History /
Not proud of my Polish heritage [110]
The achievements of Poles absolutely pale in comparison to Western nations. You may find a small handful of accomplishments, but it is nothing compared to what the Russians, Italians, French, Spanish, and all of the Germanic countries have done. Yet people from these nations are relatively humble. Polish people are the proudest, and yet have the least to be proud of. I have heard many excuses for our shortcoming...our geographic location between Germany and Russia, no natural barriers to keep enemies out, the Nazis, 50 years of communism, Russia and Germany again, the English betrayed us, no access to sea ports, etc.
I have reviewed as many Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica articles about Poland as my time permits. I have actively sought out as many Polish contributions and famous Poles as I could find. I really wanted to find several things I could hold onto and be happy I came from this stock of people. As I have said I have found very little, comparatively speaking, to be proud of. When I lived in Chicago there were so many arrogantly proud Poles and yet I could never figure out what they were basing their pride on. Being boastful and "proud" without any substantive achievements is not pride, it is arrogance...and arrogance is not a virtue.
Perhaps I just need to come to terms with the fact that the historical account of our people is just an honest reflection of our capabilities. No excuses. In addition, many people in our gene pool for whatever reasons just possess all these undesirable characteristics of being stupid, stubborn, and are unable to face reality. Our survival mechanism is to simply beg for favors and handouts from the more responsible and successful nations. We have to beg them to give us land, money, protection, and to permit us to exist. If they don't want to give us what we are begging for then we resort to behaving even more child-like, begging harder, or start guilt-tripping them. Eventually they may pity us enough to finally help us out because they know we can't do it ourselves. The trade off is that we don't get true respect and get treated like pawns in their games.
I have many things to personally be proud of, but I also have to acknowledge that I only achieved these things because I live in America which is a creation of the Germanic peoples. It was primarily these people who built up such an amazing society with such an advanced framework, infrastructure, wealth, and so many possibilities and then graciously shared their creation by allowing everyone to immigrate here. Had I been born and raised in Poland I would not be able to live the life I have because the Polish nation could not afford me these possibilities. That is why there is such an enormous diaspora of Poles. They go where there are opportunities already made for them because they cannot build a society that creates those opportunities for themselves. I would at a minimum like to see these diaspora Poles as humble, respectful, and grateful for the opportunities instead of being arrogant, causing crime, stealing cars, etc.
I look at Germany as an example and it really just makes me feel terrible. Germany is such a finely tuned machine. The German people are individualistic but are still capable of cooperating together to achieve great goals. Germans also all seem to have an internal moral compass where they live by very good moral standards. They generally do the right thing, they help others out, they are willing to carry the burden of being the wallet of the EU, and their culture is much more developed. The Polish people truly are backwards in comparison but no Pole wants to hear that because they don't have the strength and honesty to face the truth. They are more interested in being immature and making excuses than getting serious about fulfilling their potential.
I have a feeling that many Poles reading this know exactly what I am talking about. I have a feeling there are many Poles who have the same wishes as me of seeing Poland take its fate into its own hands and become an admirable nation. It will not happen by sitting and dreaming. We must do. I wonder if there are already some groups in Poland who get together and form a think-tank about ideas on how to build up Poland. I would seriously consider moving back to Poland and joining such a group. Despite living my whole life in America, I can't help but feel like I am a guest here.
I contrast two early 20th century leading figures of Poland, Pulsudski and Dmowski.
Pilsudski, who wasn't even an ethnic Pole, became the leader of Poland in the 1920's. This is another example of the failure of Poles. We simply cannot produce a leader from our own ranks and have to rely on outside help for everything. Pilsudski, not being an ethnic Pole himself, envisioned the reestablishment of yet another commonwealth of nations where Poland played a leading role. This is very telling what he though of the Poles...he didn't believe in their capability to establish something on their own, and yet the stupid Poles supported him.
Dmowski, on the other hand, was an ethnic Pole and believed in his people. He wanted a sovereign and successful homogenous nation built up and maintained by the Poles. But yet again the Poles display their failure out in the open because they didn't believe in themselves, nor in Dmowski', and he never garnered enough support to became the leader of Poland despite his patriotism and capabilities.
