News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


What about Macierewicz's motorcade leaving the scene of an accident or Szydłos going through a developed area without sirens...

Very PRL, VIPs causing havoc and then leaving...

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


No. I'm a realist. The changeover from communism to capitalism was going to increase inequality and there was no way to punish the entire PRL establishment without punishing the rest of the population even more.

Polonia / Volunteers from Poland in Novorossiya [90]


Yes..... SERBIA! The Cradle of Evil Itself!!!!!

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Arise, ye prisoners of starvaaaaaaation!

(you are such a komuch)

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Why do you hate Poland so much? You're narrative paints it as the most hopelessly stupid country in the world.

Poland's peaceful negotiation out of communism was one of the great achievements of the 20th century, and power mad toxic little dwarves who had no part in it want to denigrate it so they can rewrite history and that way become the heroes they were not at the time.

Was the process flawed? Yes. Was it still an amazing achievement? Yes. Does obsessing about the flaws and trying to rewrite history serve any useful purpose besides bloating up the ego of a certain party leader? No.

Whose interest is served by retroactively portraying it as some great portrayal? Not yours and not Poland's.

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Would you have preferred blood in the streets? Even if it was your own?

A soft landing is derided by armchair warriors, but all in all it was a deal worth making.


Please, I'm not an idiot. They did the right thing, the motives are less important. That's Realpolitik. Whinging and whining and complaining because the country has changed does not help anyone.

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Maybe to irrational hysterics. The communist system was generally terrible but not in the same universe as the nazis (Stalin and Ceausescu and Hoxha maybe were).


The Nazis lost a war. The PZPR helped guide Poland out of communism in a peaceful manner. Maybe you wanted other people to die in the streets fighting, but a violent transition would have been far worse for Poland.

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Because the downside has always seemed to outweigh the potential upside?

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]

Melting pot, means that the generation born in the new country adopt the dress, accent and values of the new country and in terms of general behavior are indistinguishable from the native population.

Since when does that happen in the UK?

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Yes! How _DARE_ they win free and fair elections, the nerve!


Boy, you hate religious freedom, don't you?


And have yet to accomplish anything very impressive (as they cover up their own files).

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


That's why, the more overt and omnipresent the oppression the easier it is to pick out the oppressors when the system changes.

Poland had a lot more shades of grey which was better at the time (so that Solidarity could be formed and the church had more freedom than in CS or the DDR), but makes picking through the wreckage a lot harder... even if there was the will to do so impartially. There's no will for an impartial examination so the whole thing should probably be left alone...

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


Why do you glorify a simple vote of no confidence (for the most incompetent government in the immediate post communist period)?


which Poland could not really afford at the time time


Just how do you think that would have worked? There is no evidence possible that most people would accept either way.

The big problem is that there has never been any political will to use the files for any other reason other than to hurt political enemies (regardless of what they did or didn't do in the communist period).

Communism was actually a lotmore.... soft in Poland than in some other countries in the region. At the time it made life more liveable in mnay ways. The cost comes after the fall in that it's much harder to sort through the mess and figure out who really needs to be punished...

Study / Poznan University of Economics or University of Warsaw ? [25]


Those in charge of making those decisions at universities have every incentive to recognize as little as possible. I mentioned here before someone whose entire degree (at a state landgrant university) was not recognized by another state landgrant university.... (their masters degree was recognized as a BA)

It works a little better for work, I think. A Polish friend had most of her Polish degree (from commie times) recognized and had to do very little to be able to work in the same field in the US.

News / Penderecki, Poland's greatest living composer, accused of being SB informer [62]


This is the whole problem with lustration. It should be carried out dispassionately while recognizing that communists were no better at record keeping than they were at food distribution and that most charged with interviewing and recruitng people had lots of incentives to fabricate information and little incentive to be truthful.

Instead it's inevitably carried out at the most venal and petty political level possible with the sole aim of damaging political enemies of the moment.

Better no lustration than the sad sideshow that it has been since 1990 which has revealed almost not a single bit of useful information.

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]


Weak sauce. A story from the old testament.

Compare (from one of the pre-eminent scholars of Salafism)

islamqa.info/en/41199


Again Please find a Christian theologian justifying FGM

islamqa.info/en/427
it is an honour for women

and

islamqa.info/en/45528

The hadeeth may be understood as meaning that a man has the right to hit his wife

If a woman rebels against her husband and disobeys his commands, then he should follow this method of admonishing her, forsaking her in bed and hitting her.

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]


But it's not justified in the Bible IINM, while it is absolutely justified in the Koran. You can't pretend that that's not significant....

Law / I bet that many of you forgot to register in the Poland's municipality office [13]


If he lived close to a border (especially German, Czech or Slovak) then it might have been completely normal and easy. Did he say where he lived?

Law / I bet that many of you forgot to register in the Poland's municipality office [13]


I lived several years in Poland before registering (things were different in the early 90s a lot of laws were in a weird limbo where no one knew whether to apply/follow them or not).

I finally did only because I had to in order to get a visa. They yelled at me at the office (a different one back then) but didn't do anything else...

Travel / Will Americans need a visa to go to Poland soon [17]


This has nothing to do with Trump (other than European politicians reflexively disliking him, they've wanted to do this for a long time but they liked Obama too much to do it on his watch).

It's non-binding and it won't take effect until twelve months after the European Commission passes it (not on the immediate horizon).

Life / Pakistani Muslim studying at the Medical University of Lodz (racism, safety, etc) HELP [23]

You expect him to care? What kind of xenophilic virtue does that signal?

Life / The etiquette of eating with a fork in Poland [8]

Here's my very refined technique:

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


I think you sprained something during those gymnastics.

A better analogy to the Malaysian ban would be a ban on Jewish people using the word Bóg since it refers to the Christian god and not the Jewish god.

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


So you don't realize that Allah and the Christian (and Jewish) God are supposed to be one and the same?


How very nice for you!


didn't happen to you =/= it didn't happen to anyone else

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


So.. you're siding with the court that Malaysian christians have no right to use the word "god"? Interesting.


That was never a claim I made. On the other hand, are there neighborhoods (majority muslim) where the police have little control and where non-muslims face harrassment if they don't follow muslim norms. Would you deny that?


I dunno, why are you so eager to lie about Poles and Christians?

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


I'm interested in practice, not theory. And despite what the laws say, being a religious minority in a country with a large muslim majority tends to svck azs.


Yeah, there are no problems whatsoever...

youtube.com/watch?v=4ePY25UPJWs



Are you that ignorant? The word allah (meaning god) has been used in Malay for centuries independent of religion. This is just like Maltese (whose speakers are all catholic). This is clearly a judicial attempt to limit religious freedom.

Why should courts become involved in questions of religious terminology anyway? that is obscene from a western viewpoint.

Why are you so eager to defend the indefensible?

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


Yeah but those are rich countries, Poland? Not so much (I don't think of Poland as a poor country but it's not rich either).

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


Probably for the best. I honestly don't see the appeal of Poland for religiously inclined muslims (more secularly oriented ones can and do do well here).

But for a religious muslim, the most popular meat is pork (haram), people like to drink alcohol (haram), Polish women like to show their flesh in warm weather (haram), men and women enjoy casual social contacts with each other (haram), men and women shake hands (haram) etc etc etc. The country is one big mass of things that muslims are taught are immoral.

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]


economist/blogs/banyan/2011/02/religious_persecution_indonesia


europe.newsweek.com/how-egyptian-muslims-persecuting-coptic-christians-470406?rm=eu


forbes/sites/dougbandow/2013/05/13/the-perils-of-religious-persecution-in-iran/#77541be1241d


gatestoneinstitute.org/9538/muslim-hindu-violence-bangladesh


theguardian/world/2014/jun/23/malaysia-highest-court-allah-bible-ban


No. Not Really.

Malaysia was/is making progress in allowing for legal conversion from Islam to christianity. That's good (and astonishing that it required a court ruling).

Life / Why are Muslims seen as a deterrent to Poland? [564]

Yes there are many countries with a strong muslim majority.... and every last one of them treat religious minorities like crap.

Life / Immigration Free Poland is Not Being Racist [194]


I'm asking a question. The idea used to be that refugee status was temporary and that most would be repatriated, if possible, once the conflict was over. At present, in our degraded discourse, there seems to be no real distinction between refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants and immigrants.

Outdated and dysfunctional laws do not help. It is only prudent, before a country accepts refugees, to have an idea about whether the arrangement is supposed to be temporary or permanent. Effective policies depend on knowing that. The fact that no European leader seems to be thinking of it makes me mistrust all of them and propose not accepting random people.


Fine. "allowed" in. How many of the random assemblage of refugees and economic migrants that Merkel allowed into Germany ever leave? How many will ever not be dependent on governmnet largesse?