Poland and Orientalism

The Orientalism that Poland has been subjected to by Germans is not that they called Poland "Oriental" but that they characterized Poles in the same manner as the French and British Orientalists did the inhabitants of the Orient. The German stereotypes about Poles are along the same lines as the Orientalist steoreotypes of Levantines, namely that the Poles are chaotic and childish primitives. This is not merely a generic feeling of superiority that one nation feels for a neighboring nation but an Orientalist type of one.

It's the same type of mentality Romans had about the Germanic tribes to the northeast.

Truly, one is also reminded of Conrad's narrator in the Heart Of Darkness who as they wait for the Thames' tide to change reminds his audience that London was once the primitive land that civilized forces came to occupy rather than the other way around.

Have you noticed that places fade in and out of civilization? Countries deemed civilized today could be far less advanced 500 years from now while place that were meccas for technology and learning 3000 years ago could experience a renaissance. Medieval times come and go depending on where you are.

Lots of people from Ibn Khaldun to Oswald Spengler have all sorts of interesting theories as to why these cycles occur. Nietzsche felt that societies must live under a strong constraint for many generations before something removes it and they flower into the highest culture but decadence inevitably follows.

Civilization causes weakness in society and they no longer have the will to generate a high standard of living. Money is siphoned out. Decline is inevitable. Or is it? What if a civilization could break the mold? Is it possible to just keep infinitely going?

But that is starting to stray from your original thread title.

No it is not. Read the rest of the post you have just quoted and realize that Orientalism doesn't necessarily involve calling its subject Oriental.

Oriental has a specific geographical connotation, which to my mind does not include Poland, and is most frequently used in relation to the Middle East and India, sometimes China etc. I have on occasions heard of descriptions of Russia as 'almost oriental' in terms of the politics surrounding its royal court, but that is about as far as it gets. And considering Poland's history, and what BB has told you....

I recommend that you read John Darwin's After Tamerlane, specifically the chapter related to the "The occidental breakout". I can assure he firmly places Poland into the western sphere of influence.

He took back his statement already before:


I'm not sure what he is after now actually...or what his problem is! *shrug*


Nah...they called everybody non-Roman "Barbarians", not "Orientals" ;)

And what they thought of the german tribes you can read in the Germania....I like that description, if it was true or not! :)

fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html

The term Orientalism by Said was used to denote the idea of indisputable superiority and some kind of disdain of the West when it "thinks" about different cultures.

The way he used it includes Slavic world, so Poland too. (Said was very specific about what was the western circle - North America, atlantic Europe, mostly EMPIRES that had colonies, there is no Poland in that story)

Maybe it would be good to read the introduction of the Orientalism, and you'll understand what Said wanted to say.


I wrote many times about the same impression regarding whole Slavic world that Germans generously shared with me. I'm thankful for that.

Sexuality is one of their basic fears (f.i., sterilization of polish and other women in WWII).
It is rationalized through various modes of degradation of Slavic women (and men).

Poland cannot be squeezed out of orientalistic discourse.
Integration in EU is one thing, but how Poles and their cultural heritage is seen by the West is another.

All true: but this demonisation of other cultures by attributing irrationality and boundless sexuality to them predates the Age of Empires (and, indeed, the age of Germans) by centuries.

Euripides' Medea and Bacchae are too long to quote here in full, but short enough to read in one hour. Cases in point.

Of course. I knew the Germans didn't invent the phenomenon. They rarely do ;)
But they polished it to perfection.

I'll go further than that: At the next secret meeting of the Jewish Zionist Elders of Hollywood, I'll suggest a biopic on Bismark. If I can get a script from Pinching Pete, we can talk business.

But seriously...
Since when did Jews have a problem with Bismark? He was never considered an enemy of the Jews. In fact Jews in germany were all for unification – it gave them a flag they could identify with, which they lacked when germany was made of small kingdoms. Local Jews didn't identify themselves nationally with the various german-speaking kingdoms of central Europe, but when they unified it created a new identity which they identified with totally. Unfortunately for them, the germans didn't quite agree, and we know how that ended.


Is it so unfashionable to be a white from the West that Poles are now calling themselves "oriental"?
I was in Poland once and it looked totally european to me. There's something comical about ethnic groups all around the world trying to get "street cred" by claiming that they're not white. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything so great about being white, but there's nothing so bad about it either. Poles, just be yourselves.

Good point, yehudi. Some are brown, some are black, some are yellow and some are white. Some are red after sitting in the sun too long but that's beside the point. I'm happy to be white here, not because white is such a magnificent colour to be, more because it's easier to fit in that way. A sense of identification comes with it.

Nowhere in this thead is it claimed that Poles are now calling themselves Oriental. This thead is about how Germans had an Orientalist attitude towards Poles. Yehudi, you are a Zionist living in occupied Palestine and that makes you somewhat knowledgable regarding Orientalism. Realize that many of the disgusting prejudices you hold about Palestinians, and other arabs, were also held by Germans about Poles when they were occupying Polish land and brutalizing Poles.

DE, I don't think yehudi is a hardline IDF supporter at all. I say this in so many posts but I hate labels. Yes, he is a Zionist by definition insofaras to say that he thinks Jerusalem should be for the Jews but, for me anyway, he doesn't come with the harsh rhetoric that right-wingers bring to the table. He is respectful to Poland and seems to understand the plight of the Palestinians. Like many, he rejects radicalism but I hope he sees where they are coming from at least.

You should reread his posts Seanus and thus be disabused of your false belief regarding Yehudi's lack of a hardline stance. He thinks all of Palestine should be for the Jews and he opposes the Palestinian right of return as well as the granting of Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians that have been subject to Israeli military rule for the last 44 years. He only comes to this Polish forum to spread Zionist propaganda, at least he does it poorly, but that is because he is somewhat dim, and not for lack of trying.

He thinks all of Palestine should be for the Jews? I'll wait for him to comment on that. If he really believes that then he should be, well, dealt with ;) ;)

Let's let the man speak first. If he is indeed educated then he should see the Palestine position well.

an victorian imperialists attitude if ever I heard one..................thats the trouble with so much of whats accepted as "fact" about Rome, it was written by blokes bigging upo the whole concept of Empire, Pax Romanus became Pax Britannia in the stroke of Gibbons pen................

re jeruselum, I think "we" should surprise the sh!t out of both parties by declaring a new Kingdom of Jeruselum and Outremmer ;) Let those crazy beardy Christian monks run the place for a bit and within months Achmed and Shlomo will be best mates again :)

I've spoken on the Israel-Palestine issue many times as you know, in threads that have to do with that, so if someone wants to review my opinions he can do a search. This thread has to do with so-called orientalist attitudes toward Poland, so I won't repeat them here. Des Essientes could have either commented on my post or ignored it. But instead he takes the opportunity to bash me for being Israeli. He gets off on hatred.

If you think arabs and jews can't get a long you should see the different christian sects in Jerusalem. There's a ladder in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that can't be moved because one of the sects put it there more than 100 years ago and if one of the other christian sects moves it, it will cause a riot among the christians.

You can read about it here...

atlasobscura.com/place/immovable-ladder-church-holy-sepulchre

Read the original post of this thread and see that it explicitly compares partitioned Poland with Palestine today. Zionist Orientalist attitudes towards Arabs echo German Orientalist attitudes towards Poles both are racist and deserving of contempt.

Your comparison doesn't work unless you want to be superficial. Most Jews in Israel are from Middle eastern background in recent history (parents or grandparents born in Middle eastern countries) and all Jews are of middle eastern background from Roman times. Jews and Arabs have prejudices against each other but it's not an issue of "orientalism". It's more an issue of old religious differences (similar to Jewish-Christian tensions) and more recently the result of Arab violence against the Jewish return. Sure, if you read 19th century European Jewish writers you'll find "orientalist" attitudes, since these people were influenced by European attitudes in general. But the driving force of the Zionist movement was to return the Jews to their land, not to screw the Arabs. They are perfectly capable of screwing themselves.

"Their land" was full of Arabs and the Zionists willfully displaced these Arabs and the Zionists continue to brutalize these and other Arabs. Pretending Zionism's "driving force" has nothing to do with Arabs is laughably disingenuous as well as superficial.

Probably been said over and over...

nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20090102.cfm

"Orthodox Rabbis representing Torah-True Jews and Rabbinical authorities will be demonstrating their outrage at the Zionist state of "Israel" and its atrocities against the inhabitants of Gaza. What has caused a people to fall to such levels of depravity? Come and hear our message! Zionism and the state of "Israel" is expressly forbidden according to the Torah. We are forbidden to make any attempts to leave the Godly decreed exile; We are forbidden to oppress any people and we are required to be loyal citizens in every country in which we reside, we are required to emulate God - we are to be kind and compassionate.

Judaism is a religion of thousands of years. Zionism is a relatively new movement of over little over a hundred years, created by non-religious Jews who aspired to transform the religion into nationalism and have rebelled continually against the Almighty's commandments. This has culminated in the terrible atrocities being perpetrated against the people of Gaza today.

"

There is no comparison. Poland wasn't the Germans'/Austrians'/Russians' home. Israel is the Jewish state. They made the desert bloom.

The notion that a nation is also a religion is the primitive racism of Taliban and a call to terrorism in every instance.

True that most of the "Islamic Republics" that are scattered all across the middle east are somewhat primitive and have a soft spot for terrorism. But to say that a nation can't have it's own religion is an arbitrary statement that makes no sense.

Anyway, when we call Israel the "Jewish State" we refer to the ethnic group know as the Jews who have a nation state. Just like the Poles have one.

If you're looking for parallels between the Arab Israel conflict and attitudes toward Poland, there are better ones that what you came up with. For example: Since the partitions, no one but the Poles saw the need for a Polish state. Everyone else in Europe was happy with Russia and Germany sharing a border with no pesky Polish nationalists between them. But Poles believed that Poland was not lost. And they established their independence and had to defend it against brutal enemies from east and west. Similarly, no one saw the need for a Jewish state except the Jews who believed that Judea was not lost. We built a country, won our independence and then defended ourselves from brutal enemies on all sides.

We have a lot in common.

The Zionist entity in Palestine terrorizes its neighbors and kills far more people in the region than any other state, and the Zionists justify this brutal behavior by calling their victims "primitive" like typical Orientalists.


The British imperialists, most of whom were not Jewish, that enabled the creation of this "Jewish state" did so to have a colonial attack dog in the area to be used to brutalize Arabs if they stepped out of line with British and Western demands. Independant Poland was partitioned at the end of the 18th century by foriegn powers. Judea hadn't been an independant state since the 6th century BC and Judaism in the 25 intervening centuries was an international religion that anyone could convert to. Petending that all the Jews who came as immigrants to colonize Palestine in the 20th Century were the direct descendants of the Jews living in the area over two-thousand years ago is laughable, and pretending that the Ashkenazim that ethnically cleansed the much of the area of its indigenous population were anything like the indigenous Poles that struggled for their freedom in Poland is insulting to Poland. Poland and the Zionist entity in Palestine have little in common, but partitioned Poland and partitioned Palestine do.

Just my personal view is that it is against free thought that I would have to be like the monkey in The Jungle Book where 'we all say so, so it must be true' thinking must be adhered to. If someone is to say, where I am(England) they no longer want to be in the church as the community is larger and not represented fully, that should be accepted without them being considered less a-part of this nation.

As I quoted above #94 the ethnicity is from the exodus from slavery in Egypt, wouldn't Egypt be your homeland?
My ex-boss, a Polish/Russian Jew, claimed his ethnicity is White British, entirely acceptable to me, but why do you need to claim he is an Israelite when he himself denies this?