard to expect people from the industrial rust belts of the UK to relate to places like that - either now or then. Nor is somehow excluding people from somewhere on the basis of their colour going to preserve a society in aspic. Places change - the key thing is to manage that change, to make it the best for everybody, and not hold back or resent one group of people standing out from others by their skin colour - that's just storing up trouble.

The north, from the industrial revolution right through to the present day has always been a harder and less attractive place to live, and has always attracted immigrants first from Ireland, then from central and east Europe, and now from further afield. While others emigrate or move away from them for a better life.

Poland is much the same, except the pace of growth and political/economic conditions have been different. John Godson settled in £ódź - a city built on immigration.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


So what you in fact remember is a downtrodden people moving from the deep south to cities where they were marginalised and ghettoised while the descendents of the people who brought them to America, as well as newer immigrants, resented their very presence.


Big cities in the UK have always been multicultural to one degree or another. Ifd this is increasing, it is due to changes in global economics and human mobility. Poland (and the influx of Poles to the UK - where some still arrive without money) is part of this.

edit Interesting website!

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


You were around in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries?


With the profits from whose labour?

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


Or "Polish" for deeper purposes, since that is where he has made his life, the languge he speaks day to day, where his wife and kids are from, and the society to which he has made a huge contribution.


By posting the same repetitive racist material in a forum read by thousands (check with admin) and which comes up on Google when many many more people are looking for other stuff


Before washing their hands and thinking how sinister you are.


Nonsense.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


Which in no way affects his ability to represent members of the community he lives in. Mind you, he's a Pole now.


No wonder, with posts like yours popping up on search engines.
However fortunately, most people don't think like that. You are in a small, and unhealthy, minority.

Genealogy / Whytick/Wityk (Witczyk?) - Looking for my past; also Bratasz/Dawidowicz [14]

Or Wittig?

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]

Exactly. There are political parties in Poland (and most other places) who believe, as Jarnowa does, that black people have no place in Europe - but they never get many votes.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


Just a slight acquaintance from Le M days ;-)
I don't do discotheques, and he runs them, so we rarely meet even though we have a lot of friends in common. He'll make a wonderful politician though. Very able, as honest as they come, highly intelligent, a trained lawyer and a skilled networker.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


He's a great bloke - he'll probably win a seat at the next election. A very principled man.

BTW, at the last election, at least one of the candidates was a naturalised Pole from another country, and one very well known PiS politician is a German from Russia.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


No. We just heard another of your racist rants about "white man's hunting ground".


Perhaps he's just a good, competent and effective choice for poseł. After all - he's got that far despite a vocal minority with opinions such as yours, who would gladly hold him back because of a detail about his skin.

News / John Godson, born in Nigeria, might become Poland Sejm's first black deputy! [313]


As a Belgian, do you belong in Wroclaw?

He's done far more for the community in Poland than you, just sipping Belgian chocolate and moaning on internet fora that men from other countries are stealing your potential dates.

Language / Village and towns in Poland with hard to pronounce names [22]


trzcinie

Language / Village and towns in Poland with hard to pronounce names [22]

Fortunately you probably haven't heard a Pole (or any foreigner) try to pronounce Clitheroe.

Love / Good looking Polish women with ugly men [416]


You've been hanging around the wrong bars.


Some are.


There are more Poles in the UK than in Krakow, so perhaps we are the first who should comment.

Love / Polish girls fall for Indian guys ? [217]

In order to brainwash you and Southern, there would have to actually be a brain to wash

Study / Student from Nepal travelling to Poland with dependent for further studies. Any job? [87]

Thaman
Not many jobs like that in Poland. Where were you in Saudi? I was in Jubail, and going to Riyadh next month. I think there is still a lot of work there for Nepali citizens.

UK, Ireland / The more subtle differences: Ireland/Britain v Poland [310]


Though real Satanists do use it - but only in a liturgical context, rather than flashing signs at each other. In some countries it's an offensive gesture, referring to cuckoldry, as Teffle suggested.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


Yes - this seems to be the same in almost every religion. For Christians, many would do well to remember what Jesus said about praying in private, and about a lady who outwardly was despised by prudes and godbotherers, but in fact had a strong inner faith.

Life / Expats in Poland - would you fight for your new country? [105]


Really?

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


Yes, and Polonius3 is just choosing the ones he personally doesn't like. Not that homosexuality in itself is a sin, or that practising it is any greater sin then pre-marital sex.

There is however one sin greater than all others for a Catholic. Failing to love your neighbour as yourself. Whoever they may be.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]


Statistics, however, show that most of them prefer other radio and TV stations.

Housebound shut-ins? That fits a fair few posters here.

News / WHY IS POLAND STILL GIVEN THE COLD SHOULDER? [197]


Hardly an unjust snub when all these weren't invited either:

Genealogy / Michniewicz Zygmunt. Terminally ill and looking to contact old friends and colleagues. [20]

Is there a Polish equivalent of the Seamens' Union, who might keep track of retired members?

News / Polish Foreign Ministry 'prepared' for new Wikileaks material [100]

Are you mad? Or just bitter about life?

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

I assumed it was a note for the milkman.

Seriously, it's primarily a tradition and an act of faith now, but in a small town in 1920s Poland, it showed very clearly who was who. And there aren't many people in small farming villages, even if they dislike religion, that turn away the priest when he comes with the holy water and chalk. Not if they care what the neighbours think.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

Have a look at TV Puls (co-owned by the RCC, though I heard that was changing). As bland as TRWAM, but a different kettle of fish. In PL, religion (denomination as much as or even more than faith) has traditionally been a greater part of how people define themselves in relation to those around them than in most of Europe. There are mixed Orthodox/Catholic towns in the east, there were mixed Catholic/Protestant towns in the west (and remember the role Catholicism played in the independence movement, and that the C19 activists were mostly Catholics). Of course there were also 3 million Jewish people, plus a handful of Polish Muslims. People even have the local priest chalk on their door once a year to show, among other things, that they are Catholics Then, during the largest part of the lifetimes of RM listeners, Poland was monocultural but with tension (to say the least) between Church and state. Not to mention the centuries' old tradition of urban liberal intellectualism in Poland, among a class of people of who typical RM listeners are aware, but are socially and economically very far from.

All this conflict, so many hotheads (vide Rydzyk, the Giertychs, JK and JKM etc) to whip it up, the fact that organised activities have had a bigger role in post-war PL than they would have in freer countries, plus the usual right-wing paranoia of the underdog, and it all becomes very noticeable. The Family of Radio Maryja, and the station itself are but different facets of the last gasp of all this.

Life / How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland? [163]

This one's fairly well known, and genuine footage. Did you hear the guy shouting "raus"? In Poland, there exist some of the nicest people you could possibly meet, but there is also a dark side. Remember some people here have lived with extremes all their life. Some people have dealt with that well, others have built up a lot of bile and aggression. These people are basically Daily Mail readers with not quite enough to live on, and a lot of anger about the hand life has dealt them. They were attacking the cameras because they didn't like the TV station, a mainstream and fairly modern one. Some of it was footage from a documentary about The Family, who are something of a rent-a-mob.


Have you heard any of the speakers at their rallies? RM and TRWAM are basically tele-evangelism, designed to get donations, which accounts for much of the content.

Anyway - how can you understand the content enough to say "so far so good" when you don't understand Polish? Do you listen to any other Radio or watch mainstream TV? How long do you spend listening to RM or watching TRWAM? Is this the most productive way to spend your visit to Poland?